Auclair goes from Laval to roster of NFL’s Bucs
Undrafted nose tackle from Ottawa signs after failing to crack Houston roster
Anthony Auclair will be in uniform for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers Sunday when the team kicks off its 2017 season before a sold-out crowd in Miami.
The 24-year-old Quebecer learned Saturday he made the Buccaneers opening-day roster, making him the first product of Université Laval’s football program to crack an NFL roster.
“Right now Facebook is going crazy … I think people are really proud,” Auclair told The Canadian Press.
“For me, it’s hard to realize what’s going on right now because I’m always focusing on the next game, the next day and the next practice.
“Back in my second year at Laval, I was watching other tight ends from other colleges in the U.S. and I knew I had the shape, the skill set … but like I said, I’m always focusing on the next day and never project myself in the future like that. For me, it’s a day-to-day thing.”
Auclair hails from Notre-Dame-des-Pins — a village in the Beauce region — and his rare combination of speed and stature make him an ideal tight end. He held an open workout in Quebec City last March, drawing scouts from 17 NFL teams.
Though Auclair wasn’t selected in the NFL draft last spring, Tampa Bay took a chance on the six-footfive, 256-pound athlete.
Competition for a spot at tight end was intense as Auclair had to contend with rookie O.J. Howard — who was selected 19th overall in the NFL draft.
Had he failed to make the Buccaneers’ 53-man roster, Auclair would have reported to the Saskatchewan Roughriders of the Canadian Football League.
The Riders selected Auclair in the fourth round of the 2017 draft.
Auclair will act as a sort of understudy to Cameron Brate, who tied for the league lead in touchdowns among tight ends last season. Though Auclair showed promise during preseason — nabbing three receptions for 17 yards — he’ll likely see most if not all of his gameplay on special teams.
Eli Ankou showed up Sunday morning at the Texans’ headquarters, in a dry area of floodravaged Houston, not even 24 hours after being waived.
The rookie interior defensive lineman from Ottawa was hoping to sign paperwork that would land him on the NFL team’s practice squad, after working his butt off in vain for four months to land a spot on the Houston Texans’ 53-man roster heading into the start of the regular season this week.
Then Ankou got the news that more than a thousand newly cut NFL hopefuls on Sunday were desperate to hear, but didn’t.
He’d been claimed by another NFL club.
“To my surprise, when I showed up this morning to file the paperwork and all that, someone just congratulated me,” the 23-yearold said over the phone from Houston on Sunday afternoon.
“I was like, ‘What for?’ And they were like, ‘Hey, you just got picked up by the Jaguars!’ ”
Indeed, the Jacksonville Jaguars claimed the former UCLA star off waivers by Sunday’s noon EDT deadline.
Ankou thus joins fellow undrafted Canadian rookie, tight end Tony Auclair of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, on a 53-man roster
heading into Week 1. On Saturday, NFL clubs finished hacking their rosters from 90 down to 53. It’s not uncommon, but unlikely, for undrafted rookies to survive spring and summer practices and make that cut. Three Canadians tried this year, two succeeded (if you count Ankou’s Sunday rebound).
The third, former University of Manitoba guard/tackle Geoff Gray of Winnipeg, was waived by the Green Bay Packers on Saturday, but he signed Sunday to the New York Jets’ practice squad.
Two other Canadians besides Gray signed practice squad contracts, both with the teams they had been practising with since the spring: offensive guard/ tackle Brett Boyko of Saskatoon signed with the newly relocated Los Angeles Chargers, and ex-CFL linebacker Bo Lokombo of Abbotsford, B.C., joined the Baltimore Ravens.
Two other Canadians eligible for an NFL practice squad were still waiting for an offer on Monday afternoon: defensive lineman Mehdi Abdesmad of Montreal (who had training camp stints this summer with both the Tennessee Titans and Buccaneers) and Toronto wide receiver Tevaun Smith (who until reaching an injury settlement with the Indianapolis Colts in late August had been with that team for 16 months).
The other Canadian on the roster bubble was offensive tackle Austin Pasztor of Tillsonburg, Ont., a sixth-year NFLer who appears to have made the Atlanta Falcons after previous stints with Minnesota, Jacksonville and Cleveland.
Entrenched Canadian NFLers include: Kansas City Chiefs starting right guard Laurent Duvernay-Tardif of Mont-Saint-Hilaire, Que.; Dallas Cowboys starting defensive end Tyrone Crawford of Windsor, Ont.; Cowboys longsnapper Louis-Philippe (L.P.) Ladouceur of Montreal; Seattle Seahawks punter Jon Ryan of Regina; Baltimore Ravens starting defensive end Brent Urban of Mississauga, Ont.; Seahawks backup tight end Luke Willson of Lasalle, Ont.; New York Giants backup centre/guard Brett Jones of Weyburn, Sask.; New Orleans Saints backup defensive lineman David Onyemata of Winnipeg; and Detroit Lions receiver/ returner T.J. Jones, who was born in Winnipeg. Finding out you’ve made a Week 1 NFL roster is what these athletes live for.
Ankou’s reaction to getting claimed by the Jaguars?
“I was, like, speechless,” Ankou said. “That was a complete curveball. I was really excited to hear it. That was pretty cool. “Honestly, I had no idea.” Being on a 53-man roster doesn’t mean Ankou will dress for every game, or even any game. Teams can dress only 46 players.
By an unfortunate coincidence, Ankou’s gain was Stefan Charles’ loss. On Sunday afternoon the Jaguars cut Charles, a fifth-year interior defensive lineman from Toronto, to make room for Ankou. Charles had been Jacksonville’s second string nose tackle. Ankou presumably will fill that role; indeed he’s built for it at 6-foot-3, 330 pounds.
Ankou’s father emigrated in 1989 from the West African country of Togo, and his mother was raised on a farm in Field, Ont.
He was born in Ottawa South and grew up there and in the Ottawa suburb of Orleans.
The CFL Scouting Bureau ranked him the No. 2 prospect for May’s draft but, because he’d signed as a free agent with the Texans two weeks previously, Ankou slid down teams’ draft boards. The Ottawa Redblacks selected him 26th overall in the third round.
On Sunday, Ankou said the past week-and-a-half for him has been “completely crazy.”
A week ago Saturday, the day Hurricane Harvey began hammering the Upper Texas Coast with historic amounts of rainfall, the Texans played a pre-season game in New Orleans. The Texans couldn’t fly home with airports closed so they flew to Dallas, where they worked and practised until Wednesday, when Thursday’s pre-season game against the Cowboys was cancelled.
“I did see areas that were hit hard by flooding, and it was crazy to see in person,” he said.
This is how mind-numbing the past week has been for Ankou: on Sunday afternoon he couldn’t recall who had delivered his lightning bolt of good news regarding the Jaguars, nor with which Jacksonville club official he had spoken to briefly on the phone.
“I forget who it was. It was somebody,” an overwhelmed Ankou said.
“Honestly, it’s all just a blur. It’s moving very fast. I’m kind of just going through the motions right now. Once I get there, I can get my bearings. I’ve never even been to Jacksonville before.
“Right now I’m in Houston, packing my bags, getting ready for Jacksonville. I’m heading out tonight.”
The Jaguars’ first opponent on Sunday? The Houston Texans, at NRG Stadium in Houston.
So back to Houston Ankou will go.