The only messed up part of Mike Jones’ first ever CFL touchdown was the celebration.
The second-year Ticat receiver made a spectacular diving catch late in the second quarter of Sunday’s 43-16 win over the Alouettes and while there was an intricate plan in place to give the moment its due, things quickly fell apart.
“I was talking to the receivers and we were going to do duck-duck-goose and they were all like ‘yeah, yeah let’s do it,” Jones said in the jubilant Hamilton locker room after the game. “Then we get the touchdown and only three of us run over there and I’m like ‘where are the rest of the guys?’ Luke was like ‘nah, that’s not my style’ and Speedy said he was going to do it but I don’t know where he was at.”
“It’s probably going to be on not-top-10. It was still fun.”
The play was further complicated by the fact that officials initially ruled that Jones had landed out-of-bounds and the pass was incomplete. Head coach June Jones was forced to challenge the call, which was overturned by the command centre.
“I had a corner route and I had man-to-man coverage so I flattened it off and when I broke, I looked back and saw the ball and got excited. I dove for it and caught it,” he said. “It was a tough catch and I was going to be mad if it wasn’t a touchdown because I felt like I was clearly in.”
Jones’ season has followed much the same trajectory as the team’s. With high expectations coming out of training camp, he started the first 11 games of the season but had trouble with drops and ball security.
Then in mid-September he tested positive for the performance-enhancing drug dehydrochlormethyltestosterone, which is sold under the brand name Oral Turinabol or Oral-T. He was suspended two games by the CFL, then found that he’d been replaced in the starting line up by the recently-acquired Shamawd Chambers and the newly-healthy Andy Fantuz.
Jones has maintained his innocence, despite not appealing the positive test. He’s spoken to former Toronto Blue Jay Chris Colabello, one of a number of professional athletes who have been flagged for Oral-T but maintain they have no idea how it got into their systems.
“Gotta bounce back. It’s not the adversity you go through it’s how you come back from that and how you work through it,” Jones said. “Everybody goes through tough times.”
Even after the delay, the ball from Jones’ first career score ended up in the hands of Ticat equipment manager Drew Strochein, who made sure it got safely back to Hamilton. Jones already has a plan for it.
“I’m going to give it to my son,” Jones said of 19-month old Mike Jones Jr. “My fiance told me they were watching the game and as soon as I scored, he was yelling ‘Daddy! Daddy! Daddy! So that’s pretty cool.”
Notes: Ottawa Redblacks receiver Brad Sinopoli won’t play Friday against Hamilton and is out for the season, according to reports. The 29-year-old is the top Canadian receiver in the CFL (seventh overall) with 1,035 yards.
