Ricky Ray stayed in Friday's game long enough to eclipse Warren Moon's single season passing mark. (John Ulan/Canadian Press) Ricky Ray may be no Warren Moon, but he's working on it.
The Edmonton Eskimos' quarterback hung around long enough Friday night to pass for 302 yards and move by Moon to become the Canadian Football League team's all-time single-season passing leader.
All this in a meaningless 37-14 victory over the visiting Montreal Alouettes as both clubs prepped for next week's playoffs where the Esks will travel to Winnipeg and the Als will wait seven more days for the winner.
Moon, of course, has five Grey Cup rings with the Eskimos and is the only player elected to both the Canadian Football League and National Football League halls of fame.
Ray, for his part, has just one Cup ring, and his club had missed the playoffs for three straight seasons up until this one.
But with his final pass of the game — a little 10-yarder to Kamau Peterson early in the third quarter on the way to another touchdown and a 27-7 lead — Ray finished the regular season with 5,663 yards in the the air.
That broke Moon's previous mark of 5,648 set in 1983. The league all-time mark is 6,619 yards set by Doug Flutie.
Backup Jason Maas took the reins from there, providing a late touchdown on a scamper by Kelvin McCarty with less than a minute to go.
Montreal sat out a number of starters, including quarterback Anthony Calvillo, and were simply happy to get out relatively unscathed.
The Eskimos had to be happy to put in a solid outing after losing their last two by a combined score of 83-37.
"Any time you can win a football game the way we did tonight it is going to help you along the way," said Eskimos' head coach Danny Maciocia. "Hopefully we can carry the momentum from this into next week.
"The last couple of weeks we didn't play well and we didn't deserve to win. But this team has a ton of potential and I think we've got it turned around."
Brady rusty but respectable
Down 20 after Edmonton's D.J. Harris ran the ball in from five yards out on Ray's final play, Montreal starter Marcus Brady dropped a nice little pass over the shoulder of Michael Imoh for a 54-yard pass-and-run score that made it 27-14 in the third.
It put the capper on what was a solid outing for the Montreal backup, subbing for Calvillo who has had an outstanding year and is most people's choice for outstanding player in the CFL. Still, Brady would have much rather won the game.
"Everybody came to win," he said. "We didn't look at this game as not meaning much.
"We don't like losing. We don't like the feeling of coming into the locker room on a down note, but we'll move on and prepare for the playoffs."
Calvillo himself has thrown for more than 5,000 yards in 2008 but was considered far too valuable by coach Marc Trestman to take a chance.
Derek Schiavone, in for Esks' kicker Noel Prefontaine who was described as under the weather, booted a 28-yard field goal to increase the Edmonton lead to 30-14 before the third quarter ended.
Solid first half
Edmonton dominated the opening 30 minutes in points, yards and practically every category as they rode Ray to a 20-7 lead.
Down 7-3, the quarterback threw a pair of second quarter touchdowns — one to Maurice Mann for 38 yards and another to Kelly Campbell for 28 yards — as he closed in on Moon's all-time mark and everyone held their breath each time an Als defender got near him.
Ray would finish the half 19-for-21 and 242 yards.
Brady, meanwhile, had marched the Als 75 yards on 12 plays in the first quarter, finishing with a seven yard toss to S.J. Green for a 7-3 lead.
D.J. Fitzpatrick, kicking for the injured Damon Duval (bruised quadricep in the leg but he'll be back for the playoffs) had the convert.
In that half, Brady was 12-of-13 for 86 yards but his offence could not move deep into Edmonton's zone more than the once.
