Jones on benching Cornelius: 'Taylor’s got to take care of the football'

The Edmonton Elks are off to the worst start in franchise history. A 37-29 loss to the Hamilton Tiger-Cats on Thursday, the Elks fell to 0-6 and have now a CFL-record 20 consecutive home games.

Elks starting quarterback Taylor Cornelius was removed from the game in the second half, after a poor decision to pass out of a potential sack resulted in a pick-six for the Ticats, giving Hamilton a 24-13 lead. He was replaced by Jarret Doege.

Elks head coach Chris Jones said following the game that Cornelius needs to work on his ball security to prevent key turnovers.

“Taylor’s got to take care of the football. If you’ve interviewed him, he’s probably told you the same thing," said Jones. "It’s his job to take care of the football and those two turnovers were key, they were big. But I was proud of Doege.”

Cornelius completed 11-of-20 passes for 177 yards, one touchdown and two interceptions before being pulled. Doege completed 14-of-21 passes for 201 yards and a touchdown in relief, leading the Elks to a touchdown on his first drive.

Edmonton had also lost 10-straight games overall, in addition to tying to record for longest streak of consecutive home losses in North American major professional sports.

Jones says the team needs to be far more disciplined in order to to avoid second half collapses, which have become common during this losing streak.

“Discipline was just horrible tonight, I’d like to apologize to everybody that’s listening to this,” said Jones. "Tough first half, keep it close, play some really good football in the first quarter and then just too many errors, too many penalties, too many turnovers in the second half."

The Elks next game will take place Thursday on the road against the 4-1 Winnipeg Blue Bombers. Jones says there is no one solution for the team's woes and says the team needs to keep grinding and work together to end their streak of futility.

"It’s one more than what it was last week. We unfortunately didn’t follow through. I felt good about our game plan, I felt good about our matchup,” said Jones. “All I can do is rely on things in the past, and unfortunately, we’ve had some similar situations like this in Saskatchewan and all I can say is, what do you want me to tell you?

“There’s no magic formula, we’re going to have to keep grinding, keep working and keep believing. Pull for each other, nobody can do it by themselves, regardless of what they think. The team is way more important than one individual.”