To trade or not to trade: Elks GM has plenty of options heading into CFL draft
Chris Jones says he has fielded offers for some of his 2024 CFL draft picks, but hasn’t found one to his liking.
However, the Edmonton Elks head coach and general manager is keeping an open mind up to the start of the draft tonight.
Jones currently has six of the first 31 picks in the CFL draft, including the first selection overall. Jones will also open both rounds of the league’s global draft this afternoon.
“There’s been some calls about the first one, there’s been calls on the second [No. 10] and even the third [No. 18],” Jones said Monday afternoon. “I guess they think we’re stupid or something [because] they give us offers we have no interest in even considering.
“The good thing is every year there’s at least two in the first round that you go, ‘Oh my God, what are they doing,’ because people view things differently.”
The abundance of early selections will allow Jones to select players who could bolster Edmonton’s Canadian content this year. But Jones, who has nine overall picks, can also have an eye toward the future and take Canadians who will be attending NFL training camps.
Or Jones could deal any of his early selections to potentially land a veteran CFL player. Edmonton last made the league playoffs in 2019 and has won a combined 11 regular-season games the past three years.
This isn’t the first time Jones has held the first overall selection. In 2016, as Saskatchewan’s head coach/GM, he kept it to take Oklahoma offensive lineman Josiah St. John.
Two years ago, Jones traded the first overall selection to Montreal for the fourth pick and rights to Canadian offensive lineman Carter O’Donnell, who’s currently with the Arizona Cardinals. Alouettes GM Danny Maciocia then took Syracuse linebacker Tyrell Richards first overall.
All nine teams will have firstround selections. Following Edmonton will be: Ottawa; Saskatchewan; Calgary; Toronto; B.C.; Hamilton; Winnipeg and Grey Cup-champion Montreal.
The Blue Bombers have the most overall picks (10).
Should Jones keep the first pick, the sentiment is he’ll use it on a receiver. Nick Mardner, a sixfoot-six, 206-pound Oakville, Ont., native, is the top-ranked receiver on the CFL Scouting Bureau’s list of top-20 prospects at No. 7 and has NCAA experience at Hawaii, Cincinnati and Auburn.
Mardner wasn’t taken in last weekend’s NFL draft but received an invitation to the New York Giants rookie minicamp.
Laval receiver Kevin Mital moved up 10 spots to No. 10 in the final Scouting Bureau list. The six-foot-one, 215-pound Mital was the ’22 Hec Crighton Trophy winner as Canadian university football’s top player.
Arguably the most pro-ready prospect is Cincinnati linebacker Joel Dublanko. The six-footthree, 240-pound American spent time with the NFL’s New Orleans Saints and Seattle Seahawks before playing in 2023 with the USFL’s Philadelphia Stars.
He was deemed eligible for the ’24 CFL draft because of a Canadian parent.
But Jones could also look to the future as four of the topeight Scouting Bureau players were selected in the NFL draft. Top-ranked Isaiah Adams of Ajax, Ont., an offensive lineman at Illinois, was a third-round pick of the Arizona Cardinals while tight ends Theo Johnson (Penn State) and Tanner McLachlan (Arizona) were selected by the New York Giants and Cincinnati Bengals, respectively.