Being a loser is easy. Being the biggest loser ever… much tougher.
It’s been a bad year for the Edmonton Elks. Heck, it’s been a bad many years for the Elks. A once proud, perennial playoff contender and 2015 Grey Cup champions, the team has plummeted to earth and now owns one of the worst records in North American sporting history.
The Elks lost at home 27-0 to the BC Lions on Saturday night, extending their home losing streak to an astonishing 21 games. Their last victory at home dates back to October 12, 2019 – and there’s no sign of the team turning things around any time soon.
Edmonton’s new record has caused the CFL team to surpass Major League Baseball in home-field futility. They broke a 70-year record previously held by the St. Louis Browns, who went 0-20 in 1953, the year before the team moved to Baltimore and became the Orioles.
The team finds itself without answers as they fell to 0-21 in front of their home crowd. It seems nobody can explain why this team is consistently performing so poorly.
“It’s an oddity to me to not be able to play good football and, secondly, not to be able to play good football at home,” expressed Elks head coach Chris Jones. “That’s strange to me.”
The 14-time Grey Cup champions have typically been one of the league’s strongest teams since entering the CFL in 1949. However, the team experienced a drastic downfall to close out the 2019 season, and the pandemic-induced cancellation of the 2020 season only exacerbated this. When the CFL returned, the Elks emerged as a mere shadow of their former selves, becoming the most hapless team in the league.
The past few seasons speak volumes about their decline:
– 2021: 3-11 (last in the CFL)
– 2022: 4-14 (last in the CFL)
– 2023 (ongoing): 0-8 (last in the CFL)
It’s not solely the on-field performance that has plagued the Elks but also disastrous decision-making off the field. In 2022, the team infamously traded their No. 1 overall pick to the Montreal Alouettes to acquire the draft rights of Carter O’Donnell, an offensive guard who has been signed to the Colts since 2020, showing no signs of returning to CFL. Furthermore, in 2023, the team perplexed many by selecting linebacker Michael Brodrique with the No. 2 pick, despite him being ranked as the 11th best player overall according to CFL scouting.
As the Edmonton Elks’ incredibly bad streak continues, there appears to be no end in sight. The team and its fans now find themselves confronted with the daunting question of how much lower they can go.
The Business Press 