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After what has seemed like eternity, there will finally be an actual occurrence in the CFL. Five, long excruciating months have gone by since our last taste of football (which was a bitter taste to boot). It’s gotten so bad that I’ve been working on a plan to teach a bunch of monkeys how to play the game... I assumed their ability to fling poo would translate into an ability to throw a football... I was very wrong. Of course then I had a bunch of monkeys that i needed to do something with but it was nothing a few monkey knife fights couldn’t fix.
Wow, did I ever get off an a tangent there. Back to football.
Sunday is the CFL Canadian Draft, as usual I will be providing live coverage with my 4th Annual Live Draft Day Blogging. Follow along with the Prophet as he tries to sound coherent far too early on a Sunday morning. Sadly, since no one else in Canada other than Duane Forde knows anything about the draft, I still rank among the leading draft experts in the country... in spite of my lack of coherency. My coverage will start whenever the draft starts (I honestly haven`t checked when that is yet) and will end either when the draft ends or a Sunday morning cartoon comes on that I find more interesting.
The Riders` picks are as follows: Round 1 (7th overall), Round 2 (15th overall), Round 4 (30th), Round 6 x 2 (40th and 46th).
It`s actually an extremely large amount of picks by comparison to the past couple years. I guess hiring a head coach who doesn`t require a nap half way through the draft has some advantages.
The Riders will (and should) be targeting an OL with their top pick. Even with the retirement of O`day our O-line still rivals most mall walking groups in terms of average age. Geno will likely be retiring come December (though I`ve been thinking that for years now) so acquiring a young OL prospect is extremely important.
The Riders can go one of 2 routes with an OL pick. They can select a guy like Matt O`Donnell who will be available immediately. Or (since we are not in dire need of OL just yet) they could select guys like Tyler Holmes or Moe Petrus who still have a year of college left. It is slightly riskier to select someone you have to wait a year for since you don`t know for sure what their status will be in a year but with the players we currently have the Riders are in a good position to be patient.
As for other needs that will have to be addressed with our 4 other picks. We need DBs (since Alexander is gone and Mitchell is hurt yet again) LBs (to build depth behind McCullough who isn`t getting any younger) and maybe even a DT prospect if the right one falls in our lap. I also expect Taman to use either a 4th or a 6th round pick on a kicker. I don`t think we are desperate enough to use the high draft pick it will take to land top kicking prospect Hugh O`Neil but there are a couple other solid kicker prospects (such as Chris Milo) who should fall to later rounds that I can see us taking a shot on. Justin Palardy was a 5th round pick last year and he turned out pretty good.
As always I will take a stab at predicting how the first round will go down but before I do please read my standard draft disclaimer...
The Rider Prophet is not, nor does he pretend to be, a scout or anything resembling someone that can tangibly evaluate football skill. He is merely an opinionated bigot who feels as though he can predict the future based on his highly biased view of Canadian Football and life in general. Any thoughts or predictions contained in the following may not actually be based on anything factual and are a product of the 15 minutes Prophet spent following the CIS this past season. Rider Prophet Media is not responsible for any falsehoods, fabrications, fairytales or outright libel contained herein. Furthermore, Rider Prophet Media is not responsible for any injuries, sexually transmitted diseases or spontaneous combustion that results from reading this material.
Now that that is out of the way here`s how I see the first round:
1 – Winnipeg – OL Scott Mitchell
2 – Edmonton – WR Anthony Parker
3 – BC – LB Henoc Muamba
4 – Winnipeg (via Tor) – WR Nathan Coehoorn
5 – Hamilton – OL Tyler Holmes
6 – Calgary – OL Matt O`Donnell
7 – Saskatchewan – OL Moe Petrus
8 – Montreal – WR Marco Iannuzzi
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