O-linemen could make big return to first round; skill players getting better by the year; character top of mind for Riders.<\/p>\n
The tides, they could be-a-changing when the first round of today’s\u00a0CFL Canadian Draft is all said and done.<\/p>\n
Speaking with Barney Shynkaruk on the SportsCage radio show Friday, TSN analyst Farhan Lalji suggested a return to the offensive line-heavy days of yore could very well be in the making.<\/p>\n
From 2021-25 CFL teams selected offensive linemen with 27 per cent of their first-round picks (12 out of 44).<\/p>\n
By contrast, the previous five drafts saw teams use fully half of their picks (22 out of 44) on O-linemen.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we\u2019re going to see linemen rise really quickly again,\u201d Lalji said, highlighting prospects like Purdue’s Gio Vaccaro and Niklas Henning from Queen\u2019s. \u201cWe\u2019ve seen a little bit less of that in the last couple of years where it\u2019s been (less) heavily O-line dominated, and I think it will probably be a little bit more so (this year).\u201d<\/p>\n
Linebackers may also be leading candidates to fill out the first round according to Lalji.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think you\u2019ve got a couple of really, really good linebackers that are available in this year’s draft that have ratio change ability that are tied to them,\u201d he said. \u201cEric Rascoe (Angelo State) and Darius McKenzie (South Alabama) and a couple of these guys, there’s some guys there that could, Dariel Djabome (Rutgers), they could be guys that can change a ratio for a CFL team.\u201d<\/p>\n
‘More pro-ready every single year’<\/p>\n
Conversely, Lalji\u2019s TSN colleague Glen Suitor told SportsCage radio last week that he sees the talent level of Canadians in the so-called skill positions improving by the year.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know many people say \u2018Why doesn\u2019t TSN televise the CFL draft?\u2019 Well we do now and we do the first couple of rounds … but it\u2019s such a unique job,\u201d Suitor said, noting the longer-term historical trend in Canada toward drafting offensive and defensive linemen in the first round, compared with the NFL draft\u2019s relative emphasis on high-end offensive players.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow that\u2019s going to sound like a sleight to the O and D line but it\u2019s just not as sexy a TV show when you\u2019re not drafting quarterbacks and big-name receivers who\u2019ve had a great college career.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s more and more now we\u2019re starting to draft the odd quarterback. We\u2019re starting to draft in the Canadian draft, certainly drafting Canadian receivers that are more pro-ready every single year. So it\u2019s starting to change and it has for the last three, four, five years.\u201d<\/p>\n
Suitor also discussed the timing of the CFL\u2019s draft in relation to the NFL\u2019s, which typically takes place a week earlier.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe timing of it is deliberate because the NFL draft going first is important for any Canadian that might get drafted to the NFL,\u201d said Suitor. \u201cIf you\u2019re Saskatchewan and you\u2019re looking at your draft board and you\u2019ve got a guy in mind that might get drafted in the NFL and then does, that changes your strategy immediately.<\/p>\n
\u201cDo you take a guy now first or second or third round in the Canadian draft if he\u2019s been drafted in the NFL and you probably won\u2019t see him for three to five years? Because if you\u2019re drafted, especially in the top three to four rounds, you\u2019re making the team.\u201d<\/p>\n
Reynolds: Character a top priority<\/p>\n
As for the Saskatchewan Roughriders specifically, team president and CEO Craig Reynolds was asked last week at a business luncheon in Saskatoon about the team\u2019s draft strategy and how it may change with respect to the recent release of receiver Ajou Ajou.<\/p>\n
\u201cCharacter is a key component of our draft evaluation and I know (general manager) Jeremy (O\u2019Day) and (head coach) Corey (Mace) value character as much as anything, as much as physical attributes and traits, and obviously they have to be good football players, but character is really important to us,\u201d said Reynolds.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"O-linemen could make big return to first round; skill players getting better by the year; character top of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":633794,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[437],"tags":[49,48,521,522,520,237069,82],"class_list":["post-633793","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-cflcfl-draftglen-suitorcraig-reynoldsfarhan-laljisaskatchewan-roughrders","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/633793","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=633793"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/633793\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/633794"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=633793"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=633793"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=633793"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}