CFL 2.0 – Mexico Draft to be Held Monday

CFL 2.0 – Mexico Draft to be Held Monday

Published: Saturday, Jan 12th 2019, 2:01pm

by Alex Dormuth (@RealAlexD)

 

(Photo courtesy sportsnet.ca)

 

Monday will be a monumental day in the long history of the CFL. All 9 teams will take part in Commissioner Randy Ambrosie’s pet project, CFL 2.0. While we don’t know much about this whole thing, we do have some info on what’s going to happen.

 

Sunday will see the CFL Mexico Combine. 51 players were invited to this combine to show their stuff to General Managers across the league. The 51 players will consist of:

Receivers – 12

Defensive Lineman – 10

Defensive Backs – 7

Linebackers – 6

Offensive Lineman – 5

Kickers – 4

Running Backs – 4

Quarterbacks – 3

 

 

 

All CFL teams will get a chance to choose 4 players from this list (up from a previously reported 2 per team), which means that 36 of the 51 players will be selected. Is the next breakout star there? Maybe, we don’t know. Could this be a massive waste of time? Sure could be. I’ll get to some more questions in a second.

 

The whole point of this is to find more CFL talent. I’m for that. Any time you can find good football players, you have to explore that route. Commissioner Randy Ambrosie said that the annual GM Meetings this past week that the whole point of this is to expand the international brand of the CFL. Even if one or two of these players work out to be CFL caliber players, that will help with branding and a television deal down in Mexico. That’s great! More money coming into the league, the better. I’m always for expanding the game and I think that given enough thought, this could be a great initiative for the CFL. Us fans will have interest in this draft and we will absolutely head to Google and YouTube to look up the players drafted to our teams.

 

BUT, I do have some issues that I hope Commissioner Randy Ambrosie will address, though.

Why now? With the major tension surrounding the lack of a Collective Bargaining Agreement for the 2019 season, should this really be a high priority? Will all the teams even pick 4 players? What about roster sizes? Will these players count toward the training camp number of 75 or will they be extras (like Canadian Draft picks or non-counting Junior players)? Will there be some sort of rule that each team will have to have a minimum number of Mexican players on their game day roster? If so, will roster sizes expand, or will someone with potentially more talent have to lose their job?

 

When Randy Ambrosie was made Commissioner, replacing Jeffrey Orridge, CFL fans were loving it. A former player running the league instead of a businessman who knew nothing about the league. From the sounds of it, a lot of people have changed their tune on Ambrosie, wondering what he’s actually doing for the league. No CBA, nothing to be mentioned in regards to player safety (mainly head shots…. sorry, an extra official on the field does NOTHING)… is this going to be Commissioner Ambrosie’s legacy project? There are plenty of other issues in the CFL that need addressing first. I realize that he has a million things on the go and you can’t just go down the list one by one and check them off and move to the next item, but is this the right time for a CFL 2.0 project?

 

No, it’s not.

 

That said, the league will be in the news come Monday when the draft takes place and that was one of Commissioner Ambrosie’s major priorities… keep the CFL in the news. Whether it’s good news or bad news is to be seen.