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May 7, 2015

BLOG: Draft Day

By Darren Cameron

Director of Communications

 

In less than a week, the Football Operations staff for each CFL team will huddle together and, after months of hard work, will dive head first into the 2015 CFL Draft. Draft preparations begin many months before the day the chosen names are called out, and this year’s Draft is a big one for our organization. For the first time in 21 years, the WFC has three picks in the first 15. We have our original picks at two and eleven, and the 15th overall pick which was acquired in the trade for Cory Watson a couple of months ago.

Now, in reality, it doesn’t matter how many picks you have or where they fall.  If you don’t draft carefully and thoughtfully, it can be meaningless. Look down the list of previous first and second round selections and you’ll find some names you recognize and many more that you probably don’t.

After last weekend’s NFL Draft, several potential early CFL Draft picks were invited to NFL mini camps, including some players who the Bombers have listed very high. How does this change things? 

“Well, it doesn’t yet,” said our GM Kyle Walters. “We’ll wait until these guys run through the camps this weekend and we get reports on how they do. Obviously, we don’t want to take a guy early on who has a high likelihood of being down south for a while.”

I wrote a blog post a month ago about the possibilities of who we could ultimately choose with our early picks. Here’s a recap:

 

Offensive Lineman

This has been our mantra since Kyle took over as GM: almost always take a lineman with your top pick and another one later on in the draft. We did this last year with Matthias Goossen, who we feel is going to be a solid player in our league. But this year, we may buck that trend. As Kyle pointed out, “the draft is so deep, we could most likely grab a solid offensive lineman at 11 because there are five or six very good ones”. The idea of taking a lineman at number two overall isn’t out of the question, but with the offseason acquisitions of Stanley Bryant and Dominic Picard drastically improving our offensive line already, and the abundant talent available at other valuable positions, it makes for an interesting debate.

Wide Receiver

This position is really what has changed things from our perspective heading into the draft. Kyle told me empathically that “Nic Demski (Manitoba), Addison Richards (Regina), Lemar Durant (Simon Fraser), and Jake Harty (Calgary) are all great football players.” This became even more evident when I looked up at Kyle’s whiteboard in his office and saw all four names circled under the receiver category. By the sounds of it, it is entirely possible that any of these four players could come in, start, and make an impact quickly. Solid Canadian pass-catchers are valuable assets, and with the thinking that a top offensive lineman will likely still be available at 11, do you add a dynamic playmaker to your roster and bolster an offence that has lacked consistent production from Canadian receivers for years?

 “Demski is the best pure athlete, but he’s not alone. Durant, Richards, and Harty are very, very interesting,” noted Kyle. 

Defensive Player

Adding a defensive, ratio-changing player is very intriguing to our staff, though that concept has not been discussed publicly very often so far. Chris Ackie, a defensive back from Wilfrid Laurier, was one of the first draft-eligible defensive players to be raved about around our office. First in the Broad Jump and Vertical Leap, and third in the 3-Cone Drill at the CFL Combine a couple of months ago, Ackie is one of the defensive players who is making this decision even more difficult. There are others too, but the thinking here would be to take a ratio-changing defensive player at two, and again look to the depth of lineman and receivers for the next two picks (11 and 15).  Obviously now that we’ve signed former NFL defensive end Jamaal Westerman, who also happens to be Canadian, we’ve already got a proven ratio-changer on D. But having depth in Canadian talent on defense would offer us options for different looks, and it’s still very intriguing.

 

Come Tuesday evening, Kyle, Head Coach Mike O’Shea, CEO Wade Miller and our communications staff, will all convene in a boardroom in the lower level of Investors Group Field.  We’ll have the TSN feed on the main projector and a conference call system in the middle of the table, eagerly waiting to hear the words, “Winnipeg, you are now on the clock.” Much like I wrote a month ago, and maybe even more so today, who we will select is still up in the air.  

One thing is certain: When all is said and done around 9:00 p.m. on Tuesday night, the future of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers will be a little brighter than it was three hours before we began.