Johany Jutras/CFL
CFL.ca Staff
TORONTO — TSN’s Duane Forde is one of the most knowledgeable CFL Draft insiders in the business, and this week he took the time to answer some of the pressing questions about Tuesday’s CFL Draft.
You can watch the first two rounds of the draft on TSN starting at 8 p.m. ET, while the rest of the draft will be available online through TSN’s website or TSN Go.
Here’s what Forde had to answer on some of the draft’s biggest questions:
With some players having signed in the NFL, who is the best player in this draft that hasn’t signed south of the border?
“I think going along with the way that this draft has been characterized, I’d say the best guys are offensive linemen. I would say Sukh Chungh is a guy that stands out. Danny Groulx, Alex Mateas – those are the guys that jump out particularly at that position group.”
“I think when you start looking at other groups in terms of defensive guys, Chris Ackie from Wilfrid Laurier – he’s a standup defender and is a guy that you would label a little bit like an Antoine Pruneau, where he’s the clear number one non-lineman that’s going to be available as far as the guys who are coming out right away on the defensive side of the ball.”
“Then you’ve got Daryl Waud as well as the defensive linemen, and of the receivers for me the ongoing debate for a lot of people will revolve largely around guys like Lemar Durant, Nic Demski and to a lesser extent you may hear guys like Addison Richards. But again, the headliners are certainly the offensive linemen.”
Who is the best O-lineman?
“Of the guys that haven’t signed, the guy that I would take first if it were me would be Sukh Chungh.”
Why is this draft better than the previous drafts in the past 10 years?
“The number one thing that has impacted this draft in many ways I would say is the change of the draft rules that occurred after Ottawa was able to pick redshirts in that 2013 draft. That was the last year for redshirt juniors to be eligible for the draft. For guys at American schools, now the draft year coincides with the completion of their eligibility, so what you’ve got this year is a number of guys pushed into this draft that under the old rules would have been eligible for last year’s draft. You’ve got a bunch of those guys in this class, CIS guys as I mentioned Sukh Chungh who I think is one of those guys. There was a change to the CIS rules as well and he’s another guy that moved from last year to this year.”
“One of the other big things when you look at the overall depth of this draft has been the change in the CBA regarding what qualifies guys as nationals or as Canadians, where now it’s based on citizenship rather than residency. You’ve got a number of guys in this draft class and probably a couple others who will be eligible for the supplemental draft later in May who previously wouldn’t have qualified as non-imports under the old CBA, but because they are Canadian citizens whether by birth, parentage or residence, whatever it may be, that you’ve got a number of those guys boosting that class as well. Those are the factors that have influenced this class a little bit.”
“In a general sense in terms of rating a class, we always say in the CFL draft the offensive linemen are to this draft what quarterbacks are to the NFL Draft. When you have a good offensive line class, it automatically makes it a good draft class here.”
How will players receiving NFL contracts change the outlook of the draft?
“One of the big quarks of the CFL Draft is it’s kind of the one draft in pro sports, because of the existence of the National Football League, where you can pretty much bet that the best prospect will never go first overall because odds are the best Canadian kids in any given year are going to have interest down south. That’s going to be a mitigating factor in how high a pick you can use on them here.”
“A lot of the talk was about the number of Canadians being invited to NFL mini-camps and the concern over that. My reaction was the opposite, where there wasn’t concern over that because in most cases, as we’ve seen so far, rarely did those mini-camp invitations result in contract offers – the guys that they really want to get under contract are priority free agents and they typically get done fairly quickly after the draft. The mini-camp invitations aren’t necessarily a big concern.”
Will anyone take a chance on Brandon Bridge?
“I do think they will. I guess you have to start by explaining the reasons why people wouldn’t draft a kid who’s clearly one of the best Canadian kids available, and the way I would describe it is this: typically when you think of CFL rosters, everybody thinks in terms of two nationalities. The fact is, in terms of CFL rosters, there are really three nationality designations: there are nationals, there are internationals and there are quarterbacks, who are a completely separate entity.”
