Nye: Riders thinking ahead after quiet night at the draft
The Roughriders must feel pretty good about their national players after the team’s quiet draft.
Going into the draft, Chris Jones said he’d look at the offensive line and defensive line and go from there.
He stayed true to his word, as four of his five picks were linemen.
Jones has a knack for taking some risks when it comes to the draft, and he stayed true to that too with his fifth overall pick being offensive lineman Dakoda Shepley out of UBC.
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Shepley was even surprised he went high as he’s got a contract signed with the NFL’s New York Jets and is hoping he can stick in the NFL.
Shepley’s ability, however, wasn’t ignored by Jones and his staff as he tested very well at the combine and with an NFL team’s commitment, you can see if Shepley ever does arrive in Saskatchewan, it’ll be a great reward to defend the risk.
It was a pick that was indicative of the fact the Riders aren’t desperate in finding talent that can contribute right away.
Jones has built the national depth on the team and has the starters in place with decent backups behind them.
Along the offensive line, the Riders have Brendon LaBatte, Dan Clark and last year’s second round pick Dariusz Bladek ready to take on a starter’s role if need be. The Riders could also be looking at fielding just two starting national offensive lineman after picking up Travis Bond from Winnipeg.
The one spot that has the Roughriders looking for someone to step up is at linebacker with Henoc Muamba now in Montreal. Yes, they have Sam Hurl and last year’s first round pick Cameron Judge along with a half dozen other linebackers. But none of the players have shown they can have a similar impact to Muamba.
While his middle linebacker spot will likely be an international position, if Chris Jones can keep a national starter in the linebacking corps, he’ll be happy.
That brings us to the team’s 14th overall selection, Micah Teitz. The University of Calgary linebacker wasn’t even ranked in the top 20 until after the combine. Teitz showed off some incredible numbers when put up with his peers at the linebacking position.
Teitz likely won’t make an impact right away on defence but definitely has the athleticism to contribute on special teams.
One pick in this draft that shouldn’t go unnoticed for the Riders is Brandyn Bartlett. He was a fifth round supplemental draft pick last year, so the Riders were missing their own fifth rounder. Bartlett could look like a steal as a fifth round pick.
The rest of the draft was addressing depth on the defensive line and offensive line.
The Riders drafted two defensive linemen to ensure they have enough behind starting national, Zack Evans.
Right now, Evans is backed up by Eddie Steele and Makana Henry. But if injuries pop up, Jones needs to be able to maintain a spot on the defensive line in his ratio.
Bishop’s Mathieu Breton and Saint Mary’s Tresor Buama-Mafuta went in the latter rounds. Mafuta recorded an incredible 28 reps on the bench press that caught the Riders’ attention.
With their final pick, the Riders simply added some depth at offensive line as Christopher Smith was taken in the final round.
By no means will this draft blow anyone away. And by the sheer lack of volume, I doubt I’d see Saskatchewan getting favourable draft grades.
The major criticism comes with the fifth overall pick as Shepley likely becomes the third straight first round pick Chris Jones has drafted that won’t be here for day one of training camp.
Jones won’t mind as he didn’t believe he saw many in terms of CFL ready players to contribute right away, so he was willing to take a bit of a risk.
What the Riders have now in terms of national depth is much stronger than the group that Jones took over in 2016 and while it didn’t get much help on Thursday, it’s still a good enough group of Canadians to compete in the West Division.
