TheSpec - Jimenez healthy and ready to be his aggressive self

There is a battle for the Ticats’ two starting offensive tackle spots that allegedly involves three leading candidates, but that’s a bit of false advertising.

Jason Jimenez clearly has the right tackle job in his hip pocket, leaving Belton Johnson and Brian Simmons, plus any other late-emerging contenders, to battle for the left-side post.

The 31-year-old veteran of five Canadian Football League seasons is entering his second year with the Ticats and hopes this will be his first full one. He ripped up a knee in the second exhibition match last year and didn’t make his Ticat debut until the 10th game of the season. But, in a half-term, Jimenez demonstrated why Bob O’Billovich signed him last February, less than a month after he was surprisingly released by the B.C. Lions.

“I had high hopes coming here and wanted to leave my mark for an entire season, which I didn’t have a chance to do, unfortunately,” Jimenez was saying after Wednesday’s very warm workout. “But, for the nine games that I did play, I did enough to show the coaches that I’m still a good football player and that there’s no other place I’d rather be than with the Ticats.”

Although Jimenez says he’s always five to 10 pounds on either side of his preferred playing weight of 315 pounds, most Catlanders think he looks trimmer, more firmed up. News to him, he shrugs. He’s not eating junk food and “my wife isn’t up here to cook me goodies,” but, otherwise, it’s Jimenez as usual.

And that’s a good thing, at least for the Cats. Obie didn’t sign him so he would change. The GM wanted the same guy who makes defensive linemen over-vengeful, the guy who plays a physical, angry game that spreads through the rest of the line, the guy who repeatedly announces he and his beefy partners play nasty and for keeps.

Jimenez says his teammates would describe him as “cool, calm and collected.” But those aren’t the adjectives most opponents, particularly those in Lions uniforms, would choose. Most of them spoke highly of him while he was one of their own and was suspended for a game (later rescinded) for rolling into Anthony Gargiulo and blunting his career four years ago. But when, as a Cat, Jimenez hurt B.C.’s Brent Johnson in mid-September and was fined but not suspended, the Lion didn’t sleep and the village, the peaceful village, was anything but.

Besides the ongoing debate about the validity of the Johnson hit and whether Jimenez should have been suspended, the permanent echo is he still plays with that aggression the Cats sought. And that forces defences to be just a little bit wary.

“I don’t make a conscious effort, ever, to deliberately hurt anybody,” Jimenez says of his on-field philosophy. “Football is a violent sport, we all know that. Bad things happen sometimes. It’s happened to me and it’s happened to other players because of me. But nothing is ever intentional. What is intentional is to make the guy across from me compete at my level and hopefully as the game wears on I can make it where he’s unable, or unwilling, to compete at my level. That’s what I strive for. More times than not, I’m successful in reaching that goal.”

During the furor over Jimenez’s hit on Johnson, he got some vocal support from another guy who became infamous after injuring a B.C. Lion. Angelo Mosca told Jimenez he liked his style of play and to forget the media criticism and keep doing what he was doing.

“It meant a lot coming from a guy who’s a CFL hall of famer and who’s a big part of this community,” Jimenez said, “And to get recognition from a guy who used to do it himself, who used to play that kind of game. I’m sure those kind of validations on his part don’t come easily.”

You would expect that, like many players who play close to the edge and sometimes cross it, Jimenez would take a lot of taunting. But, as he sees it, defensive linemen try to beat him physically, not psychologically, because he’s been in the league long enough that players know when they jaw he won’t bite.

He’s also been around long enough to recognize when another player can help lighten the offence’s load.

“Why we’re so excited about the running game this year is that the hole doesn’t have to be open long. A guy like Avon Couborne can hit the hole and if he has to, shift his momentum at a moment’s notice to get through there. And that’s important, especially in a league where you have to get at least six yards on a play to keep the running game going. A lot of these offensive co-ordinators are former quarterbacks or receivers and it’s a pass-happy league.

“There’s nothing wrong with that but, to guys like myself, offensive linemen who have a penchant for running the football, that’s how you wear on a guy on the other side. If you wear on their body, the pass game should be easier, instead of having them come off the ball at you all the time.

“That’s why I like Cobourne here. I saw him play in Montreal last year and thought: ‘Wow, that’s a very explosive running back.’ So I’m glad he’s a teammate of ours now.”