“Teams look at the draft as a chance to stock their national talent and improve their depth of national guys. You’ve got to bear in mind that we’re now a nine-team league and the CBA has also expanded the roster to where every team also needs 21 nations on that active roster. There’s a great need for guys to fill those spots on rosters, whereas Brandon Bridge as a quarterback – you can still fill quarterback spots through your negotiation list, so because he’s competing with Americans for those spots, teams don’t necessarily have to use draft choices to fill those spots and that’s the thing that hurts Brandon Bridge.”
“For me, Brandon Bridge is one of the absolute elite athletes in this draft, but because of the way rosters are structured, there’s not a real incentive for teams to use a draft pick to take a Canadian quarterback unless you look at it with the logic of ‘if somebody had Brandon Bridge on their negotiation list, how high a pick would I trade to get him from somebody else’s negotiation list?’ That’s part of the factor.”
“I do think somebody will take him because absolute worst-case scenario is if Brandon Bridge doesn’t work out as a quarterback, and I personally think he will, but if he doesn’t, he’s one of the most phenomenal athletes in this draft. He can play another position and be a very good CFL player as a national at another position if he’s willing to do that. He’s a good quarterback though and he deserves an opportunity to get a shot at that. I don’t think there’s any question he could be a receiver though.”
Is there a prospect you’ve really changed your opinion on a lot over the last year or so?
“For me, a guy that has climbed would probably be Chris Ackie, and it’s not that he was ever not a top-20 guy but there’s the realization that he’s put himself in a position to possibly be the first defensive player taken in the draft. That isn’t really typical for defensive backs, so he’s certainly a guy in that regard.”
“As far as a guy that I would say came from off the radar to be without question one of my favourite players in the draft, and he’s not a guy that’s going to go in the first round or the first couple of rounds, but it’s William Langlais of Sherbrooke. This is a guy that’s a former defensive lineman that did very well at the Montreal Combine to put himself in position to get invited to the National Combine a couple of days later. I thought he was very good there – a deceptively good athlete and a hard-nosed kid that can do all the things you need a fullback to do, including being a very good special teams player in the Canadian Football League. For a guy to say that came out of nowhere, that would be my guy.”
Who’s the draft’s biggest sleeper?
“For me it depends on how far off the radar you want to go. One guy that may surprise people with how high he goes in this draft would be James Bodanis from Michigan State. Bodanis is a guy that hasn’t played a lot of football, but he’s a 290, 300-pound guy that is a freakish athlete. He didn’t really play high school football and played a couple of years at U of T and then Michigan State caught wind of what kind of an athlete he was and offered him a scholarship. He transferred there and went as a defensive lineman, then really just moved to the offensive line in his senior season.”
“As an offensive lineman in his life, he has dressed for four college games and has never started a game, but he acquitted himself very well at the combine. He’s a very athletic guy who’s proven to be a quick study in terms of the game of football. This is a guy that someone will invest a reasonably high pick in and develop, because we all know teams need Canadian offensive linemen.”
Where’s the depth of this draft past the first two rounds?
“I think it gets interesting in the third round. I think the third round is where you’ll start to see people looking at, if not earlier, guys like Brett Boyko and Tyler Varga. It may be a little early for Christian Covington, but for a team that has multiple picks around that range, I know Calgary for example has three third-rounders and has done well stocking up on ‘futures’ type picks in the past, that becomes a possibility.”
“I think those are some of the very good value-type picks that you might see at that stage of the draft. I think you’ve got some pretty serviceable fullbacks in this draft too that there’s a little bit of depth there. There’s certainly some depth at linebacker in this draft – that’s been one of the hardest positions to rank and hard to find consensus and I think that’s probably a good thing for that position. There’s also a little bit of depth at defensive back. I know typically there aren’t a lot of DB jobs in the CFL for Canadian players, but there are certainly some good athletic guys there who can fill a spot and can help out on special teams.”
Could the local ties that Alex Mateas and Danny Groulx have with Ottawa give them the edge to go first overall?
