You’d be hard-pressed to have found an Edmonton Eskimos player on the field who wanted a win in last week’s East Division final more than DaVaris Daniels.
Oh, sure. The crossover underdogs would have liked nothing more than to become the first West Division team in history to be the Eastern representatives in the Grey Cup.
And considering how the Calgary Stampeders treated their facilities at Commonwealth Stadium with more than a little bit o’ the bubbly after winning last year’s trophy, the provincial rivals from the north would really have relished returning some of the favours in one of McMahon Stadium’s locker-rooms at the end of this week.
One City of Edmonton employee said the Eskimos locker-room required nothing short of renovations after last year’s celebrations: “They destroyed it, there was champagne in light fixtures, carpet, paint.”
But before the corks were popped, Daniels found himself in the unfortunate position of being one of two Stampeders’ healthy scratches in the 2018 title tilt. So it’s a safe assumption the receiver’s inner fire was burning a bit hotter than his teammates the closer they came to punching their ticket to the big game in Calgary this time around.
That was, after all, part of his motivation to switch sides on Alberta’s CFL fence in off-season agency in the first place.
“Honestly, this is tough,” said Daniels, adding he doesn’t even think he will be able to watch the 107th Grey Cup be played amid the familiar backdrop of McMahon Stadium. “Coming into this off-season, it was something important to me to get somewhere where I felt wanted.
“And I felt wanted here, felt like it was family and they really cared about me. From Day 1 when I got in, that’s how it was and I’ll never take that for granted.”
Being able to look back and separate the good from the bad on the season that was is probably going to take some time.
“I think, right now, it’s definitely hard looking back at the season just coming off the game, but I think that as a team, we’ve come a long way,” Daniels said. “We had some bumps and bruises along the way, a lot of people injured, a lot of things go wrong. A lot of things didn’t go our way early, but we never stopped believing.
“We got this far and nobody believed in us, it’s something to build off of. I think we set a good foundation for things to come and Edmonton has a lot of good things to look forward to.”
Once they are ready to move beyond the 36-16 loss to a Hamilton Tiger-Cats team favoured to win it all, that is.
“They got more chances to make plays than we did and they capitalized on our mistakes every time,” Daniels said of Sunday’s loss. “They’ve got an electrifying offence over there and that’s a tough battle.
“You know you’ve got to put up points and we didn’t do that, so it was an uphill battle from the start.”
It’s small consolation at this point, but Daniels & Co. did manage to last longer than their Calgary counterparts, with the Stampeders getting knocked out in the semifinal round by the Winnipeg Blue Bombers one week earlier.
But to for the receiver, even that feels like selling the Eskimos short.
“That’s something that’s there and something for the fans, but for us, we felt we stepped short,” he said. “It’s something to build off of and realize we were that close and we could play with any team, it’s just we needed to put it together.”
But for now, the Eskimos are left looking back at what could have been in a game that saw them fall behind on early turnovers, only to climb back and make it a one-score game ahead of halftime.
“We had it, we never lost faith,” Daniels said. “They just made the plays they needed to make and we fell just that short.”
It’s enough to keep a player up at night.
“For sure, you think about it,” he said. “It’s a game and it’s unpredictable how it’s going to go. You want to capitalize on everything that’s going to come your way and we just couldn’t.
“It’s not that we weren’t trying. As long as the effort is there, there’s nothing you can really do about it. You can’t really lay any type of blame, you’ve just got to keep moving forward and keep building on it.”
‘Going to take time’ with free agency
Daniels’ off-season began with uttering four words more and more CFL players find themselves saying after just one year with a team:
“I’m a free agent,” said the Eskimos receiver, who left a Stampeders club he spent his first three seasons with before opting to move up to greener (and golder) pastures in February.
The prevalence of one-year contracts are giving the league a mercenary-like feel as fans are seeing players go almost as quickly as they arrive.
“Yep,” said Daniels. “For me, I’m just going to take my time and I definitely love the guys here. I love the way they battle, I love the camaraderie we have. They’re my brothers and that’s a great feeling.”
What isn’t so great is still feeling the sting from having his first season in Edmonton end in a 36-16 loss to the Hamilton Tiger-Cats one game shy of reaching the Grey Cup.
But he doesn’t have to decide anytime soon what next season will hold, given players’ contracts aren’t set to officially run out until mid-February.
“So I’m going to take my time with it, make sure that I make the right decision,” Daniels said. “But we’ll see. Either way, the city of Edmonton has a lot to look forward to.”
ALL-STAR AWARDS
On Thursday, the Canadian Football League Players Association all-stars were announced for 2019, including Eskimos fullback Calvin McCarty and defensive tackle Almondo Sewell, as voted by their fellow players.
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On Twitter: @GerryModdejonge
Copyright Postmedia Network Inc., 2019
