Pre-Draft Interview Row

Anyone who has sat across from a potential employer for a job interview understands there are certain common practices in the whole process.

There are questions about work experience, goals, strengths, weaknesses and blah, blah, blah. It can be almost a mundane song-and-dance routine and difficult for a candidate to stand out from the crowd.

Imagine, then, getting put through the proverbial wringer by a series of football coaches, GMs and scouts who want to test not only your football knowledge, but then bring up any transgressions, fixate on weaknesses which have shown up on film, and come at you with some truly bizarre questions.

Oh, and Part Two of the interview comes over the next two days with a series of physical tests and mano-a-mano challenges that can bring a man to his knees mentally and physically.

So… stress much?

Canadian Football League teams will be putting close to 60 of this country’s best draft prospects under the microscope over the next few days at CFL Week here in Winnipeg. And the intensity gets cranked up Friday with interviews.

Here’s how it works: teams know in advance which players have been invited to the National Combine, and after doing their film work, then a provide a list of which prospects they’d like to interview. Those players are then brought into a room filled with football types for individual interviews and asked everything from their relationship status, their injury history, and their comfort level in moving away from home.

The Blue Bombers have plans to interview 48 players with GM Kyle Walters, head coach Mike O’Shea and Ted Goveia, the Assistant GM/Director of Player Personnel in the room. Prospects will also be quizzed by defensive and offensive assistants, depending on their position.

“A big one in our league is players have eligibility. Are they done school? Will they go back to school?” said Walters earlier this week. “Does their academic program allow them to join a CFL team? If they make a practice roster, would they rather go back to school?

“You just don’t get a lot of time with these guys. You pull out the necessary information and then we like to draw out of them their passion. Mike and I talk about it all the time. These Canadian guys that are going to succeed really have to have a passion for the game of football and a love for the game. We have them talk about football, have them talk maybe about their family. But we really want to see the guys pull out their passion for the game of football because those are the ones who are going to have an opportunity to succeed, in my opinion.”

Walters, O’Shea and the Bombers aren’t out to trick anyone with any of those from-left-field-type questions. Some examples from the recent NFL Combine:

• University of Texas at San Antonio defensive lineman Marcus Davenport was asked, ‘If you were a fruit, what kind of fruit would you be?’ His answer: ‘An apple, because an apple a day keeps the doctor away.’
• Alabama running back Bo Scarbrough was asked if he thought God was an Auburn fan. He said, ‘No, I definitely don’t think he is.’
• Texas punter Michael Dickson was asked by the Seattle Seahawks to do a staring contest.
• Austen Lane, a former NFL defensive lineman, was asked at his combine if he had to murder someone, would he use a gun or a knife. He was also quizzed on whether he was a boxers or briefs man.

So you get the picture.

“There was nothing too abstract for me,” said Blue Bombers linebacker Thomas Miles, who was drafted by Toronto in 2014. “I did get questions about my relationship status and whether I was comfortable with leaving Winnipeg. I know some of the higher-ranked prospects were asked to demonstrate their football understanding.

“My interviews were a lot more casual, almost more like character assessments. Toronto, the team that drafted me, was the only team that really asked me about playing linebacker.”

Ultimately, the be all and end all for a player is what he can do between the white stripes of the football field. But his performance in the interview room can also be a factor in separating one factor from another.

“Mike and I had a big meeting (Tuesday) about that,” said Walters. “Some of these young men, it’s their first opportunity in a situation like this and everybody has a different personality. So, because a player is a little bit more aloof or laid back or nervous, you really can’t hold that against them in that situation.

“Every year you have players who come in who might not have the best reputation as an individual or as a teammate… any of those things that are warning signs for players. We need to overlook that and trust that when you get into this locker room the quality of individuals we have that are vested with this organizations and their backgrounds (will be a positive influence).

“Because we have such a good locker room, certain players that may not have the best reputations coming in, I believe talent will trump that and we will get the most out of those players despite their reputation.”