“Absolutely, especially when you get in a situation like this where you have guys that are very legitimately ranked close to those spots. When you talk about Alex Mateas and Danny Groulx, you’re not talking about guys who are the 10th or 12th best prospects in the draft and saying ‘we’re going to take him because he’s local’.”
“With all things being equal, you have to consider it. It’s not about selling tickets or fostering community goodwill or anything like that – those are maybe bonuses of having local guys. But one of the big things in the CFL that’s very real in terms of the draft has to do with free agency. I’m surprised the league didn’t fight hard for this in the current CBA, I’d be shocked if the free agent structure isn’t changed to put in some form of restricted free agency or compensation or right to match offers because you do have to consider the likelihood when you invest a high draft choice in a guy of being able to get that player to sign a second contract.”
“If you’re Ottawa and you’re picking and it’s between a player from Ottawa and a player from Vancouver or any other part of the country, the guy from Ottawa, on paper at least, is more likely to stay there and play his whole career there because he’s got roots, he’s got ties there. That might be where he wants to settle long-term and make life after football plans or what have you – the opportunity to be around family. It’s absolutely a very real consideration for teams drafting, and will probably remain that way until the free agency structure is changed.”
With that said, would you be shocked if anyone other than Groulx, Chungh or Mateas went first overall?
“Not necessarily. Ottawa with the first pick is a team that could choose to go in a number of different directions in terms of making their team better or improving their depth. I do think those are the most logical guys because the best players in this draft happen to be offensive linemen and knowing their need is offensive lineman. I do think that those three would be the strong favourites to go at the top of this thing.”
Durant and Demski come from different football backgrounds. How can teams compare the competition they’ve faced?
“Generally speaking, even in the CIS you have a big range in terms of the competition. NCAA Division II is no different, there’s a big range. Overall it’s a relatively fair comparison between the two, but you have to be careful about making a generalization so there’s that.”
Which one is the better prospect?
“Comparing the two of them, I think a lot of it depends on the scout, the general manager, the coach and what skills they value the most in their given system. You have two guys you could label as explosive athletes, maybe Demski a little more so and maybe a little bit smoother. These two guys ran their 40 times within one 100th of a second of each other at the combine, so that tells you how close that part of it is.”
“I would probably give a little bit of an edge to Lemar Durant on the premise that to me, there’s tremendous upside with both of these guys but when you look at Durant and his combination of size, a 230-pound guy, great vertical leap, great strength and can be a very physical guy that also runs a 4.50 electronic 40 – it’s a winning combination.”
“I know teams will have some concerns about both of these guys. I know with Lemar Durant, he didn’t have a big personality that wowed people in interviews. Maybe sometimes he comes off a little bit more laid back and less intense than people may look for, and some teams may have a concern with that. Nic Demski, when Manitoba was in the spotlight and getting to the big games at the end of the year, including the national semi-finals, he didn’t shine the way some teams may have hoped. Everyone has their concerns about different things and different things that they love, but to me it’s going to be interesting to see which one of these guys goes first and I’m excited to see both in the Canadian Football League.”
Is there any receiver in the CFL you’d compare Durant to?
“As much as people have made this characterization as the best receiving prospect since Andy Fantuz, I would say they’re very different. What you’ve got in Durant is a guy who is faster and more physical, more like a Ray Elgaard or a Jason Clermont and runs faster than any of the guys in the group, but as far as the Fantuz comparison, he’s not nearly as polished a receiver as Andy Fantuz was.”
“There may be slightly more as far as physical tools, but he’s not there yet. Lemar has been able to be extremely successful at Simon Fraser without having to build a full arsenal of tricks to get open. Another thing to keep in mind with Lemar Durant is that this is a guy who’s going to play slot in the CFL with his size and speed, but for his whole life as a kid from BC, he’s never played Canadian rules football. He’s never had that waggle and pre-snap motion. For me, when I look at the upside of him and think a 230-pound guy with 4.55 speed who hasn’t learned the waggle yet, when he does, that could be a scary thing.”
