If he is not fired, I will leave the Edmonton Elks head coach, as he has a misunderstanding with his star player.

If he is not fired, I will leave the Edmonton Elks head coach, as he has a misunderstanding with his star player.

The Edmonton Elks’ incompetence has reached yet another record low point, and head coach Chris Jones thinks that the team’s 37-29 loss to the Hamilton Tiger-Cats was mostly caused by penalties.

“Analytically, 13 penalties and 163 yards equal about 12 points,” Jones stated on the 630 CHED post-game program. “I would like to apologize to everyone in earshot for our lack of discipline tonight as a football team; anytime you’re that bad,. That hasn’t really surfaced yet this year, but regrettably, that’s just what transpired tonight. In the second half, we committed too many mistakes and too many penalties.

The official box score actually gave his team credit for 179 yards of penalties, so the coach has excellent grounds to apologize. Nyles Morgan, the starting middle linebacker, was also removed from the game late due to three serious infractions.

The Elks were ahead 13-10 at the half following Kyran Moore’s 54-yard touchdown run to start the second half, but they fell apart after quarterback Taylor Cornelius threw a puzzling pick-six with his non-dominant hand. After completing 11 of 20 passes for 177 yards, a touchdown, and two interceptions in the fourth quarter, the 27-year-old signal-caller was benched for the second time this season.

Edmonton’s 20-game losing streak at Commonwealth Stadium tied the MLB’s 1953 St. Louis Browns for the longest home losing streak in professional sports in North America. Additionally, it put the Elks at 0-6 for the season, marking the worst start for an Edmonton football team since 1938, 11 years prior to the establishment of the present CFL team.

Even with the depressing fact that the team hasn’t given its home crowd a win in 1,371 days, Jones continues to think that patience—rather than overreaction—is the key to finding a solution.

“Being negative and hammering them is definitely not the right approach. We will continue to look for the good things in life,” he emphasized.

We will need to rely on our talented young players coming forward, and I believe that negativity can seriously damage a club. We will continue to coach them as if it were the first day. After we develop effective game plans for them, it will be my responsibility to ensure that we are working hard enough without taxing them excessively.

Jarret Doege, a rookie quarterback who started the team’s Week 4 loss to Ottawa, replaced Cornelius at the position and completed 14 of 21 passes for 201 yards and a touchdown. Though Jones would not commit to a future starter, the benching of the team’s franchise quarterback raises concerns about a quarterback problem that appeared resolved when Cornelius regained his job in Week 5.

Despite the fact that the team’s current slump predates his stint as general manager and head coach by a few years, the 56-year-old is facing mounting pressure to produce results quickly. Unusually, he is adamant that he won’t get them by drastically changing the roster.

“We won’t alter things drastically. He emphasized, “We’re not going to sit there and just wholesale change. I’m not saying that there won’t be adjustments, because I’m sure there will be changes.

“The children in the class are good. The game was close once more at the interval, and the second half featured far too many errors. Since both of those Saskatchewan games might have gone either way, we’ll keep fighting this and trying to find the ideal combination of components.

It is not until Week 9 that the Elks receive their first bye of the season. Then, on Thursday, July 20, they travel to the Winnipeg Blue Bombers; on Saturday, July 29, they play at home against the B.C. Lions.