It’s almost graduation day, gentlemen.
Welcome to the next step on your football journey.
After an immense amount of hard, hard work, it’s just about time to see who’s taken notice, and what colours you’ll be donning at next month’s CFL camps.
Years of competition. Snap after snap after snap of measuring yourself against the other guy. Thousands upon thousands of hours of practice and gym time. Countless numbers of bruises and scrapes — and much worse pain than that — to suck up and just play through. Self-doubt to overcome, heartache to plow through, and bitter defeat from which to rebound.
2025 CFL Draft
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» Top 3 CFL Draft priorities for each team
» Best fits for Canadian QBs in the CFL Draft
» Elic Ayomanor vaults to top of Scouting Bureau Rankings
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Now, it all boils down to waiting. Waiting to hear your name called out on television. Or for your phone to glow as you sit in a sea of friends and loved ones, all anticipating the moment of smiles and hugs and happy tears that remind you why it’s all worthwhile.
I love draft night. Not just for the emotion of it. It’s also a clear signpost for me. It’s the equivalent of seeing buds on trees. Winter’s over. Growth and greenery are making their way back.
In gridiron terms, the draft tells me chalk is about to go down on training camp fields across the country.
If the Grey Cup game is a bittersweet affair — the crowning of champions in a climactic confetti storm contrasted with the forlorn feeling I get with the realization there’s no more football to be played for six long months — then the draft is its opposing solstice.
On draft day, the journey is about to begin, not about to end.
The Global Draft kicks the day off for us. If the U SPORTS and NCAA athletes can be a bit of a mystery to those who don’t follow university football closely, the global athletes can be even more so. But before long, you know who Thiadric Hansen is. And John Haggerty and Jose Maltos.
The Global Draft has been kicker-and-punter-success-heavy over its existence, it’s true. Aside from Haggerty and Maltos, names like Cody Grace and Adam Korsak, Nik Constantinou and Jamieson Sheahan have become known and notable in the CFL.
But with pretty well every CFL team well set at the kicking positions for 2025, I wonder if most of them won’t go all-in on hunting for diamonds in the rough at other positions in this version of the global selection process.
We’ll find out Tuesday morning.
Then, the draft of Canadian hopefuls begins at 6:00 p.m. ET, and the fresh feeling of anticipation that we get will be boosted higher with the presence of the league’s new commissioner, Stewart Johnston, adding to that sentiment.
In this draft, specifically, the mystery of just what the Calgary Stampeders will do with their first overall selection will be solved.
Do they keep it and call a name? If they do, it will be the first time since 2014 that the Stamps will stake their claim with the top pick. 11 years ago, they opted to draft offensive lineman Pierre Lavertu, a graduate of the Laval Rouge et Or.
There’s one thing about which we can be pretty certain. If the Stampeders keep and use that first overall pick, it will not be for a player they consider a possibility in the future, one who might spend a year or a few in NFL camps before winding up in red and white.
“When you do have a rough year, you do want the players you pick to be in your camp,” said Calgary general manager and head coach Dave Dickenson during last month’s combine.
Receiver Keelan White (Montana). Linebacker Connor Shay (Wyoming). These are the names we most often see and hear in connection with the top pick in the CFL Draft.
Will the Stamps call one of those names? Will they trade down and try to plump up the number of picks they have in the first 20 selections, already at an impressive four?
And we have more questions in need of answers.
There is the question of just *how* impressive some participants were at the combine and how much that will affect their draft stock.
Historically, players like offensive lineman Drew Desjarlais have seen combine explosiveness translate to much higher standing. In 2019, Desjarlais went from off the prospects list entirely to No. 7 after the combine. And then even higher in the draft, when the Winnipeg Blue Bombers took him fourth overall.
Last month, in Regina, a number of combine participants performed well enough to have CFL teams considering spending more draft capital on them.
Western’s Max von Muehldorfer was unranked prior to the combine but the defensive tackle put up 34 reps to lead the way in the bench press and took reps on the offensive line and even at fullback. Can that variety of abilities get him from off the prospects list and into the top 10?
Did University of Alberta running back Opemipo Oshinubi’s blazing 4.41 speed in the combine 40 push him from off the charts into the first or second round picture?
There are a couple of big questions concerning quarterbacks.
Kurtis Rourke (Indiana) topped the CFL prospects list when it was released this past winter (No. 2 in the spring). After being selected in the seventh round of the NFL draft over the weekend, which CFL team will make him a “futures” selection and how early?
Same thing with Laurier’s Taylor Elgersma (ranked 14th on the spring prospects list). Although he went unselected in the NFL Draft, his being the first quarterback from a Canadian University to be invited to play in the Senior Bowl, the NCAA’s all-star showcase of draft eligible players, helped shoot his stock up and up. He will get NFL rookie camp invitations to mull over.
These are just a few of the intriguing plot lines that will give the 2025 draft its defining character. There are more, of course, and they will be revealed as picks move from first, overall, to 72nd.
Congratulations on getting this far, gentlemen. Each and every one of you. Good luck on Tuesday. You’ve earned that.
The draft is here. Trees are budding. Chalk is about to go down.
