Johany Jutras/CFL.ca
TORONTO — For Kyle Walters, it’s nice not having to wait.
The Winnipeg Blue Bombers’ general manager holds the first overall pick in the 2017 CFL Draft on Sunday — a change from last year when the Bombers didn’t pick at all in the first round.
“At this point, we’ve got a very good idea of what we want to do at number one,” said Walters. “The nice thing for us this year is we don’t have to wait.”
The draft gets under way on Sunday night at 7 p.m. ET in Toronto. TSN will deliver complete live coverage, which will kick off with two hours of live television across TSN, followed by a live stream of the later rounds beginning at 9 p.m. ET through TSN.ca and the TSN GO mobile app for TSN subscribers.
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Bombers general manager Kyle Walters holds two picks in the first round (Matt Smith/CFL.ca)
For the eight other GMs, the waiting game is only just beginning. The same goes for the hundreds of draft-eligible prospects. On Sunday, all of those combines, pro days and hours locked up watching tape will finally pay off.
“We’ve sat down and looked at different scenarios, (such as if) people pick in front of us and pick a guy who we’re not expecting or whatever, which direction we would go,” said Riders head coach and general manager Chris Jones. “I feel very prepared in what we’re doing.”
The Bombers are widely expected to take Brampton, Ont. native and Iowa defensive tackle Faith Ekakitie with the top pick while Jones, in his second year at the helm of the Riders, holds the second pick in the draft.
Last year, Jones took offensive lineman Josiah St. John first overall, a pick likely necessitated by need. The Riders’ ring leader says his team has plenty more options this time around.
“We’re looking at a lot of different options,” Jones said. “We looked at last year’s starting roster and I feel like we’re a little bit deeper at some of the positions . . . but we’ve still got holes to fill so we’re going to keep working on it.”
Picking third will be the BC Lions, who acquired the selection last May in the trade that sent Vernon Adams Jr. to the Als. Like the Bombers, who own the first and sixth picks in the draft, Wally Buono also has two picks at his disposal as the Lions pick third and seventh.
The Tiger-Cats and Eskimos pick fourth and fifth, respectively, while Calgary and Ottawa cap off the first round with the eighth and ninth picks.
While Ekakitie looks to go first, what happens next is anyone’s guess. The Riders could opt to trade the pick or take one of several ‘futures’ — players who may not be available some time down the road due to their NFL aspirations. Mississippi’s Justin Senior falls under that category after being picked in the sixth round of the NFL Draft while Manitoba’s Geoff Gray, Laval’s Antony Auclair and UCLA’s Eli Ankou have also signed deals south of the border.
There’s also been plenty of buzz around those who could contribute now, including offensive linemen Mason Woods and Dariusz Bladek. Woods is a 6-foot-9 guard out of Idaho while Bladek, a product of Bethune-Cookman, has experience in NFL camps.
Bladek, one of the draft’s most intriguing storylines going in, was granted dual-citizenship last year but not in time for the 2016 CFL Draft. The New Jersey native has been out of football the last year but is looking forward to having his name called.
“You’ve got to embrace it,” said Bladek. “We just got done with the long process and now it’s just waiting for that call, waiting for that moment that we get to find ourselves a new home and just getting pads on again.
“There’s no better feeling than knowing you’re going to have an opportunity to really make an impact for somebody. That’s an amazing feeling.”
The Toronto Argos and Montreal Alouettes are the only teams without a pick in the first round. Argos general manager Jim Popp owns the first pick in the second round while Als GM Kavis Reed will pick third.
The Argos shipped their first round pick to Winnipeg last September along with T.J. Heath in a trade for Drew Willy.
In a draft pool characterized for its depth rather than top-end talent, things could still work out for both the Argos and Als.
“I think there’s some depth in this draft,” said TSN’s draft guru Duane Forde. “There’s a group of guys within the first couple of rounds where a lot of years you look and go ‘the first nine picks probably come from this group of 12 guys and the top 18 guys come from this group of 25 guys that you can narrow it down to.
“I think it’s a little more wide open, particularly with the first round this year where, to fill those nine picks, your list would be of 15 guys.”
While the focus on the draft will always be on the O-linemen, receivers Nate Behar (Carleton) and Danny Vandervoort (McMaster) will garner plenty of attention on Sunday.
Vandervoort has been closely linked to the Ticats at four due to his local ties while Behar could end up anywhere. If both go in the first round, it would mark the second straight year multiple receivers have gone in the first nine picks of the draft.
“You always want to be best at your position so this is a huge step to me being a starter and hopefully one day I’ll be able to reach that,” said Vandervoort, a Barrie, Ont. native and the fourth-ranked prospect on the latest CFL Scouting Bureau ranking.
“You wake up every day knowing you have something to look forward to. You’ve just got to embrace that and it’s really exciting knowing you’ve got the chance to compete with the best in the country.”
Over the last two years, offensive linemen have made up 11 of 17 first-round selections (64.7 per cent) while an O-lineman has gone first overall in three straight seasons. Since 2002, meanwhile, a quarter of all draft picks played on the offensive line.
This year, Woods, Gray, Bladek, Qadr Spooner, Braden Schram and Jean-Simon Roy are among highly-touted offensive linemen in what’s considered a weaker class at that position.
Farhan Lalji will host TSN’s exclusive live coverage of the 2017 CFL Draft joined by Forde, who covers the CFL Draft for the 13th time in his career. The panel also features CFL on TSN analyst Chris Schultz, CFL insider Dave Naylor and TSN Radio host and Hamilton Tiger-Cats radio play-by-play voice as well as CFL.ca’s very own Marshall Ferguson.
