BY: CHRIS HOFLEY
Ahead of Sunday’s CFL Draft, REDBLACKS beat reporters, Martin Comtois and Tim Baines, along with TSN 1200’s AJ Jakubec, weigh in on what the club is looking for as it builds towards the 2017 season and beyond.
The Ottawa REDBLACKS are set to make the ninth overall selection in Sunday’s CFL Draft.
With the club and defending Grey Cup Champions heading into its fourth season in the league, General Manager Marcel Desjardins and his team will be looking to turn that first pick this year into the next Nolan MacMillan, Antoine Pruneau, Alex Mateas or Jason Lauzon-Séguin, all of whom were drafted in the first round by Ottawa.
The CFL draft is notorious for being full of surprises, particularly once you get beyond the first round, and more of that should be expected this year.
“The one guarantee about the CFL Draft is you never know exactly what to expect and there is often surprise after surprise,” said Le Droit’s Martin Comtois, one of the REDBLACKS beat writers.
While it’s hard to gauge who will be on the board in the ninth spot that fits into Ottawa’s long-term plans, Comtois says the club has been consistent in its draft day performances to date.
“From Day One, they have always managed to draft well,” he said, adding the team “pulled a rabbit out of its hat” when they selected Pruneau with their first pick in 2014.
What you may not see this time around, said Comtois, is a first-round REDBLACKS pick that jumps right into the starting lineup in 2017. Unlike earlier years, the club has depth at all positions and can now look a bit more towards the future.
“They’ve got the luxury of not having to draft someone who needs to start right away,” said Comtois.
For his part, Postmedia reporter and REDBLACKS beat writer Tim Baines says he could see the team going after a defensive lineman this time around.
“If there’s an offensive lineman there (in the ninth spot) they will take a close look, but I think they’re really going to look at what is a pretty deep defensive lineman class,” said Baines.
Though Ottawa has a great stable of offensive linemen, they have had success drafting at the position before and will have to fill the whole vacated by J’Micheal Deane.
“You can never have enough depth on the O-line,” Baines points out.
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For TSN 1200’s AJ Jakubec, the radio play-by-play voice of the REDBLACKS, the main focus is likely quite simple.
“You want the best player available,” Jakubec said. “When you’re a good team and you have good Canadians, you’re not desperate to get someone at a specific position, you’re looking at depth.”
He says there “isn’t one glaring spot” where the REDBLACKS need immediate help but adds they should still get a quality player in the ninth spot – after all, Ottawa took Lauzon-Séguin with the eighth pick last year and he was arguably one of the best players to come out of the draft.
“You hope at number nine you’re getting a starter at some point,” Jakubec said.
The fun all starts Sunday night at 7 p.m. and the first two hours of the draft will be carried live on TSN. The remaining rounds will be streamed live on TSN.ca and the TSN Go app.
Click here for the 2017 CFL Draft Tracker.
