Esks select Laval lineman in draft .
Laval’s huge offensive lineman one of six selected in first round
There are two things to know about Danny Groulx. The first? “I’m a tough guy,” the Edmonton Eskimos’ first-round draft pick said over the phone from Quebec City on Tuesday night, with a party buzzing in the background. The second? “I’m a winner.” Combined, those seven words are like golden tickets raining out of the mouth of a six-foot-six, 320-pound offensive tackle who could fill a major need for the Eskimos in their pursuit of a Grey Cup.
The Laval University student played in four Vanier Cups over a five-year stretch, winning three times. He was the fifth-ranked prospect in the Canadian Football League’s Scouting Bureau’s final listing in April. In a Canadian draft loaded with O-linemen, Eskimos general manager Ed Hervey didn’t expect to have the option of choosing a highly skilled one at seventh overall.
Hervey was noticeably upbeat when he spoke with the media after making the selection.
“We were going through the draft process (Tuesday) morning and we took all of the offensive linemen off of the board,” he said shortly after making the selection with head coach Chris Jones. “We feel very good about Danny. He’s the kind of player we want; he’s tops on our board. There were a lot of good offensive linemen out there, but we feel … he’s ready to come in and compete right away and to play right away.”
At March’s CFL draft combine, Groulx was fifth among all offensive linemen in the bench press and shuttle events. He was a member of Team East in this year’s Canadian Interuniversity Sport’s East-West Bowl. Most important to Hervey is that toughness Groulx brings and loves to talk about.
“I’m a physical guy, I like to hit people,” Groulx said. “I have a blue-collar attitude and I think this is what teams like about me. I like to play hard through the whistle. I’m a tough, physical offensive lineman and I think you want to have tough, physical offensive lineman on every team. For me, I think it’s a great fit for Edmonton.”
With Simeon Rottier nursing a knee injury that will keep him out of training camp next month and the loss of versatile Matt O’Donnell to the NFL, the Eskimos’ need for Canadian O-lineman was magnified in the off-season.
“We had him ranked really high and we feel like he’s a guy who has the size and athleticism to come in and give us immediate help,” Jones said. “I’ve watched a lot of film on him, (Eskimos offensive co-ordinator) Steve McAdoo has watched a ton of film on him and he’s one of the larger guys that was in the draft and he gives us immediate help with our interior offensive line.”
The Eskimos surprised people with their secondround selection (14th overall) of University of Alberta Golden Bears offensive lineman David Beard. The fourth-year veteran spent his first two years on the defensive line before head coach Chris Morris put him on the other side of the ball. With 16 games on the O-line on his resume, he was a secondteam all-Canadian in 2014.
At six-foot-six and 296 pounds, Beard certainly has the size to be the offensive tackle that Morris projects him becoming in the CFL.
“He’s very athletic, good size,” Hervey said. “We’ve had a chance to watch him move around a lot. We know he had an injury to the hand, but we have all the information that we need. We brought him in a couple weeks back to work him out. We’re very comfortable with that pick.”
“I’m beyond thrilled,” Beard said. “The opportunity was something I was hopeful for, but it was a quiet hope. Being a local kid, it was something that I was really, really pleased with. I know it’s a very special opportunity and I’m very excited.”
Offensive linemen were the stars of the first round in Tuesday’s draft, being the top three picks and six of the nine selections overall.
The Ottawa Redblacks took the University of Connecticut’s Alex Mateas with the first overall pick. An Ottawa native, Mateas was a starter for two of his three years with the Huskies.
A pair of Calgary Dinos Olinemen were scooped up next. Sukh Chungh went second overall to the Winnipeg Blue Bombers and Sean McEwen was nabbed by the Toronto Argonauts at third.
McEwen, who was pegged to go 10th overall in the final CFL draft rankings in April, jumped up considerably. Chris Ackie, an extremely athletic defensive back out of Wilfrid Laurier University, went fourth to the Montreal Alouettes after mock drafts had him going to the Eskimos at seventh.
The B.C. Lions surprised many CFL pundits by taking Laurier defensive lineman Ese Mrabure-Ajufo at five, then the Saskatchewan Roughriders took Manitoba Bisons receiver Nic Demski sixth overall.
After the Eskimos took Groulx, Montreal took another O-lineman in Richmond Spiders’ Jacob Ruby. The Calgary Stampeders closed out the first round by selecting Groulx’s teammate, Laval O-lineman Karl Lavoie.
The Eskimos broke away from the offensive line in the third round and took Calgary Dinos linebacker Adam Konar 25th overall. The six-foottwo, 225-pounder is the son of Kevin Konar, who played linebacker for the Lions from 1980-89. They stayed local in the fourth round, choosing McNally Tigers graduate and Fort Lewis (Colo.) receiver Andrew Johnson 34th overall. With no picks in the fifth or sixth rounds, the Eskimos closed out their selections at the draft by taking linebacker Blair Smith out of Angelo State 60th overall.