Johany Jutras/CFL.ca
EDMONTON — Edmonton Eskimos’ quarterback Mike Reilly has had some time to reflect on the 2016 season.
He’s had time to think about how the Esks qualified as the crossover team into the East Division after finishing the regular season with a 10-8 record.
He’s also thought about how they defeated the Hamilton Tiger-Cats in the Eastern Semi-Final but couldn’t get past the soon-to-be Grey Cup Champions, Ottawa REDBLACKS in the Eastern Final.
“When I look back on last season, there were a lot of things we did really, really well and there were a lot of things we need to improve on,” Reilly said in a season preview call on Wednesday. “We’ve certainly taken a lot of steps during this off-season to address those issues and to be quite honest, we didn’t come out of the gates extremely fast (last year).
“We were playing some very good football in the last half to two third of the season but it makes it more challenging when you don’t play as well as you’re capable of in the first third of the season.”
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Jason Maas will hand the play calling and offensive coordinator duties over to Carson Walsh this season (The Canadian Press)
The Esks will be working hard to improve on how they start the 2017 season when things get under way in June. In the first seven weeks last year, Edmonton came out of the gates with a 2-4 record before the offence started to click under new head coach, and offensive coordinator at the time, Jason Maas.
They went on to finish the season first in the CFL in net offence (418.7 yards per game), tied with Calgary for first in total touchdowns (53) and second in scoring (average 30.5 points per game).
The offence was led by Reilly, who led the league in passing yards (5,554) by season’s end and featured the one-two punch of receivers Adarius Bowman and Derel Walker, who were first and second in the league in receiving yards, respectively.
But despite all of those late-season triumphs, Reilly still wasn’t satisfied with how the campaign ended up.
“10-8 was definitely not what we would consider a successful season that we wanted,” he said. “We were always going to try to position ourselves as the first team in the West, get the bye week, play at home, win one and get into the Grey Cup.”
One change to try and help the Esks to a Grey Cup run was the hiring of Brock Sunderland as the new general manager and vice president of football operations. Sunderland, the former Ottawa REDBLACKS assistant general manger, is just over two weeks into his new position but is already feeling right at home since making the move west.
“I keep saying this and I mean it, the reputation of the organization precedes itself,” said Sunderland. “(I had) high standards but they’ve been surpassed. Everybody here has been extremely warm and welcoming and it’s made this transition extremely easy for me.”
Maas says even though the hiring of Sunderland was close to the beginning of the season, the two are on the same page with how they’re looking to approach the year.
“You’d like longer time to do that (get to know a new GM) prior to a football season but we’re both in the frame of mind that we’re going to make this work, we’re going to win games and we’re going to do it the way it best fits the organization,” Maas said.
“For me personally, the bottom line is it’s something new to work with but someone who I have a lot of the same traits and same feelings as far as how football teams are run and I’m very excited moving forward.”
Reilly agreed.
“It doesn’t impact me directly in the sense that I’m a football player, I get paid to go out and play the position of quarterback,” said Reilly when asked if the change at general manger affects him on the field. “Outside of that, there’s not really anything I worry too much about.
“However, obviously being part of this organization, I want to make sure that your football club is being steered and controlled by somebody that you trust to make the right decisions to give you the best opportunity to go out and win a championship every single year.
“I’ve had an opportunity to go out and have some conversations with Brock and that combined with all the conversations that I’ve had with other people about him, that leaves me with nothing but confidence in where our team is headed”
Carson Walch is also in a new role this season, switching from receivers coach and passing game coordinator to offensive coordinator. That change will give Maas, who assumed offensive coordinator and play calling duties last season, more of an opportunity to focus on a more complete approach of head coaching.
“We’ve got the coaching staff together, we’ve got players in our system that know each other, played well together, been successful together,” said Maas. “Our core group of guys is still here and I’m very excited about that.”
