Reilly not feeling sorry for his Leos

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This article was published 14/08/2019 (2215 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

When the B.C. Lions emptied their piggy bank and signed quarterback Mike Reilly to a lucrative four-year deal worth $2.9 million in February, surely, they were thinking he’d help take the team to the next level.

And why wouldn’t they? The 34-year-old from Kennewick, Wash., became a star in the CFL when he led the Edmonton Eskimos to a Grey Cup victory in 2015. Then, of course, there was his incredible 2017 campaign when he won the CFL’s Most Outstanding Player award after tossing 30 touchdowns and 13 interceptions on 5,830 passing yards.

To help their big investment stay on his feet, the Lions also opened up their wallets to ink former Winnipeg Blue Bombers offensive lineman and 2015 first-round draft choice Sukh Chungh to a lucrative deal.

But after eight games, the Lions haven’t gotten a return on their investment. At 1-7, B.C. has the worst record in the CFL, Reilly has thrown eight touchdown passes, which puts him on pace for a career low, the Lions have scored 179 points, which is the lowest mark in the West Division, and their offensive line has been a mess all year as they’ve given up 29 sacks.

The season has not gone according to plan for first-year head coach DeVone Claybrooks or his star quarterback, as it’s looking like the club will somehow regress from last year’s disappointing record of 9-9.

“I don’t think Winnipeg is going to feel sorry for us,” Reilly told the local media on Wednesday as the team prepared to take on the Bombers at IG Field tonight at 7:30 p.m.

“So, if we feel sorry for ourselves, that’s a recipe for disaster when you go out on the football field. You got to fight for every single thing that you want to try to get done. And no other teams are ever going to feel bad about if you’ve had some unlucky bounces, or if you got your butt kicked, or if you’ve had some injuries or any type of challenges you can go through in the course of a season. If you start to feel sorry for yourself, things are just going to get worse.”

The Bombers are looking to keep their perfect record at home alive and improve to 7-2 on the year. Bombers linebacker Adam Bighill, who played with Reilly during the quarterback’s first tenure with the Lions in 2011 and 2012, said it is surprising to see where his former team is in the standings.

“I think no one would say that they’d be 1-7 right now at the beginning of the year, right?” Bighill said after Wednesday’s walk-through. “I mean, talking about some of their free-agent signings and some of the guys on their team, but with that being said, it always comes down to playing together as a team in all three phases. And they’ve lost a few close games by just one or two plays. It really comes down and makes a huge difference and a lot of those times, it’s special teams, right? So it’s all three phases that got to be on point to win games in this league. You can’t purely be an offence or can’t purely be a defence.”

The Lions defence hasn’t put fear into anybody this season as they’ve surrendered a league-worst 276 points.

Reilly is coming off of one of his best performances of the season, completing 21 of 28 passes for 306 yards, two touchdowns, two interceptions and a rushing touchdown on the road against the Hamilton Tiger-Cats last week. But it doesn’t mean much when your defence doesn’t come to play, as they allowed Hamilton quarterback Dane Evans to have the best game of his career as he led the Tiger-Cats to a 35-34 win by completing 23 of 32 passes for 260 yards, two touchdowns and no interceptions.

The CFL is a quarterback-driven league, but Bombers starting QB Matt Nichols said people can’t expect pivots to do everything by themselves.

“I’ve always been a believer that, as a quarterback, you do have a lot of responsibility. You touch the ball every play and a lot of it falls on your shoulders. But you do need guys to make plays around you,” Nichols said.

“There have been a lot of very good quarterbacks that have had rough years, so, for me, I know I play my best football when I have guys around me making incredible catches and got O-linemen blocking for me up front.

“It’s the ultimate team game and I think you’re seeing a lot of good signs from them. They’re starting to put things together and get pieces in place. They’re a team on the rise and a team we’re not taking lightly.”

There’s still a lot of football left to be played this season, but with the Edmonton Eskimos, Saskatchewan Roughriders and Calgary Stampeders tied for second place behind the Bombers with 5-3 records, the Lions don’t have any time to waste — they need to start winning now.

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“If you start to look too far ahead, you realize we’ve put ourselves in a very difficult situation. But you have to be realistic and you have to be aware of that,” Reilly said.

“And that puts importance on every single game. I mean, every game is important, but basically our playoffs are starting now.

“You never know what’s going to happen and you can’t worry about the things you can’t control. But no, I don’t have any challenges of keeping hope alive in the sense of I’m just worried about playing Winnipeg now and whatever happens after that, we’ll deal with it at that point in time.”

taylor.allen@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @TaylorAllen31

Taylor Allen
Reporter

Taylor Allen is a sports reporter for the Winnipeg Free Press. Taylor was the Vince Leah intern in the Free Press newsroom twice while earning his joint communications degree/diploma at the University of Winnipeg and Red River College Polytechnic. He signed on full-time in 2019 and mainly covers the Blue Bombers, curling, and basketball. Read more about Taylor.

Every piece of reporting Taylor produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.