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Whether behind centre or in front of a camera, Mike Reilly sounds confident and appears comfortable, which makes perfect sense.

At age 34, he’s a franchise quarterback and established star in the Canadian Football League, with two Grey Cup rings, a Grey Cup MVP award and a Most Outstanding Player award to prove his bonafides through nine seasons.

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He is also the perfect man, perhaps the only one, for the job he took with the B.C. Lions on Feb. 12, when a highly chaotic CFL free agency period opened. It is a job that pays extremely well — $2.9 million over four seasons — and can accurately be split into two distinct and vital pieces: win games, sell tickets.

Not everybody is capable of filling either role. Fewer can do both with aplomb. But Reilly is a natural, a man who thrives in the spotlight and works just as hard behind closed doors while preparing for his closeup.

“You’ve got to be comfortable with being uncomfortable to play this position, for sure,” he said of quarterbacking in general. “We’re under the microscope all the time, right. Every little thing that we do is going to be judged by everybody. Some people are knowledgeable about it, most others are not.