It’s not always as easy as taking the best player available
By Lowell Ullrich,
Vancouver Province
The caller talking to Mike Benevides is a reporter and at this time of year, that represents a welcome change.
“You wouldn’t believe the calls now from people trying to give you [bad] information,” said the Lions director of Canadian scouting and special teams coach.
For weeks leading up to today’s CFL Canadian college draft, Benevides becomes an info sleuth of a different sort. Often without asking, the man in charge of setting the club’s draft order gets calls from agents, former coaches and players trying to determine and talk up many of the 910 available draft selections.
What the Lions say they want to know from their callers above most everything else, however, is the character of their prospective employee.
The filtering process is no less exhaustive than that undertaken by NFL clubs, but done with a lot fewer resources. And while the NFL made player character a hot-button topic this spring by introducing a good-conduct policy, the Lions have placed a high value on that trait all along.
Without the time and finances to do much personal scouting, Benevides and fellow position coaches rely heavily on a network of associates to help them make the right picks.
“There’s three types of people,” said Benevides. “I’ve got the coach who loves their kid and never says anything negative, the ones who are super-critical, and the people who have a background in the [CFL]. I’ve learned to lean on the trainer, the assistant coach or the player on our team that just played with [the prospect].”
Like most teams, the Lions then assign a one to five rating on each player based on attributes in five categories to make their picks.
If a player rates 25 points, he’s probably in the NFL.
The coach said a player with a rap sheet wouldn’t automatically be bypassed.
“But I can’t get by a player with a bad work ethic,” said Benevides. “An old coach of mine once said you don’t want a bunch of choir boys, but the kid is going to represent your organization. You’ve got to understand if the individual can deal with the stresses. Character is a critical element.”
Whatever the draft formula, the Lions have done a reasonable job turning their picks into productive parts.
B.C. hit a dry spell in 2004-05, when just four of 12 drafts made a CFL roster. However, coach Wally Buono has thrown several veterans overboard in the winter so that 2006 first-rounders Jay Pottinger, Ricky Foley and Dean Valli are given a chance this year.
Buono has taken players with perceived bad character in the past because his team had done its homework, recalling the 1990 fifth-overall pick for the Calgary Stampeders of all-Canadian slotback Dave Sapunjis.
“People turned their nose up at him because he went skiing instead of to an evaluation camp. We knew he just beat to his own drum,” Buono said.
That kind of information gathering is critical in what the Lions will do at the draft table today.
