Don Landry | Argonauts.ca Insider
Greg Jones has emerged near the top, even as he’s been planted in the middle.
Not that being pushed to the middle is a bad thing. In fact, it’s a big reason why the Argonauts’ linebacker has risen to prominence in his second year.
Heading into Friday night’s game against the Blue Bombers, in Winnipeg, Jones is among the league leaders in tackles, with 37. That spots him fourth in the CFL, just nine tackles back of the leader, B.C.’s Adam Bighill. It puts Jones in company with last season’s Most Outstanding Player, Solomon Elimimian, another B.C. Linebacker who has 41 tackles so far this season.
“I just want to be consistent,” says Jones, dodging the question of whether he sees himself in competition with Elimimian, Bighill or any other tackling machine out there.
“I just want to consistently make plays that help my team win. It doesn’t really do you any good to have a thousand tackles and not make it to the playoffs or not make it to a Grey Cup.”
The 26-year-old native of Cincinnati is taking time out from his studies to talk about his ascent in the tackling ranks. He’s a busy man, then, as the Argos had just finished practice at the time he paused for our conversation. “I’m finishing up my degree,” he says of his quest for a media arts degree from Michigan State University. “I think I have my last online class right this second. Trying to finish it up right now.”
If all goes as planned for Jones, he’ll have his degree in hand very soon, with his last exam scheduled for August 20th. The degree is something he’ll use – along with his Michigan connections – to look for gainful employment in sports marketing or broadcasting once his football playing days are over.
Immediately in his future, though, is the game against the banged up Blue Bombers. “They’re a team that kind of have their backs against the wall a little bit, due to the injuries,” he acknowledges, vowing not to take them lightly because of that.
If things hold true to form, Jones will emerge from that game with at least six tackles, his season’s average being slightly above that total. It’s more than two tackles per game over his 2014 average, when he totalled 42 in 11 games.
“I’m in the game consistently,” Jones says of his improved numbers. “I don’t have to worry about whether I’m in or I’m out. I just have to step up and play.”
In his rookie season, Jones had a few things to get used to. New league, new city, new defensive scheme. Playing outside linebacker was a change too, although he’d had some experience with it in college. Jones got into games for the Argos, but was also a healthy scratch at times when the coaching brain trust opted for a different kind of look.
With the trading of middle linebacker Shea Emry to Saskatchewan this past off-season, the job in the middle became Jones’ to grab hold of and he has done that, flourishing on the inside. Starting every game of the season so far, he’s gotten the game in, game out kind of feel that he’d been seeking. The challenge of the position, where you’re asked to jump up and jam the run as well as run sideline to sideline, is one that Jones embraces.
“When you’re in the middle, you have so much ground to cover sometimes. You gotta get there. There’s no way around that,” he says.
As a starting linebacker at Michigan State in 2007, Jones became the first freshman to lead the team in tackles since Danny Bass (yes, that Danny Bass, the same Danny Bass who would later play for the Argos, Stampeders and Eskimos) then went on to crush it for 154 tackles during the 2009 season. No stranger, then, to being a leader in that category, Jones nevertheless remains less than eager to discuss tackling totals.
“I just wanna help my team win,” he says, deflecting the conversation a bit. “If that’s me consistently making ten tackles then that’s what I have to do. But, if it’s only three or four, then that’s what I gotta do. I wanna make sure that my teammates know that I’m accountable and make plays to help our team win.”
On that front, Jones is certainly assuring his teammates and Argo fans that he is present.
“I just love being out with my defence and playing with the guys,” he says, when asked what makes him tick. “I’ve got the itch, I’ve got the bug. I just love being out there and playing, man. I’m like a kid again every time I’m out there and playing with guys I care about and trust.”
Playing football with the Argos has helped keep Jones’ excitement alive. “I’m very, very happy with the decision that I made,” he says of signing with Toronto (the Montreal Alouettes also were interested).
Argos’ Defensive Coordinator Casey Creehan must be happy with Jones’ decision, too. It seems that his middle linebacker, while being productive, is also a low maintenance kind of player, willing to make the attempt on whatever scheme is laid out in front of him.
“I think we’ve been able to work together,” says Jones when asked whether it’s been he or his coach who’s had to bend more for the other. “I think it’s been more of me (adjusting). I told Casey that whatever he wants to run, I trust him. He knows how I play and I like the defence that we’re in.”
“I’ve become comfortable in it.”
It does, indeed, appear that way.