EDMONTON — Kyle Walters and the Winnipeg Blue Bombers draft gurus came to the Canadian Football League Combine this week seeking some answers to some compelling questions.

They got that and then some. Yet now the real homework begins in the weeks ahead in advance of the CFL Draft on April 28th.

With that in mind — and as the CFL Combine wrapped up early Sunday afternoon — here are some key takeaways from Walters, the Blue Bombers GM…

-HOW THE CFL COMBINE IMPACTS THE DRAFT BOARD

Not all of the CFL’s top 2026 Draft prospects were gathered in Edmonton. The list of the missing includes those bound for the NFL and those who relied on the Pro Days at their own colleges. The NFL Draft goes April 23-25th and what happens then — plus in the free-agent signing frenzy that follows which sees players signed for camps — clearly impacts what CFL teams will do with their draft a couple days later.

“You can argue that this clears it up, but it could also be said it makes the logjam murkier, too. There’s a lot of information and that’s all this is — you gather the information and then you take a deep breath. There’s another month to sort through everything.

“You watch the combine film, dig up all the information on the guys that are NFL slam dunks or maybe those that you’re not sure will stick there,” Walters offered. “Then it’s about ranking the players within their groups and ranking the defensive players, the offensive players and then the overall group. This week was a really good information-gathering session, for sure.

“Some players certainly helped themselves this weekend. Some players that you see of film that were pretty good football players you go, yeah, the numbers here confirm that. Then there are others who for whatever reasons didn’t have success statistically and then you see them and say, ‘Huh, that player looks like a CFL player’ and it forces you to go dig a little bit deeper to ask about what happened in university. It’s an interesting process sifting through that.”

-CLARITY AT PICK #4 OR…

Winnipeg has the fourth overall selection after Ottawa, Toronto and Edmonton. The Blue Bombers will then pick 13th, 20th, 24th, 33rd, 42nd, 51st, 60th and 69th.

“When you look at your roster you have a plan as to who you think might be there at #4,” said Walters. “There’s positions that you might be thinking about, but then it’s, ‘Well, which players are going to be there at #4 and do they match the position?’ That’s the thought process right now.

“You never want to grab a guy at #4 just because it’s a position need — that’s a dangerous road to go down. We’re just going to have to wait until all the NFL interest shakes down and we’re really not going to know this until 48 hours before our draft.”

-THE WINNIPEG PRODUCTS

Four Winnipeggers took part in the CFL Combine while a fifth — OL Gio Vaccaro, who might go first overall — was here for interviews but did not test or compete after recently attending his pro day at Purdue.

Here’s a snippet on each of them from Walters:

WR Nathan Udoh, University of Manitoba:

“He’s big, he’s physical and I saw a couple plays on special teams and team period on Saturday where he’s got an opponent by the chest plate and driving him into the ground and freakin’ shaking him like a rag doll. It’s what he needed to do to separate him from some of the other receivers.”

OL Victor Olaniran, University of Manitoba:

“He did well. He showed some progression. Now, truthfully, I spent most of my time watching the defence and special teams side. But he competed. He’s athletic and he’s tough. He did well in Waterloo (at the Invitational Combine) to get a chance here and it was a big step up in competition. We’ll go back and watch the film on him.”

DB Trae Tomlinson, University of Louisiana-Lafayette:

“We interviewed him here. He had the biggest smile. He’s the biggest Bomber fan. Great young man. He showed what he had to do. Super-quick feet. He’s a big under-sized (5-8, 176) but he went out and covered well and showed his quickness. That made him look a little bit different than some of the other bigger, slower DBs.”

DL Nathan Carabatsakis, Robert Morris University:

“Big kid (6-3, 252) who can play inside and can play outside (end and tackle). He’s played a lot of snaps. He’s an interesting guy on the D-line and the good thing is it’s not an overly deep group at D-line so he’ll get a good long look from somebody.”

OL Gio Vaccaro, Purdue University/University of Manitoba:

“We didn’t interview him here but don’t need to sit down with him to know what kind of young man he is, what kind of family he comes from. He’s a top-notch player and a top-notch young man. There’s not much new we’re going to learn from a 10-minute talk with him.”