CLAYPOOL WAVES CANADIAN FLAG IN NFL DRAFT
B.C. native is first player from this country off big board in 2020 draft’s second round
The chase for Chase Claypool didn’t last long on Friday night.
And it turns out Ben Roethlisberger was in on the chase.
Claypool — a tall, muscular, speedy wide receiver — became the first Canadian since 2011 to be taken in the NFL Draft as high as Round 2 when the Pittsburgh Steelers selected the Abbotsford, B.C., native 49th overall, 17 picks into the second round.
“It’s unbelievable. It’s all a dream come true,” Claypool told Postmedia about going to the Steelers, in a phone interview from his parents’ home in Abbotsford just minutes after NFL commissioner Roger Goodell announced the news.
The 6-foot-4¼, 230-pound wideout from the University of Notre Dame had been viewed by most draft experts as a likely Friday night selection, either in Round 2 or 3. Such experts rated him around the 13th-best wide receiver in what’s being billed as the best and deepest class of wideouts in NFL Draft history.
The 21-year-old wound up being the 11th receiver taken.
The Steelers made him their first selection of this year’s draft, after not having had a pick in Round 1 on Thursday.
The draft concludes Saturday with Rounds 4-7, a five- or sixhour marathon starting at noon EDT (TSN).
Ottawa’s Neville Gallimore, a defensive tackle from the University of Oklahoma, was drafted in the third round (82nd overall) by the Dallas Cowboys.
Claypool will catch footballs from future Pro Football Hall of Fame quarterback Roethlisberger, Pittsburgh’s starter since 2004 and a two-time Super Bowl champion.
Not even 10 minutes after being picked by the Steelers, Claypool said Roethlisberger already had called him.
“He just wanted to welcome me to the Steelers,” Claypool said.
“He told me that he and (head) coach (Mike) Tomlin were talking about me, and I was on his board. He tried to help make that come into play there. And then as soon as I can, I’m going to head out there — and we’re going to start doing some drills together.”
Roethlisberger, 38, has said this spring he already is throwing footballs again, since undergoing surgery on the elbow of his right throwing arm in September, which ended his 2019 season after two games. “Big Ben” said he expects to be fully ready to partake in summer training camp without limitations.
Claypool began playing youth football at age eight in Abbotsford — the easternmost city in Greater Vancouver that hugs the international border with Washington state, 187 kilometres due north of Seattle.
No Canadian since the Philadelphia Eagles took guard Danny Watkins of Kelowna, B.C., 24th overall had been picked in the NFL Draft as high as Claypool.
“It feels really good,” he said of the honour of being a role model for the next wave of up-and-coming Canadian football players.
“I hope to be a person that future players can look up to, or come to for advice or anything like that.”
FIRSTS IN THE SECOND
No safeties, no guards and no tight ends were selected Thursday night in Round 1. And only one running back.
Early on in Round 2 the backlogs at those positions began to gush.
The first two safeties were grabbed five picks in. Alabama’s Xavier Mckinney went to the New York Giants at No. 36, and at No. 37 the New England Patriots went again with an unexpected choice with their first pick of a draft, taking a rare NCAA second-level (FCS) skill-position player in Lenoir-rhyne University’s Kyle Dugger.
Two more safeties went off the board before the middle of Round 2, with LSU’S Grant Delpit going to Cleveland and University of Minnesota’s Antoine Winfield Jr. to Tampa Bay.
The second running back of the draft, Georgia’s D’andre Swift, went to Detroit at No. 35. Many draftniks rated Swift as the best back this year.
The Indianapolis Colts snared the third RB at No. 41, Wisconsin’s Jonathan Taylor — a fabulous offensive addition for the Colts, despite fumbling way too much in college.
The first guard taken was Robert Hunt of Louisiana by the Miami Dolphins at No. 39 overall.
The first tight end taken was
Notre Dame’s Cole Kmet, by the Chicago Bears at No. 43 overall. Kmet was a close friend of Claypool’s at Notre Dame, and the two worked out together through most of the four-month pre-draft process in California.
SOUTHEAST DOMINATES
It’s not secret that teams in the Southeastern Conference (SEC) this century have come to increasingly dominate U.S. college football, led by Alabama and LSU. It’s in part because an increasingly higher percentage of the top high school prospects play in the Deep South.
Similarly, we’ve seen SEC schools’ talent dominance reflected in the NFL Draft — this year as never before in the first round.
On Thursday night 15 of 32 selections in Round 1 — nearly half — went to an SEC school. Leading the way was defending national champion LSU with five, followed by Alabama with four.
Ohio State of the Big Ten had three players picked, and that excludes No. 1 overall QB Joe Burrow of LSU, who transferred there after three years of riding the bench at OSU.
The SEC also was represented in Round 1 by Georgia (two players), Auburn (two), Florida (one) and South Carolina (one).
NO SHOCK, RATINGS ROCK
The first night of the NFL Draft drew its largest Canadian TV audience since 2012, according to Bell Media, parent company of TSN.
An average audience of 188,000 viewers watched on TSN — more than twice as many as last year, and the most since 2012.
Nearly 1 million Canadians (917,000) tuned in at some point, and that excludes those who might have watched on free basic cable channel ABC, or on pay sports channel NFL Network.
In the U.S., a record average audience of 15.6 million viewers tuned into the draft on ABC, ESPN, NFL Network and ESPN Deportes, according to the league. The previous record was 12.4 million viewers in 2014.