Adarius Bowman knows how good Mike Reilly is because of the hundreds of passes he has caught from the veteran quarterback during the past five years.
But it isn’t until he’s watching game film that Bowman truly appreciates Reilly’s special abilities.
“Man, I could never play quarterback,” said the six-foot-three, 217-pound slotback. “Those moments when he sits (in the pocket) and still gets the ball to me, (Brandon) Zylstra, Derel (Walker); we never see the hit until we watch film the next day. But to see him take some of those blows in there, roll over and still get the ball (to the receiver), that’s pretty impressive.
“I love watching it every time,” Bowman added. “I don’t like seeing him get hit, but it seems to amaze you when you see what really went down in the play.”
Bowman calls Reilly “our leader, our warrior, my quarterback.”
“Everything that comes his way, he deserves it. He puts in the work on the field, off the field. Even in the off-season he’s working. He had his wedding that one year, so he was forced to take a break. Outside of that, Mike is always grinding; always finding a way to get better; always calling, talking about some kind of play or some kind of coverage. He’s that true football professional.”
Reilly, 32, has been selected as the West Division nominee for the CFL Most Outstanding Player (MOP) Award. He isn’t into individual awards, especially at a time when the Eskimos are trying to get back to the Grey Cup without the benefit of a home playoff game.
The Eskimos are playing the Winnipeg Blue Bombers at 2:30 p.m. Sunday in the West Division Semi Final at Winnipeg’s Investors Group Field.
If Reilly wins the MOP on Nov. 23 at Ottawa, he would probably try to bring all of his teammates up on stage with him because they have all contributed to his success this season.
“Make no mistake, if it’s me standing up there on that stage – if I’m so lucky to win it – or sitting there for that awards ceremony, that’s because of 80, 90, however many guys we’ve had come through the roster plus the coaching staff,” he said.
If Reilly becomes the first Eskimos player to win the MOP award in 28 years (quarterback Tracy Ham was the last winner in 1989), it will come after a regular season in which he led the league and set an Eskimos record with 5,830 passing yards, became only the sixth CFL QB to post back-to-back 5,000-yard passing seasons, and led the league with 30 passing TDs and 12 rushing touchdowns, accounting for 42 of the Eskimos 52 major scores.
“Obviously, he’s a very deserving guy,” said Eskimos head coach Jason Maas. “Our offence goes through the quarterback, who has to make a lot of decisions in order for this offence to run efficiently. It takes a lot of guys around him (receivers, running backs, offensive linemen) to allow him to do that, but there’s no question in my mind that he’s great at what he does and the Edmonton Eskimos are the beneficiary of that.
“When you look at how many injuries we had and how many players have played this year and the fact that he’s still been able to be efficient and our offence has been able to score points with whomever’s in the lineup speaks volumes to how well he’s played and how much depth we have here.
“But at the end of the day, it still comes down to the quarterback making good decisions and this year he’s done outstanding in that department.”
While Reilly said many of his teammates could easily have been the West Division nominee for MOP as well, he’s proud to represent the Eskimos because he believes the team deserves to have a representative at the awards ceremony.
“The way our team has battled through so many different things and had the success that we’ve had, I expected that we would be represented somewhere in those awards because we played that type of football this year,” he said.
The Eskimos had to overcome an outbreak of injuries that eventually resulted in 83 players playing a minimum of one game, 54 players starting at least one game and 52 different players spending time on the injured list. They went from a surprising seven-game winning streak to open the season, despite being flooded with injuries throughout the team, to a crushing six-game losing streak in mid-season to an exhilarating five-game win streak entering the playoffs as their injured starters slowly trickled back to the lineup.
Reilly is the first Eskimos player to be a MOP finalist since running back Craig Ellis in 1990.
“That’s crazy to me because of the all the talent that has come through and put on the Green and Gold,” Reilly said. “That just shows how challenging it can be to get your team to have a representative for that type of award.
“This is the best team that I’ve played on in terms of our roster and the players that we have and things like that,” he pointed out. “There’s no shortage of talent.
“I wish a couple of our other guys (who were nominated for outstanding player awards) would have been recognized and got through to that final round, too, because I thought there were guys who were deserving, but all around the league there’s deserving guys at every position, so that’s what makes it challenging, for sure.”
Offensive lineman Matt O’Donnell was named the Eskimos Most Outstanding Canadian Player and Most Outstanding Offensive Lineman, Kenny Ladler was chosen as the Most Outstanding Defensive Player, Kwaku Boateng was selected as Most Outstanding Rookie and Christophe Mulumba-Tshimanga was voted as Edmonton’s Most Outstanding Special Teams Player.
If Reilly wins the MOP award, he’ll be only the 10th Eskimos player to be named the league’s most outstanding player in 65 years.
“To know how many great teams have been here and how many great players have rolled through Edmonton, to know that no one has won an MOP from Edmonton for a long time is amazing to me,” said Maas, who spent nine seasons with the Eskimos from 2000-05 and 2008-10.
The other finalist for the MOP award is former Eskimos QB Ricky Ray, who is representing the East Division for a third time after never being nominated in the West Division despite nine fairly successful seasons with Edmonton from 2002-11.
“That’s surprising because Ricky always played at a high level while he was an Eskimo,” said Maas, a former teammate for many of those years. “Obviously, he took us to three Grey Cups, winning two of those three, and was never nominated.
“But that also tells you how good the other players were in the West.”
The Eskimos have never won the Grey Cup and had a player receive the MOP award in the same season. They have 14 Grey Cup championships, including three in a row from 1954-56 and five straight from 1978-82, but they only had a MOP finalist in four of those years – 1987, ’82, ’79 and ’78.
The nine Eskimos who won the MOP award – Ham, Warren Moon (1983), Tom Wilkinson (1974), George McGowan (1973), Jackie Parker (1957-58-60), Johnny Bright (1959) and Billy Vessels (1953) – were all on good Edmonton teams, but not championship teams.
“Since I’ve been in Edmonton my seven years, I realize there’s a lot of things that don’t come to this organization,” Bowman said about individual CFL awards. “We keep amazing players over here. Mike Reilly is one of those amazing players. The past four years, I feel like he could have won (the most outstanding player award).”
Maas had a 5,000-yard passing season with the Eskimos in 2004. Does that give him a different perspective on Reilly’s outstanding performance this year despite having had five different tailbacks and 10 different receivers in the starting lineup?
“I have the greatest appreciation for a quarterback who can play 18 games in this league, because it’s not easy,” said Maas, who found it very difficult to stay healthy himself over the course of a full season. “To play 18 games straight – and Mike’s done it basically two years in a row because he could have played last year’s final game (of the regular season) and we sat him out – that’s what I’m as impressed with as anything.”
Maas pointed out that the good numbers will follow quarterbacks who can stay healthy. That’s part of the reason why he limited Reilly during the last two seasons from running as much as he did when he first joined the team in 2013, although some of those restrictions were recently lifted.
“If you’re productive and you’re good and you have good players around and you have the talent that Mike has, those numbers will come,” Maas said. “But his ability to dial in each week and understand game plan and stay mentally tough through good and bad throughout the entire year and still pull the trigger and deal with all of the aches and pains to play quarterback at this level, that’s what I’m always most impressed about.
“When he’s able to do that two straight years, it gives me great satisfaction watching a guy like him play.”