And just like that the battle for the Edmonton Eskimos’ starting quarterback spot has been decided — and not in the way the team had planned or expected.
Matt Nichols, entering his fourth year with the Canadian Football League and the Eskimos and ready to make a quantum leap as the potential starter, has been sidelined for the season with a knee injury suffered in the team’s opening pre-season game last Friday at home against Saskatchewan. Nichols incurred torn ligaments attempting to make a tackle, and on Tuesday the team announced he is out for all of 2013.
The pre-season game marked the first chance to see Nichols and Reilly showcasing their skills against an opponent. Leading up to the game, neither of the players had distinguished themselves as the frontrunner.
That’s why the game meant so much — to the organization looking to see the two quarterbacks under fire and for Eskimos fans, who had been following the battle. When it comes to the Eskimos, it has always been about the quarterbacks.
Last year in the East Division semi-final against the Toronto Argonauts, Nichols suffered a dislocated left ankle in the second series of the second half after he replaced starter Kerry Joseph, who struggled. The injury had healed sufficiently enough that Nichols came into training camp poised to compete for the starter’s job with Reilly, whom the Eskimos acquired from the B.C. Lions in the off-season to battle for the job.
Who knows when Nichols will fully recover from his latest injury and whether he will still have the same confidence and athletic ability? You never know with a knee injury.
Reilly becomes the de facto starter, even though he is grossly inexperienced. Last year, in his third season with the Lions and the CFL, he looked good in two starts and parts of two others.
His first start came in a game against Edmonton and he completed 19 of 28 passes for 276 yards, throwing two touchdowns and one interception. He also rushed the ball four times for 43 yards. In his next outing, he completed 19 of 26 passes for 251 yards and threw two touchdowns. But he also had problems holding on to the ball.
In the end, it really wasn’t going to matter because he was only the caretaker until Travis Lulay returned from an injury.
The decision to acquire Reilly made perfect sense at the time. The Eskimos weren’t just investing in a young quarterback with a potential upside; they also gave themselves some youth at a position to strengthen themselves for the future.
The future is now.
Joseph, entering his 11th season in the CFL and fourth with Edmonton, really wasn’t counted on being anything more than a third-stringer this season, potentially a mentor for Nichols, Reilly and newcomers Jonathan Crompton and Jacory Harris.
Joseph started some games last year, which saw the offensive coordinator reassigned midway through the season by head coach Kavis Reed, who took over the role and had no experience in that department.
An overhaul of the football operations in the off-season changed the player personnel, including the trade that acquired Reilly, and put some resources into correcting a problem area.
If Reilly plays to the capability he showed in limited work last season, the Nichols injury really won’t matter. Reilly couldn’t ask for a better opportunity to finally start, albeit benefitting from an injury.
If there is one consolation it’s that it happened now rather than at some point into the season. The Eskimos can use the second pre-season game this Friday in B.C. against the Lions to evaluate their other young quarterbacks. But isn’t it an interesting coincidence that Reilly suddenly rises to the top of the Eskimos’ depth chart facing his former team?
Reilly is 28 and should have a fair grasp of the CFL game by now. It’s not as if he is learning about the three-down game on the fly. But until he plays several games in succession, Reilly is still an unknown factor.
A cynic could suggest the Eskimos are paying the price for trading away Ricky Ray, the future Hall of Famer, in December 2011 to the Toronto Argonauts, who reaped instant rewards, winning the Grey Cup in a storybook season in 2012.
What has happened to the Eskimos since then has been nothing short of a nightmare: a revolving door of quarterbacks, which the team had hoped to stabilize in the off-season.
It’s become the life of Reilly now.
Meanwhile in Toronto the Argos think they have a quarterback who can be their starter for the next five to 10 years after going through their own issues at the position.
Ray turns 34 in October, but it seems as if he’s been around forever. He quickly picked up the nuances of the CFL 11 years ago as a rookie, beginning as the Eskimos’ third-stringer that year and moving up to become the starter because of an injury in the fifth week of the season.
He led the team to the Grey Cup as a rookie and won the game as a sophomore and named the game’s Most Valuable Player. The Eskimos won the Cup two years later with Ray after he had a one-year stint in the National Football League.
Ray became a special player, even though not much was expected of him in the beginning. Maybe the same thing will happen to Reilly. For now he has the opportunity to make the most of his greatest chance as a pro to prove he can be a starter and potentially become the next in a long line of Eskimos’ quarterbacks to make a name for themselves.