51 Mexican players will strut their stuff for scouts

A weighted lottery will determine which Canadian Football League team selects the first Mexican player in a groundbreaking draft on Monday in Mexico City.

“We thought it would be another fun element,” CFL commissioner Randy Ambrosie told Postmedia on Thursday. “Under traditional rules the team with the poorest record would normally pick first. What that team is going to get is nine balls in the bin.”

That team is the Toronto Argonauts. And, in following the waiver priority list, the Montreal Alouettes will have eight balls in the bin, the Hamilton Tiger-Cats seven, Edmonton Eskimos six, B.C. Lions five, Winnipeg Blue Bombers four, Saskatchewan Roughriders three, Ottawa Redblacks two and the Grey Cup champion Calgary Stampeders just the one.

The length of Monday ’s draft has yet to be determined, and will be influenced by the level of talent on display at Sunday ’s player combine at Estadio Azul. Fifty-one Mexican players from the country ’s lone professional league and university ranks will work out for CFL scouts and staff.

They will perform a 225-pound bench press, vertical jump, broad jump, 40-yard dash, three-cone, short shuttle and positional drills. They will also be interviewed by CFL team personnel.

“Once the coaches and GMs have had a chance to do their assessment, we’ll sit down as a group and determine how many rounds of the

draft there will be,” said Ambrosie. “We are thinking of two different categories. We want the teams to draft players they think can potentially come to training camp and make a difference on a CFL roster this year.

“And the second group will be a group of young men who might not be ready to come to a CFL camp this year, but this would allow the teams to create a relationship with these young men and it might connect them to their coaches and start a discussion about some development requirements around getting bigger and stronger, and working on techniques that would help these players get better.”

The original plan had been for the nine CFL teams to draft up to two players each. It now looks far more likely there will be four players chosen per team, for a total of 36.

The positional breakdown of the 51 combine invitees is as follows: 12 receivers, 10 defensive linemen, seven DBs, six LBs, five offensive linemen, four kickers, three RBs, three QBs and one fullback.

Receiver Aldo Narvaez is the smallest player on the combine list, at five foot six, 154 pounds. Offensive lineman Dario Martinez is the biggest, at six foot two, 330.