ESKIMOS’ ARCHITECT
Jones has Esks in West final
It didn’t start well for Chris Jones when one of his first acts as Edmonton Eskimos’ head coach was to close the locker-room and institute media access rules worthy of a National Football League fortress.
Except this wasn’t the NFL. It was the friendly little league with 12 men aside and part-time jobs and rouges. Why was all-access OK for Hugh Campbell and Don Matthews and Wally Buono, but not Jones? Didn’t he get that? Well, no. He was going to do this his way, in his first shot as a professional head coach, and he didn’t much care whether he won any popularity contests en route.
A mere two seasons in, the storm of indignation has been downgraded to a minor squall, and the Edmonton Eskimos are playing host to their first Western final in 12 years.
And all anyone is sure of is that this wouldn’t have happened without Chris Jones. The moment he walked in the door, his body language screamed “culture change,” and boy, did the Eskimos need one.
This was a franchise still living off the glory days of the five-in-arow Grey Cups of 1978-82, with only isolated bursts of competence since.
From the time Ron Lancaster left as coach after the 1997 season until Jones’s hiring in 2014, the winning percentages of six Eskimos head coaches were .500, .444, .529, .465, .444 and .407.
Sixteen seasons: .488 overall. That’s a lot of mediocrity considering it included two seasons that ended in Ricky Ray-led Grey Cups under Tom Higgins and Danny Maciocia.
But defining culture change is probably as difficult as instilling it was. What got the Eskimos to the West final (albeit on the road) in Jones’ first season and back there, this time as host to Calgary, in his second?
“He’s got a very contagious personality and work ethic,” middle linebacker J.C. Sherritt said Thursday, as the Eskimos prepared in the cold for Sunday’s Battle of Alberta matchup of 14-4 teams.
“How he approaches the game makes you want to be a better football player. The biggest compliment I can think of is that it’s just really enjoyable to come to work every day.”
“He has a lot of confidence in who he is,” said Esks’ great slotback Adarius Bowman.
“I heard he was a yeller at one time. Well, he can yell, when he gets down to it, but he’s able to come back and be that father figure, be that brother, that uncle.
“It’s his drive and his consistency. He’s made me think about the whole game better. I always knew studying film was important, but inside I really felt playing was more important. But he’s made me understand repetition of the mind, that you can beat your opponent before you even get out there to the field.”
Rush end Odell Willis was asked how the Eskimos could avoid rust after a three-week break, and he laughed.
“Y’all must not know who Chris Jones is. You mess with Chris Jones, rust is not a problem,” said Willis, who was brought into the league in 2009 by Jones, when he was Calgary’s defensive coordinator.
“He’s been doing it 14 years, and the people who were his mentors were winners, too. The numbers speak for themselves. He doesn’t have to talk about what he’s done in this league or the number of players he’s created.
“And he does his own scouting. Everybody else relies on other people to come back and tell ‘em. He goes to his own workouts. Can’t nobody tell him what he’s looking for in a player.
“He’s here at 4 o’clock every morning. When you got a guy like that, you just want to ball out for him, no matter what.”
Jones, who’s also the defensive co-ordinator, deftly sidesteps the praise.
“You know what, they’re great guys,” said the 48-year-old from South Pittsburg, Tenn. “I do what I do just because I like coming in when there’s no phones ringing, no emails to answer. I can go upstairs and get a workout and the only guy there is the security guard.
“All I know is, we as coaches just instil to go out and have fun and practice at great tempo, so when it’s time for the game, the game seems kind of slow.”
But he’s also a painstaking detail guy. Like the bucket drill: leaving a pail full of footballs to soak in water during practice, then having the quarterbacks and receivers work with them, as they slowly become blocks of ice.
“I’d never heard of that before, and it seemed petty at the time. That ball is hard when it’s cold,” said Bowman.
“Weather says it’s not even supposed to rain (Sunday). He’s like, ‘Just in case.’? Then there are the numbers. “Everything he calls he has a number to it,” said Willis. “Trust me, if he called a play, I guarantee he did the percentage over the last 10 years of how many times he’s called it, how many times it worked.”
How about these numbers: Jones is one win away from being in his seventh Grey Cup, with his fourth different club, since entering the league with Montreal in 2002.
Two wins, and he’ll have a championship with each of those teams. Whatever he’s doing, it’s working.