It’s a quality start

Ticats lineman Avery Jordan makes an instant impact protecting Masoli’s blind side

HAMILTON — When your eldest brother snaps the tape measure at 6-foot-11 and just happens to pull down rebounds and throw down monstrous dunks for a living in the NBA, he can cast a pretty long shadow.

Avery Jordan, the youngest of four boys in the Jordan family behind the eldest, Dallas Mavericks centre DeAndre Jordan, knows that all too well.

But Avery, a healthy 6-foot-5 and 281 pounds himself, is just getting started making his own name in the professional sports ranks.

And if you believe Ticats head coach June Jones, he’s well on his way to establishing himself as a dominant presence, much the way his older brother did in the NBA.

Jordan made his first CFL start for the Hamilton TigerCats as the team’s starting left offensive tackle last Saturday against Ottawa. The job came open when the Ticats dealt Tony Washington to Montreal as part of the Johnny Manziel trade and head coach June Jones immediately turned the spot over to his professionally untested 23-year-old rookie.

Washington was not only a popular player among his Ticats teammates, he was an integral part of that five man unit that protected Jeremiah Masoli and, as the left tackle, was perhaps the QBs most important lineman protecting his blind side as he did.

He was also the most senior member of that group, and, in fact, the eldest player on the Ticats.

So it’s not out of the question to wonder how a 23-year-old raw rookie could just step in and fill the rather large shoes left to be filled by Washington’s departure.

The answer is extremely good athletic genes and a work ethic that immediately endeared Jordan to his teammates and coaches alike.

The Ticats offensive line is not unlike most other offensive lines in the CFL — a tight unit that relies on cohesion and familiarity with one another to ultimately keep their quarterback clean.

The long hours spent after practice in meetings and going over opponents is the norm. Those hours together, not to mention the hours on the field before that help forge the kind of bond where a tackle instinctively knows where his guard is going to be who instinctively knows where the centre will be on any one play and it goes that way all the way down the line.

Only playing with that type of cohesion can an O-line keep would-be quarterback hungry behemoths — not to mention any blitzing linebackers or safeties off their QB.

Long before he was a member of the Ticats active roster — he came off the practice roster only last Friday — Jordan was taking part in these meetings with no idea that his first big chance was right around the corner.

It was that diligence and his raw athletic ability that had Jones fully expecting the kind of seamless transition he witnessed Saturday when the Ticats offensive line had just one busted coverage all game.

As veteran centre Mike Filer pointed out the raw numbers from the game — five sacks allowed — don’t look particularly good but not every sack is the fault of the offensive line and, on this occasion, only one was.

Filer, like his head coach, liked what he saw from the Ticats’ new left tackle.

“He has been here from the start,” Filer said of Jordan. “He has earned the trust of the coaches from early on to what are we now, Week 8? So for him to go out there and play the game he played I thought he did a really good job. He impressed a lot of us. He proved he can play in this league but it will continue to be a test for him because he’s going to play new guys with different strengths and weaknesses every week now.”

Jones had a good feeling about Jordan from early on in camp.

“I thought, and I thought right, that watching Avery for a month and a half that he was a player,” Jones said.

And the man he will be protecting from here on out has similar thoughts about his new left tackle.

“Avery is a baller,” Masoli said. “We all have a lot of confidence in him. He held his own for sure for a first start. The sky is the limit for that guy athletically, physically. He has a high football IQ so it was easy for him to jump right in there and do it.”

And best of all, the consensus among all those Ticats talking about Jordan: To a man they all believe he is only going to get better.

I thought, and I thought right, that watching Avery for a month and a half that he was a player. June Jones