REDBLACKS WEIGH OPTIONS
College draft May 12 has intrigue
Twenty-nine of 32 National Football League teams sent representatives to the University of Connecticut Huskies pro-day evaluation session on Tuesday. They timed cornerback Byron Jones in the 40-yard sprint, unofficially, in 4.36 seconds.
Of nine Canadian Football League franchises, only the Toronto Argonauts and Calgary Stampeders had staff in Storrs, Conn., presumably to get a good look at Alex Mateas.
Mateas weighs more than 300 pounds, so his 40 time wouldn’t threaten that of Jones, but he ranked third among the prospects on display with 23 reps in the 225-pound bench press, plus he’s from Ottawa, and skilled Canadian offensive linemen are like gold for CFL clubs.
So, it wasn’t as if the Redblacks didn’t know about Mateas and hadn’t already noticed his work over three seasons in the centre of the Huskies’ offensive line. They’re just not sure the No. 2 prospect on the CFL Scouting Bureau’s mid-winter rankings will be on the market when they make the first pick in the May 12 college draft. And they will make that selection.
“Absolutely, and that will be our plan come May 12th as well,” general manager Marcel Desjardins said Tuesday. OK, so who will it be? “You’ll know May 12th at about 8:05 p.m.,” Desjardins said.
The Redblacks traded last year’s No. 1 pick to the Calgary Stampeders for centre/guard Jon Gott, then made two other deals to get back into the first round and selecting linebacker Antoine Pruneau fourth overall.
Partly because of a rule change that standardized the draft eligibility of Canadian and U.S. university football players, the 2015 crop is regarded as deep in prospects, particularly offensive linemen.
As always, though, the possibility of losing prospects to the higher-paying NFL hangs over CFL evaluators. That’s why the CFL draft is more than a week after the NFL draft and after an expected rush of signings of undrafted free agents.
“Talking to (Mateas) at some point is something that we will do,” Desjardins said. “But, again, I think his focus right now is on the NFL.”
Thanks to a 2-16 record that landed them at the bottom of the CFL standings last season, the Redblacks also have the first pick in the second round (10th overall) and four other rounds, but their third-rounder was dealt last year to Calgary for defensive lineman Justin Phillips.
The strategy won’t be strictly “best player available” or “position-or need-based drafting,” but a mix, Desjardins said. “Part of the equation is the guys that are going to be drafted or signed in the NFL. Even if one or more of those guys are at the top of our (draft) board, are we at that point going to take a chance not to see a player for a year or multiple years — Probably not.
“Not that we wouldn’t draft them later, but certainly not in the first round.”
Mateas didn’t participate in the CFL’s pre-draft evaluation sessions last weekend, but the 24-year-old wasn’t the only highly rated prospect to bypass the three days of physical testing, interviews and drills at Toronto. Also absent were top-ranked offensive lineman Brett Boyko of Saskatoon and the University of Nevada-Las Vegas and No. 4 running back Tyler Varga of Kitchener, Ont., and Yale University.
However, their game videos have all been screened by CFL staff already, individual university proday exhibitions are widely reported and there was a teleconference for non-attendees during the draft combine. For clubs seeking even more background than that, contacting head and position coaches of college or university teams and reaching out to players directly is standard operating procedure.
Whoever the Redblacks select on May 12, they have to be counting on getting a boost, particularly in the early rounds. Their first three picks in both 2013 — when they were limited to U.S. college players with remaining eligibility — and 2014 all appeared in regular-season games last year.
The goal is to enhance roster depth as part of the process of taking the Redblacks from being a 2-16 expansion team to one worthy of a CFL playoff spot.
“We want to make the playoffs this year,” head coach Rick Campbell said. “We are not making guarantees because a lot of hard work and a lot of things go into it, but that’s our mindset with our players and our coaches and everyone around here.
“We have added some pieces to the puzzle (through free agency). We have a few more weapons now. We have a whole bunch of work to do, but we feel that, if we put in that hard work and we coach these guys up and they play hard, there’s no reason that we can’t be like everyone else and find a way to get in the playoffs.”