REILLY OR NO REILLY?
Elks prepare for both
There's a game within the game that's been going on throughout the 2021 Canadian Football League season for anyone facing the B.C. Lions.
And the question the Edmonton Elks have had to ask themselves heading into BC Place Stadium on Thursday (8 p.m., TSN, ESPN2, 630 CHED) is not if, but at what point, they expect to see Michael Reilly.
The veteran Lions quarterback was named the starter for the game at the beginning of the week, only to be listed in that role on Wednesday's depth chart with a Q (for questionable) beside his name. It comes to the surprise of no one in Edmonton, of course, given Reilly's status as a game-time decision has been par for the proverbial course going right back to opening week, when Canadian quarterback Nathan Rourke trotted out for the surprise start until being replaced by Reilly in the second half.
“You've got to prepare for both,” Elks defensive co-ordinator Noel Thorpe said. “Listen, we're preparing for the B.C. Lions offence, first and foremost.
“And the one that's under centre is the one we're going to defend.”
And while the 36-year-old Reilly might no longer be confused with having the mobility of someone like Vernon Adams Jr., who slipped out of Edmonton's grasp on more than one occasion to make a big play in Montreal's 30-13 win at Commonwealth Stadium last week, B.C.'S pivot has proven to be equally difficult to bring down.
“He compares the same. Both of those guys, they navigate the pocket well,” Thorpe said. “What Mike has always done a good job of is keeping his eyes downfield, so you've got to make sure you're sound in coverage and you don't have any leakers. He'll do a nice job in the scramble drill and he will challenge you deep.”
Even if he isn't fully 100 per cent, as Edmonton fans recall just as often as not back when they used to cheer for him in green and gold from 2012-18.
“He does a nice job of navigating the pocket and he's fearless in there,” Thorpe said. “He's a guy that'll take the hit to deliver the ball down field.”
To his own detriment, at times. But nothing like that punishment that was witnessed in 2019, after returning to the Lions organization he began his career with in 2010.
In his first game back in Edmonton, his former teammates greeted him with seven sacks and three roughing-the-passer penalties.
Their second meeting saw Edmonton add five more sacks to the total against Reilly, while the Lions had yet to record one in response.
And on Oct. 12, 2019, in the third meeting that year — the last time these teams faced each other — Reilly didn't even make it out of the first quarter before suffering a broken wrist, becoming the last of all nine starting quarterbacks that season to miss time due to injury.
It ended in a 3-0 sweep of the season series by Edmonton, but for Reilly, it was an all-out battle that year between a couple of sides teeming with familiarity.
“There were a lot of guys on the 2019 B.C. team that had previous affiliation with Edmonton — and obviously with (former Edmonton head coach Jason) Maas and his staff still being there, most of us had played for those guys, right?” Reilly said, pointing as well to Ed Hervey having served as general manager for both clubs. “There were a lot of different connections. Fast-forward two years later, most of that has pretty much disappeared and it just seems far removed.
“But in 2019, we played them three times and it was pretty physical and aggressive the entire game, all three times, it felt like.”
If — and when — Reilly takes to the field against his former club, albeit one that goes by a different name from the one used when he helped bring a Grey Cup to Edmonton in 2015, the Lions quarterback isn't expecting to see the same level of, for lack of a better word, determination in bringing him down.
“No, no. I don't think so. What I watch on film, of course, and what I'm worried about is their defence. That's who I'm going to be playing against,” said Reilly, whose Lions pass offence that leads the league at 369.5 yards per game is coming up against an Edmonton unit that has surrendered a league-low 141 passing yards per game. “They certainly have a very good defence anchored by that front four. And they've got (Aaron) Grymes, of course. He's been one of the best to play in the secondary over the last decade in the CFL.”
But beyond the familiarity no longer shared between the two clubs, it also doesn't hurt Reilly's case that he's no longer fresh off a free-agent flip of allegiances like he was back in 2019.
Especially considering Edmonton made it known they were willing to offer to match dollars with whatever club was looking to woo away their franchise quarterback at the time.
It turns out it was Reilly, himself, who ended up paying the price that season.