Elks focus on quarterbacks as rookie camp kicks off

Quarterbacks were in the spotlight as the Edmonton Elks opened rookie camp Wednesday at Commonwealth Stadium.

And if there was ever a question of whether or not the position will be the most important battle to watch over the next three weeks, consider the group makes up a full 10 per cent of the 60 players on the field right now.

Alphabetically, they are Regina product Mike Beaudry (Idaho), first-round draft pick Tre Ford (Waterloo), Keon Howard (UT Martin), Cardale Jones (Ohio State), Kai Locksley (Texas El Paso) and Khalil Tate (Arizona), as well as the University of Sherbrooke's Anthony Robichaud, who is part of the Canadian QB Internship Program.

And that's not even including the pair of veteran arms belonging to Taylor Cornelius and Nick Arbuckle, last year's returnees who were helping put the rookies through the paces during drills Wednesday, but weren't dressed in practice attire or otherwise participating.

As such, the club didn't feel the need to offer either of them up to media requesting interviews afterward, no doubt in an effort to keep at arm's length any politics involved in ongoing discussions over the collective bargaining agreement between the CFL and its Players Association, which threatens to interrupt camp proceedings.

In fact, Cornelius and Arbuckle appeared to have been the only veteran quarterbacks reporting for any sort of duty this week, as they were given exemption by the PA to be in attendance.

“We have instructed all veteran quarterbacks not to attend the voluntary sessions held this week and to align with the decision our association will make regarding training camps,” read a statement from the Players Association Sunday. “The directive has been given across the league with the exception of one club, where there is concern by our association over a pattern of retribution toward players by team management.”

Don't expect Cornelius or Arbuckle to take a snap ahead of main camp Sunday, either. But Elks head coach and GM Chris Jones, who declared an open competition for the starting job, wanted them here to have all hands on deck as soon as possible.

“They need to understand what we're doing to give themselves an opportunity to make our football team. They've got to hear the terminology and that type of thing,” said Jones, who wasn't interested in what other teams were doing with their veteran QBS Wednesday.

Unless the topic of conversation has to do with details on the exemption that led to the Elks veteran quarterbacks' presence Wednesday, that is. Or what could have possibly been meant by “a pattern of retribution towards players,” for that matter.

“I'm not speaking about that today,” Jones told reporters on the field. “That's for the league to talk about.”

When it came to the numbers game going on out on the field, there was no beating around the bush when it comes to how big his quarterback presence is, especially for a rookie camp.

“Yeah, we do have a lot of guys here, but we've made a lot of changes in our roster, so again, we just want to have the best players available so the numbers are rather large,” Jones said. “We've just got to do a really good job of getting enough reps so that you can see them have the ability to throw the ball, and then the off-the-field stuff becomes very important as far as who knows what we're doing? Being able to challenge them mentally, because it's not just throwing the ball. It's not just about being able to take a dropback and being able to deliver the football. If it were that easy, we'd probably have a whole bunch of people lined up. It's the ability to get the group in and out of the huddle, to control the group and the guys that can kind of settle in and be able to manufacture offence.”