Ticats have Timmis on the run
This was what the Hamilton Tiger-Cats envisioned for Mercer Timmis when they took him 14th overall in the 2016 draft.
They pictured him being able to run with power and speed, block for the quarterback and potentially join the likes of Jerome Messam, Andrew Harris and Jon Cornish in altering the CFL roster ratio at a spot usually staffed by Americans.
Friday night in Edmonton, pictures and visions turned into reality.
The 24-year-old running back from Burlington, via the University of Calgary Dinos, put his stamp on the game early and eventually carried the ball 17 times for 133 yards and his first two CFL touchdowns.
The knee bone of his, and Jeremiah Masoli’s, running was connected to the thigh bone of the Ticats’ passing success. One opened up the other and viceversa.
“For sure,” Timmis agrees. “They have to respect (Masoli’s) legs and his arm and we have weapons all over the field at receiver. And our offensive line played amazing. I had a good game and a good stat line, but a lot of it goes to them.”
Timmis had three more carries than he did in the first two-plus years of his injury-affected CFL career, and 87 more total yards.
He ran the ball five more times than the entire team did six days earlier in Calgary. And you may have noticed, as head coach June Jones did, which game the Ticats won and which one they didn’t.
“I went into the game with that in mind; that he was going to get some carries and we needed to establish the run game like we did at the end of last year,” the head coach said Monday. “I knew the number of touches was going to go up for (No.) 27. It did and he did a good job.”
He was involved early, settling into the rhythm of the game.
On the Ticats’ well-paced opening drive for a touchdown, he ran once for five yards. Then, on the second possession, he carried the ball four times, culminating in his one-yard scoring run to answer Edmonton’s quick-strike touchdown. It was the first CFL major for the Calgary Dinos’ all-time career touchdown leader.
“It felt good for sure,’ he said. “It was: ‘All right, the first one’s done, let’s go now.’ It was nice to get the monkey off your shoulder.”
Mike Reilly drove the Eskimos 76 yards to trim the Ticat lead to just 11 points late in the fourth quarter.
But just over a minute later Timmis swung to his right, broke up field, and out-sped a frustrated posse for a 44-yard touchdown. Game over.
“It was my first (big run) since my Dino days,” he said with a smile. “I’ve been waiting for one of those. It felt good.”
Timmis’ confidence level took a big step forward last year with success on special teams, and a half-dozen carries out of the backfield. That has continued in 2018 with the recovery from the broken leg he suffered last Labour Day, and all the extra touches he received as training camp and pre-season games progressed.
He has planted a stake in the ground that a Canadian might just be the one who should carry the payload.
It’s well-known that he’s a third-generation player. His grandfather Brian Jr. played for the Roughriders in 1953 and his great-grandfather Brian Sr. was a Hall of Fame fullback and defensive lineman who played 20 years, including 15 seasons and three Grey Cup wins with the Hamilton Tigers.
The generational history, the Burlington roots and the Tiger-Cat uniform beg comparisons to Jesse Lumsden. Timmis says he aspires to match the calibre of the handful of dominant Canadian backs of recent years, but it’s Lumsden with whom he identifies most.
“We train a little together in the offseason,” he says. “He messaged me after the game, and that was great. I think it’s nice to see Canadians at what’s not typically a Canadian spot be successful.
“There’s been some stud (Canadian) backs. I think I still have a lot of work to do.”
NOTES: The Ticats came out of the nine-day Alberta road trip fairly healthy with only receiver Felix Faubert-Lussier likely to miss time. Jones said he could be out a week to 10 days.