Imagine a four-day job interview in which your every move is studied, analyzed and over-analyzed by dozens of eyeballs.

Your height matters. So does your weight. You need to run fast. Lift heavy reps. Jump high and, as well, jump far.

Then you go mano-a-mano against other competitors and — while all this is unfolding — also be available for a series of sit down conversations with prospective employers in which you are occasionally grilled with more questions than a suspect in a crime spree case.

Welcome to the Canadian Football League Combine.

“It’s an event I had dreamed about since I was a kid — I wanted so much just to be able to participate,” said Blue Bombers defensive back Ethan Ball — who attended last year’s event in Regina — in a chat this week with bluebombers.com

“It can be overwhelming if you let it be. And you spend your whole offseason leading up to it prepping for some testing drills you’ll likely never do again. Then when it’s over you start worrying about where you’ll be drafted and when you are drafted when fit is most important.

“Nobody getting drafted in the CFL is signing a $5 million signing bonus,” he added. “So, whether you third overall or 54th overall, what’s most important is the fit where you go. Nobody cares when you get to your team whether you were drafted in the seventh round like Nick Hallett or if you go first overall. That’s what matters more than anything.

“The CFL is all about getting a chance in a camp and then proving yourself from there.”

The 2026 CFL Combine runs this week in Edmonton, with team interviews with prospects beginning Thursday, on field testing on Friday with two practice sessions on Saturday and a final one Sunday morning.

The event will feature 95 players eligible for the CFL Draft on April 28th, with five players eligible for the CFL Global Draft a day later also participating. That list features five Winnipeggers in receiver Nathan Udoh and offensive lineman Victor Olaniran of the University of Manitoba, centre Gio Vaccaro (who played with the Bisons before spending last year at Purdue), defensive back Trae Tomlinson of the University of Louisiana-Lafayette and defensive lineman Nathan Carabatsakis of Robert Morris University.

The testing events feature the bench press along with the 40-yard dash, 3-cone, short shuttle, broad jump and vertical jump with a good explainer of the purpose of each drill here courtesy CFL.ca:

CFL Combine 101: The basics behind every drill

The Blue Bombers’ 2025 CFL Draft class, FYI, provided a dandy haul for the club, with linebacker Connor Shay (1st round, sixth overall), linebacker Jaylen Smith (2-15), OL Ethan Vibert (3-27), WR Joey Corcoran (5-39), LB Lane Novak (5-45) and Ball (6-54) all suiting up for games last year. Second-round pick Taylor Elgersma, a quarterback out of Wilfrid Laurier, attended camp with the Green Bay Packers last year and is now with the Birmingham Stallions of the UFL while eighth-round selection Iwinosa Uwubanmwem, who will be in camp this year.

Prospects prepare for the event for months/years leading up to it. But it’s also a physical grind and potentially a stressful torture test. So much is at stake, as teams weigh what they see at the Combine against what a player’s game film reveals.

Again, every rep matters.

“The proudest moment I had at the combine — and no one would have known this but myself — came after I didn’t run the 40 I wanted,” Ball said, who ran a 4.66. “I felt tense and could have run faster. Then immediately after that we go into the broad jump and my first jump sucked. I knew what I had done in training and my first jump was 8-9 inches less than I had jumped the week before.

“All of a sudden, I’m sitting there rattled and thinking, ‘Am I going to let this day and this opportunity get away from me?’ I took a deep breath and told myself, ‘Hey, you’re fine. It’s one or two bad reps. It’s going to happen in football. How are you going to bounce back?’ My next jump I had one of my best jumps even through training. Then it was all about getting back into the drills for the rest of the weekend.

“If you don’t jump the vertical you want, just try to move on to the next drill.”

Each team requests a certain amount of prospect for one-on-one sessions during the Combine, although some leave those conversations with players from their own backyard for later in the spring and before the draft.

Ball said he worried most about the testing and felt confident in his ability to handle whatever might be tossed at him in the interview portion of the weekend.

“Every team approaches it differently,” he said. “Some teams are more formal. They were videotaping you; you have the coach and GM off to one side and all these people sitting at a table and it felt like you were under the spotlight. There were Xs and Os questions — what do you do in this scheme? What do you know about this special teams scheme? Some tougher questions sometimes.

“The Bombers… it was Coach (Mike) O’Shea and (GM) Kyle Walters sitting down at a table and it was more about trying to find out what kind of guy you are, how much do you love the game, what was your upbringing like, who are you closest to in your life, what are you like outside of football.

“That’s what stood out to me. It really felt like three dudes who you knew loved the game who were talking about their passion for football. It felt more like a conversation than a pop quiz and trying to grill you on Xs and Os.

“I remember this very clearly,” added Ball. “They asked me how I thought my testing went. I was like, ‘I was disappointed in my 40 — I would have liked to have ran faster.’ And Coach O’Shea said, ‘Yeah, and I wish I was prettier. We all wish things were different sometimes. It is what it is. Now you move on and continue with your interview process and the rest of your weekend.’

“That really stood out with me, and it embodies that combine weekend as a whole.”

And if Ball could offer any advice to the 100 prospects gathering in Edmonton this week it would be this: be honest, be authentic, don’t sweat the mistakes and leave it all out there.

“The other thing is to just enjoy the process,” he said. “Just going to the Combine was one of my dreams. It can be a fun weekend to rub shoulders with the legends of the game that will be around the hotel like John Hufnagel or Coach O’Shea or all these guys you get to sit down and do interviews with. So, enjoy it. Don’t put too much pressure on it and be yourself.

“The first day of practice I was going down on one of the special teams drills and I tweaked my groin. I was like, ‘Oh no… this is brutal.’ But then it was like, ‘this is a job interview that you get once in your life. Suck it up. Put some Rub A535 on it, wrap it up, take an Epsom salt bath and go for another 24 hours to get this thing done and get drafted.’

“I was proud to fight through it and the fact that I went and tried to get every rep that I could get because it was a once in a lifetime thing.”