It\u2019s a most unconventional job interview.<\/p>\n
On Friday, the CFL will hold its invitational combine in Waterloo, Ont., with over 80 players vying for spots at the league\u2019s national combine in Edmonton on March 27-29. Representatives from all nine teams will attend both, jotting down results and observations in preparation for the 2026 draft on April 28.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re looking for good football players, obviously,\u201d said Dwayne Cameron, the Calgary Stampeders\u2019 Canadian scouting director and U.S. scout. \u201cBut you\u2019re looking for guys you can project athletically that the success you\u2019ve seen them have on film will translate against the bigger, faster, stronger players they\u2019ll have to compete against at the professional level.\u201d<\/p>\n
On Friday, participants will undergo traditional physical testing: 225-pound bench press; vertical jump; broad jump; 40-yard dash; three-cone and short shuttle. They\u2019ll also don pads for positional work and one-on-one drills.<\/p>\n
The day will begin at 7 a.m. ET with player registrations, followed by height, weight, hand, arm and wingspan measurements.<\/p>\n
CFL representatives will not only see how players deal with on-field adversity in testing and drills at both combines but also speak to them. Like many league officials, that\u2019s an important part of draft prep for Jim Barker, the Toronto Argonauts player-personnel director.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou want to see if the young guy is accountable,\u201d he said. \u201cYou look at what do they want to do after they\u2019re done playing.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor example, if a guy is put on the practice roster, would he rather stay or go back to school, stuff like that. To me, it\u2019s about trying to see how much a guy actually loves football.\u201d<\/p>\n
Teams usually assign draft-eligible players grades during their pre-draft evaluation. Those classifications can fluctuate based on how individuals do at the combine.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf a guy wins his rep, how is he going to react,\u201d Barker said. \u201cIf he loses badly, how\u2019s he going to come back from it? <\/p>\n
\u201cI think you can get a taste just watching players. There are certain parameters you must have to play in this league.\u201d<\/p>\n
But much of draft preparation is spent watching hundreds of hours of game film. Danny Maciocia, the Montreal Alouettes GM, says that\u2019s crucial in his player evaluation.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the end of the day, the film matters,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re trying to play football so you have to determine if this guy can play football.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf I\u2019d made some of our picks over the last few years based on just the combine, chances are I wouldn\u2019t have made those picks.\u201d<\/p>\n
Case in point was 2022 when Montreal drafted Calgary receiver Tyson Philpot in the first round, ninth overall. Philpot enjoyed a stellar career with the Dinos, helping them win the \u201919 Vanier Cup.<\/p>\n
But he didn\u2019t perform well at the CFL combine, posting a 40-yard dash time of 4.59 seconds and 30.5-inch vertical jump. Yet since joining the Alouettes, Philpot has 205 catches for 2,574 yards and 17 TDs in 52 regular-season games and was the top Canadian in their \u201923 Grey Cup victory.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll of those games, all of that production over three or four years (in university) supersede what you\u2019re going to give me (at combine),\u201d Maciocia said. \u201cThat\u2019s where you have to be careful \u2026 you\u2019ve got to circle back to the film.\u201d<\/p>\n
Barker agrees.<\/p>\n
\u201cGame tape is the biggest thing,\u201d he said. \u201cThere\u2019s a certain kind of football player you want and that\u2019s what we\u2019re trying to find. <\/p>\n
\u201cThose guys who do the things we look as (being) necessary.\u201d<\/p>\n
Should a player post surprising combine results, Maciocia said that either means re-evaluating his game film or finding tape if the individual flew completely under the radar.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s definitely merit with the combine and how you perform and go about it,\u201d he said. \u201cBut again, we\u2019re not going to pick a guy based just on that.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re going to pick him based on his body of work.\u201d<\/p>\n
Many players spend their off-season doing combine training to achieve positive results. And when some post terrific results, it can create a social-media firestorm with suggestions the player is worthy of first-round consideration.<\/p>\n
But Cameron said CFL officials are good at eliminating that noise.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf I don\u2019t see that kind of speed and athleticism on film, it\u2019s actually more of a red flag,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s because I have to ask, \u2018If he was going against lesser competition in college and I didn\u2019t see him dominate with those traits, what makes me think he\u2019s going to be really good at the next level when the athletic gap between him and his opponents has shrunk significantly?\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cBut I think most of us understand testing doesn\u2019t necessarily equate to what you see on the film. If you get to this level, you\u2019ve got to be able to do a pretty good job of deciphering.\u201d<\/p>\n
This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 5, 2026.<\/p>\n
Dan Ralph, The Canadian Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s a most unconventional job interview. On Friday, the CFL will hold its invitational combine in Waterloo, Ont.,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":533089,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[437],"tags":[49,48,521,522,520,82],"class_list":["post-533088","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cfl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-canadian-football-league","tag-canadianfootballleague","tag-cfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/533088","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=533088"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/533088\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/533089"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=533088"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=533088"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=533088"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}