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“I’m excited as anything to play with Adam,” said Eskimos middle linebacker J.C. Sherritt, who lined up next to Deon Lacey and Dexter McCoil in previous iterations of Edmonton’s defence, prior to the pair moving on to the National Football League. “He brings a talent that I don’t know if I’ve experienced for a while, to have that kind of talent on the outside of me.

“So to get to play with him, to get to work together, I think we got five or six days together (last year) and that was it. So I’m looking forward to it.”

The Eskimos are expecting bigger and better things from Konar, considering his own six-game contribution to Edmonton’s injury total last year cut into his playing time.

“Last year was a rough year, hopefully this year’s a little more lucky for us,” said Konar, who isn’t looking to better himself on the gridiron alone, having spent time this off-season studying toward his communications degree from the U of C.

This past year has been a learning curve, to say the least.

“Last year, we brought in Cory Greenwood for a reason, feeling like Adam was behind him just in case something happened and we wanted to keep the ratio where we had it, and Adam made the most of his opportunity,” said Eskimos head coach Jason Maas. “Obviously, he worked very hard in the off-season to come back from a serious injury to his shoulder and he looks good out there right now.

“I fully expect that he will just continue to get better. He has all the attributes we look for in a player: He’s tough, physical, smart and aggressive. He’s only going to get better with experience.”

And it didn’t take Konar starting a game for the Eskimos to come to that realization either, having already established his work ethic on special teams during his first two years in the league.

“We’ve known that about Adam for a while,” Sherritt said. “He showed up early and often on the field and the bigger the games, the more plays he tends to make and it just happened that he had a few injuries here and there, but his time has come and he will be one of the better players in the CFL this year.”

Email: gmoddejonge@postmedia.com