EDMONTON — Edmonton Eskimos head coach Chris Jones announced Monday that the club will go with rookie quarterback James Franklin at pivot on Friday.
The decision was made after going over game tape from Friday’s loss to the Hamilton Tiger-Cats.
“Nichols, again, he’s played very good football for us,” said Jones. “But James played very good, he graded out a little bit better and that’s the direction we’re going.”
Franklin, who played his college at Missouri, has impressed Jones since the preseason, but he didn’t want to jump too quickly.
“You don’t want to discredit the things that you see in preseason games,” said Jones. “But again, it is just preseason football games so until we saw enough evidence in regular season games you don’t want to throw a young kid to the fire and let him go against a very good defence.
“He played against a very good defence the other night and performed well. He certainly didn’t perform flawlessly; he threw the ball on the ground a time or two and threw it to them a time or two, so I mean it’s something he’s going to have to make sure he doesn’t do in the future.”
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This, all despite the announcement that Franklin suffered a rib contusion in the game against the Tiger-Cats, which made people wonder if would be available to play.
He was in hospital for evaluation, but was released and it is not serious.
“Well I didn’t feel anything really,” said Franklin. “It was sore, that was about it. I was like, ‘Well, I wanna be safe’ because you never know with that kind of stuff because it’s not on the outside.
“I just wanted to be safe with it.”
Franklin went to the hospital over the weekend, spending some time in the emergency room. He said he went in at 10:30 a.m. and didn’t leave until around 6:00 p.m.
“I made a lot of friends there though,” said Franklin, an Oklahoma City native.
WATCH: James Franklin jokes with Edmonton media about his rib injury
For Nichols, who was named the starter after Mike Reilly was injured in week one, it can’t be easy. The six-year CFL veteran has started since week three, but has been in and out of the action.
“It’s a little frustrating, but at the same time I can only control what I can control,” said Nichols. “When they ask me to be out on the field I’m gonna give 100 per cent and come in to work each and every week and put in the hours and make sure that I’m continuing to improve each and every week.”
Fans have also liked what they’ve seen from Franklin and are encouraged by the change at pivot:
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