The Ticats couldn’t have asked for a much better weekend, as they fashioned a pair of significant advances in their present and future.
On Friday the Cats won their most important game of the season – so far – with Marc Liegghio’s 47-yard-field goal on the final play defeating the Toronto Argonauts and shaving their distance from third place to four points.
They also signed their shutdown cornerback to a contract extension.
While this is a mutual admiration society, Jamal Peters’ decision to extend his stay with Hamilton is an indicator that he likes not only what he’s seeing at the moment but also on the near-horizon.
“It feels like home,” said the 27-year-old boundary cornerback, who signed as a free agent last February after three years with the arch-rival Argonauts.
“It’s a great organization. And they’ve been loyal to me since I got here. They treat me like family and they treat my people like family. I just like everything about what this team is building.”
At 6-2, 220 pounds, the Mississippi native plays an aggressive, tight-coverage game and hits hard. Even before Chris Jones replaced defensive coordinator Mark Washington, Peters was being held up as an example to the rest of the secondary on how to play assertively and with authority. And even with the Ticats using more zone coverage in recent weeks, it’s a tight zone coverage, which is a perfect match for his skill set.
“Jamal is arguably the best at his position in this league,” says Ticat general manager Ed Hervey. “When you get a really good boundary corner in this league and someone with the character he has, you do everything you can to keep him. And we’ve had a chance to see what his character is all about, not only on the field but off the field.
“He is one of those guys we see as a cornerstone of building a championship football team. He has the ability to take away a side of the field. He can take a team’s best receiver out, so you can leave him on his own. He’s a matchup problem for the other team.
“It was really a no-brainer for us.”
CFL offences have evolved over the past couple of years as receivers shift to different positions all of the field, and it’s multi-faceted players like Peters who are part of the reason for that. He forces offensive coordinators to find other spaces to work, rather than his side of the field, yet he still has four interceptions, just two off the league lead.
And, despite multiple-look offences, the best receivers often still start on the boundary side of the field. It’s a shorter throw, in a league which has seen a major uptick in quick releases from quarterbacks. As Hervey intimated, the Ticats trust Peters to negate his man, even in a zone coverage in which defenders play a little off their cover, because he closes so fast on the receiver and has predatory instincts.
That, in turn, leads to more flexibility in coverage assignments elsewhere.
Additionally, Peters has developed a strong on-field communication with Destin Talbert, the 24-year-old rookie who plays the boundary halfback spot beside him. Like an offensive line, continuity and communication are imperative in a defensive backfield and the improvement in the cohesiveness, and aggressiveness, of the Hamilton secondary has been the most visible area of improvement in the past four games.
So, yes, It was an excellent move by the Ticats to extend Peters. Excellent, and pretty well essential.
“My presence in being out there, and the energy I have, the way I play and being a leader; I know a lot of the guys like what I do and I like what they do,” Peters said. “We might bend, sometimes, but we don’t break. I’m doing all I can to continue being the best in the league.”
Keeping Peters in the fold should be helpful for the Ticats in signing not only their own potential free agents, but possibly others from around the league. If a player of his calibre, who still likely has some of his best football ahead of him, thinks the future is bright for this team, others will feel that way too.
But it’s not just the future that has Peters enthused. To borrow a common football phrase, he’s got his mind where, and when, his feet are. In the present.
“We’re still believing,” he said in the riotous din of the Ticat locker room right after Friday night’s 33-31 win. ”We always believed, despite the losses early in the year, and we knew, especially after the Labour Day Classic it was all or nothing.
“So every day we’re going in just to win. That’s our mindset.”
