{"id":635346,"date":"2026-04-29T01:31:14","date_gmt":"2026-04-29T01:31:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/635346\/"},"modified":"2026-04-29T01:31:14","modified_gmt":"2026-04-29T01:31:14","slug":"ottawa-redblacks-take-former-manitoba-bisons-offensive-lineman-vaccaro-first-overall-in-cfl-draft-winnipeg","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/635346\/","title":{"rendered":"Ottawa Redblacks take former Manitoba Bisons offensive lineman Vaccaro first overall in CFL draft &#8211; Winnipeg"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Ottawa Redblacks selected Purdue offensive lineman Giordano Vaccaro first overall in the <a href=\"https:\/\/globalnews.ca\/tag\/cfl\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">CFL<\/a> draft Tuesday night.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/70c8fc80.png\" alt=\"\" style=\"position:absolute;width:1px;height:1px\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer-when-downgrade\"\/><\/p>\n<p>The six-foot-two, 307-pound Winnipeg native spent 2025 at Purdue, appearing in all 12 games and seeing action on offence and special teams. He played 22 snaps in the Boilermakers\u2019 season finale, a 56-3 loss to eventual NCAA champion Indiana on Nov. 28.<\/p>\n<p>Vaccaro spent his first three collegiate campaigns at Manitoba, cracking the Bisons\u2019 starting lineup as an 18-year-old freshman. Twice he was an all-Canadian (2023, \u201924) and in 2024 was U Sports football\u2019s top down lineman before transferring to Purdue.<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" width=\"170\" height=\"225\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/1767930311_275_national.jpg\" alt=\"Get breaking Canada news delivered to your inbox as it happens so you won't miss a trending story.\"\/><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\tGet breaking National news<\/p>\n<p>Get breaking Canada news delivered to your inbox as it happens so you won&#8217;t miss a trending story.<\/p>\n<p>The Toronto Argonauts followed by selecting Queen\u2019s offensive lineman Nicklas Henning. The six-foot-six, 298-pound Milton, Ont., native was an Ontario University Athletics (OUA) all-star and second-team all-Canadian last year for the Yates Cup champions.<\/p>\n<p>Henning began his college career as a tight end. He recently accepted invitations to attend the Indianapolis Colts and Las Vegas Raiders rookie mini-camps.<\/p>\n<p>Story continues below advertisement<\/p>\n<p>The Edmonton Elks took Rutgers linebacker Dariel Djabome third overall. The six-foot-two, 237-pound Montreal native appeared in 12 games last season, recording 71 tackles (27 solo, 4.5 for loss), two sacks, two forced fumbles and two fumble recoveries.<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\tMore on Sports<br \/>\n\t\t\tMore videos\n\t\t<\/p>\n<p>Djabome appeared in 47 career games at Rutgers, registering 192 tackles (81 solo, 13 for loss) with 5.5 sacks, four forced fumbles, two fumble recoveries and a pass knockdown.<br \/>Then at No. 4, the Winnipeg Blue Bombers took Wake Forest defensive lineman Nuer Gatkuoth. The six-foot-three, 237-pound Edmonton native recorded 39 tackles (17 solo, 8.5 for loss), six sacks and a forced fumble in 12 games last season.<\/p>\n<p>Gatkuoth began his NCAA career at Colorado State (2022-24). He recently accepted an invitation to the Denver Broncos\u2019 rookie mini-camp.<\/p>\n<p>The Hamilton Tiger-Cats then took Jonathan Denis, an offensive lineman at Louisiana Tech with the fifth selection. The six-foot-three, 316-pound Denis played 12 games at right guard last year and was born in Montreal but raised in Florida.<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t&amp;copy 2026 The Canadian Press\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Ottawa Redblacks selected Purdue offensive lineman Giordano Vaccaro first overall in the CFL draft Tuesday night. The&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":635347,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[437],"tags":[49,48,521,522,520,237469,82,2705],"class_list":["post-635346","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-manitoba-bisons","tag-sports","tag-winnipeg-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/635346","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=635346"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/635346\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/635347"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=635346"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=635346"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=635346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}