NFL teams claim two Canadians

Ankou, Auclair find homes after getting cut

Eli Ankou showed up Sunday morning at Texans’ headquarters, in a dry area of flood-ravaged Houston, not even 24 hours after being waived.

The rookie interior defensive lineman from Ottawa hoped 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 in a phone interview Sunday afternoon, while still in Houston. “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 a fellow undrafted Canadian rookie, tight end Tony Auclair with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, on a 53-man roster heading into Week 1.

NFL clubs on Saturday finished hacking their rosters from the spring/summer limit of 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 practicesquad contracts, both with the teams they’d been practising with since the spring: offensive guard/tackle Brett Boyko of Saskatoon with the newly relocated Los Angeles Chargers, and ex-CFL linebacker Bo Lokombo of Abbotsford, B.C., with the Baltimore Ravens.

Two other Canadians eligible for an NFL practice squad were still waiting for such an offer 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 sixthyear 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 long-snapper LouisPhilippe (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.