Bombers at the Draft: Part 4

It’s hardly a scene Kyle Walters and the Winnipeg Blue Bombers brain trust are at all accustomed to, nor will they likely make it a habit in the future.

The Canadian Football League Draft goes Thursday and the Bombers – barring a trade – will sit on their hands early, not having a first-round selection for just the third time in the last 10 years.

Yes, a team that got so much production from its Canadian content en route to last year’s Grey Cup championship will play the spectator in the early stages of the annual homegrown talent grab, having yielded their first-round selection to the Toronto Argonauts, 9^th overall, as part of the Zach Collaros trade last October.

So, without that pick the Bombers will be the last CFL team to call out a name, waiting patiently until the 18^th spot and the last selection of the second round.

Previously, the Bombers forfeited their first-rounder in 2016 by selecting Garrett Waggoner in a 2015 supplemental draft and then traded out of the first-round in 2018 with the B.C. Lions. That move saw Winnipeg swap its seventh and 16^th selections for the 12^th pick that year and the Leos’ first pick in 2019 – the 4^th overall choice they used to select Drew Desjarlais, just before they used their own choice to grab Jonathan Kongbo at the fifth overall spot.

The current regime also scored in the first round in earlier drafts, selecting two offensive linemen who played critical roles in the franchise rebuild in Matthias Goossen (2014) and Sukh Chungh (2015) – both with second overall selections.

The 2017 draft also featured two first-round picks, with the Bombers missing on Faith Ekatitie first overall, but then selecting Geoff Gray eighth overall and seeing him make 12 starts on last year’s championship squad.

Bombers at the Draft: Part 1

Bombers at the Draft: Part 2

Bombers at the Draft: Part 3

There are a couple of factors to consider as the Bombers ready for Thursday’s draft, during which they will have seven selections: 18^th, 37^th, 39^th, 46^th, 55^th, 64^th and 73^rd.

First, it will be intriguing to see how not having a first rounder impacts what the club does with their 18^th overall selection. Last year the Bombers were coming out of an offseason that saw Goossen retire to join the Delta Police Department with Chungh (B.C.) and Taylor Loffler (Montreal) both leaving in free agency. That left the club without three of its required seven starters, a development that was further impacted by an injury to Pat Neufeld on the eve of camp.

Michael Couture (10^th overall in 2016) stepped in for Goossen at centre, Desjarlais became a starter as a rookie, while Gray and undrafted Canadian Cody Speller also helped offset the losses on the offensive line. Jeff Hecht, now an unsigned free agent, replaced Loffler at safety before the Bombers shifted import Brandon Alexander over to that spot in the second half of the season, a move which left just one starting Canadian spot on defence and shared by veteran Jake Thomas and Kongbo once he recovered from a knee injury that kept him shelved until late July.

And now, with a stockpile of Canadian O-linemen already in house – a crew that also includes Tui Eli, drafted last year, and former Argos Chris Kolankowski – the Bombers aren’t in desperate need to find more help up front.

As well, in addition to Desjarlais, Kongbo and Eli, last year’s draft class also delivered Brady Oliveira (14^th overall), Connor Griffiths (25^th), Nick Hallett (61^st) and Kerfalla Exumé (70^th) and injected a great deal of youth into the club’s overall Canadian content.

All this isn’t to say the Bombers couldn’t use some more homegrown help – no team ever has too much Canadian content – but will the team’s draft gurus opt to use that 18^th overall spot to augment the club’s depth by simply taking the ‘best player available’ regardless of position, or will they instead draft by positional need?

The second factor to consider is what kind of player might the Bombers be able to land with the last pick in the second round. The current roster features three second-round picks in Oliveira (2019), Couture (2016) and Jesse Briggs (2014). Dating back to 2014 and the first draft class under the watch of Walters, the club has had a mixed bag of success in the second round.

The impact of the NFL draft and the subsequent signing of Canadian prospects by teams down south to free-agent contracts also comes into play here, traditionally forcing players down in the selection depending on whether CFL teams believe they have a shot at sticking or will come back home to play.

The Bombers could find a future starter, even at the 18^th spot, come Thursday. Recently CFL second-round finds include Juwan Brescacin (Calgary, 15^th overall in 2016, now in Toronto); Lemar Durant (Calgary, 18^th overall in 2015, now in B.C.); Brett Jones (Calgary, 16^th overall in 2013; CFL’s top lineman in 2014, now in NFL with Minnesota) and Cleyon Laing (Toronto, 9^th overall in 2012; that pick considered a second-rounder as the Bombers forfeited their first rounder that year after selecting Kito Poblah in a 2011 supplemental draft).

Let’s end with this as a point of emphasis: one of the greatest second-round picks in Bombers history was Darryl Sampson. Selected 16^th overall in 1986, Sampson not only played 10 years with the Bombers, he was an integral part of two Grey Cup championship teams and was inducted into the club’s hall of fame in 2004.

And if the Bombers can score with another second-round gem like Sampson, the 2020 draft would be considered another touchdown.