The Canadian Football League (CFL) draft will take place on Tuesday and the Saskatchewan Roughriders remain tight lipped about their strategy going in.
Jeremy O’Day, Saskatchewan Roughriders vice president and general manager, said he doesn’t think the team is going to comment on which position is better than the other in this year’s draft class.
“I don’t think there’s any value for me to come out and say that, but there’s good players in every position,” he said.
“You’re really trying to look at the needs of the roster and developing a game plan going into the draft that helps improve your team as much as possible,” he added.
O’Day went on to detail what the process looks like for the team leading up to their first round pick, especially given the higher, third overall spot they currently hold.
“You look at it and you say, ‘This is the guy I would pick number one,’ and we’ll all have a discussion about it. If we all agree on it, that’s the guy we want. We also understand they he might be gone number one or number two. So then you have to say, ‘Well what was the second guy, and who’s the third guy,’” explained O’Day.
After a record number of Canadians were picked in last week’s National Football League (NFL) draft, O’Day admitted the Canadian talent is increasing but it makes it tougher for the CFL.
“Back in the day, these guys would come up in a couple of diamonds in the rough. Now, they figured out that there’s more diamonds than they thought, so I think recruiting is a little bit more intense for Canadian players,” he said.
Draft analysts and CFL commentators release predictions ahead of the draft every year and last week, articles had guesses the Riders would beef up their offensive line with their first two picks in the draft, given the poor performance in 2022.
However, O’Day did not seem phased by the predictions.
“As far as offensive linemen, I know everyone wants to talk about that, but the reality is we are planning on playing three Canadians. So we have two guys, one that’s been our starter for two years, one that’s been our starter for four years, and then we signed Peter Godber in free agency for a reason, so that’s three pretty good players,” he said.
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O’Day said the team had signed Philip Blake, a third round NFL draft pick, and Logan Baby, who they drafted a couple of years ago, as well as two more players last year.
“So with my math: If you started with three and you have seven, it’s just a matter if you think you can draft someone at that spot that’s going to be an improvement,” O’Day explained.
The CFL’s Global Draft will take place earlier in the day before the main event and O’Day said this year does have some impressive positional players.
“I think the quality’s pretty good. You’re always going to have good kickers and punters that are in the draft. This year, there’s some good positional guys in there as well,” he said.
The CFL draft will begin at 6 p.m. and will be broadcast on TSN.
