One of the important team-building avenues in the Canadian Football League are open tryouts held across the USA. With thousands of football players across North America looking for work in the professional ranks, CFL tryouts give them the opportunity to show their athletic ability and prove themselves worthy of being signed to a contract.
For the last of our five tryouts this year, the Blue Bombers scouting crew headed to Chicago.
With registration for the tryout beginning at 8:30 AM on a Sunday morning, I woke up at our hotel in Chicago at 6:00 AM to review a handful of players who were expected to be in attendance and prepare for the long day ahead.
After a short review, I met our Assistant GM/Director of Player Personnel Ted Goveia downstairs for breakfast at 7:00 AM to fuel up since we would not have the opportunity to eat again until after the tryout was over and need to be mentally sharp.
Then we make a quick 20-minute drive and arrive at the tryout to begin setting up for registration. As players file in and registration opens, clipboards, pens and signup sheets are passed out to those in attendance while we pump up footballs and get the field ready for the testing portion.
After about an hour of registration, we head to the field to test the 40-yard dash and 5-10-5 shuttle times of each player in attendance. We separate the players into four groups and set up two 40-yard dashes and two shuttle drills with one scout or coach manning each drill. On this particular day, I took one of the 5-10-5 shuttle drills and was in charge of timing the defensive backs and linemen groups.
When all of the players finished with the testing portion of the workout, we split into larger groups and worked the players out.
For the Chicago tryout, I took the offensive and defensive linemen. We started with a get off drill and slant/pull drill to help assess the initial quickness of each player. Then, I put the offensive linemen through a mirror drill to gauge their ability to slide their feet and redirect, which is of particular importance in the CFL with defensive linemen starting a full yard off the ball. Afterwards, the linemen matched up and showed off their hand quickness and accuracy with a hand-to-hand combat drill.
Once we got through those three drills, we lined up five offensive linemen against four defensive linemen to do one-on-one drills with a rotating group. By continuously changing the alignments and matchups between offensive and defensive linemen, we are able to see how players match up at multiple position and how they stack up athletically against each other. With no pads on, players are encouraged to show their finesse game rather than their brute strength and are judged on their quickness off the ball, ability to bend the corner, and array of pass rush moves and counters.
After a few hours of positional drills with short water breaks in between, we hustled over to meet as a group with Ted, who broke down the process of how players would receive their results and be contacted in the future.
Once we finished up with the workout, we collected all the equipment strewn around the field and assembled our notes. Then we quickly chatted with attending players to give them feedback on their performance or guidance as to what their future plans should entail.
At about 2:30 PM, after a very long several hours, our group of Bombers staff members in attendance headed over to a nearby burger joint to enjoy some food and discuss some of the players we liked during the tryout.
Now, with food in our stomachs and an understanding of which players we want to get in touch with, we head back to the airport to catch flights home. After a few delays, I managed to make it home around 1:00 AM after quite a long but fulfilling day.
Next step is combing through the film of the players who impressed at the tryout to find the next Blue Bomber diamond in the rough!
