THE CANADIAN PRESS
Agent Darren Gill has a simple message for his 14 clients who were selected Sunday in the CFL Canadian college draft.
Enjoy being selected and celebrate it. Understand, however, the odds for a long, productive CFL career are very, very long.
"Getting drafted is great," said the Montreal-based agent. "I’m not trying to scare anybody into thinking they won’t make it.
"What I do want to instill in them is unless they’re going in every day and doing that little bit extra it becomes more difficult to make a team. I do see in some cases that players feel draft position solidifies success and by no means does that work."
Gill has the numbers to back it up.
Between 2002 and ’07, Gill says 310 players were drafted by CFL teams. Just 33 became starters (10.6 per cent) while another 83 were backups (26.8 per cent) and 10 headed to the NFL (3.2 per cent).
Trouble is, 80 are no longer in the CFL (25.8 per cent) while a whopping 104 never played in the league (33.5 per cent). Combined, that accounts for nearly 60 per cent of the total players selected over that span.
"You’d assume with first-round picks their success would be guaranteed but that’s definitely not the case," Gill said. "I really believe every player drafted into the CFL goes into training camp on the same foot regardless if they’re the first pick in the draft or the last.
"Good or bad, there’s no media pressure in the CFL for teams to keep players. We’ve seen teams draft four players and all four either go back to school or don’t make the team and nothing is said. In the NFL, first- and second-round picks are expected to make the team and if one doesn’t it’s a pretty big story. That’s not the case in the CFL."
Client Shomari Williams, a linebacker from Queen’s who went first overall to the Saskatchewan Roughriders, hears Gill’s message loud and clear.
"Being a first-round draft pick doesn’t automatically guarantee me anything," Williams said. "I know I have to get ready for training camp and go there and contribute and prove that I’m worthy of that No. 1 pick.
"The numbers are surprising and just go to show you if you don’t work hard and it all goes to your head you might not have a great career. I have to keep trying to get better every practice and every year."
But arguably the biggest challenge facing young Canadian players is adjusting to the rigours of a rugged 18-game CFL schedule. It’s more than twice as long as the CIS regular-season campaign and exceeds the 12 games NCAA squads play.
"I’ll speak to players midway through the CFL season to see how their bodies are," Gill said. "That’s the biggest challenge rookies face."
The good news for Williams is as a first-round draft pick he stands a better chance of sticking around.
According to Gill’s figures, 13 of the 52 first-round selections between 2002 and ’07 became starter (25 per cent), with 17 being backups (32.7 per cent). Three went to the NFL (5.8 per cent).
Fourteen are no longer in the league (26.9 per cent) with five having never played a down (9.6 per cent).
However, one factor working against Williams is the position he plays. Between 2002 and ’07, the most successful position in the draft has been the offensive line, with 71 players having been selected.
Then again, only 13 (18.3 per cent) became starters.
As for how the numbers shake down after 2007, Gill is still in the midst of compiling the data. But his clients have gone first overall in the CFL draft the past four years.
Gill said in the past CFL teams didn’t have the money to invest heavily into scouting, which helped contribute to the dismal draft figures. The good news, though, is both teams and the league as a whole have put an emphasis in scouting and player evaluation.
In the last two years the CFL has established its own amateur scouting bureau that ranks the top 15 draft prospects. There has also been the emergence of the annual East-West all-star game involving top Canadian university players as well as the availability of game film on YouTube, all developments Gill says help teams better evaluate and grade talent as part of their draft preparation.
So that should result in clubs not only making better educated draft selections but also in more Canadian players being capable of making the grade. However, with CFL teams only carrying 20 Canadians on their roster, there’s limited jobs for non-imports to compete for.
"The challenge is no matter how good the talent is roster spots in the CFL are still limited," Gill said. "If you’ve drafted say seven or eight players then they have to bump off seven or eight members of the previous year’s team and that’s not always an easy task.
"In most cases, you’ll see maybe three or four people from the draft class claiming roster spots. But teams now are getting a much better look at players and are drafting much better than they used to."
The difficulty in developing draft picks isn’t a problem unique to the CFL, Gill says.
"This is something we see in all pro sports across North America," he said. "In the NFL, there are some pretty famous recent former first-round draft picks currently unemployed.
"There really are no guarantees at any level."
But even with a limited roster, there are steps a CFL player can take to boost his odds of sticking around.
"If you’re a receiver, play special teams," Gill said. "If you’re a linebacker, learn how to long-snap.
"If you’re an offensive lineman, learn more than one position. The key is giving players some helpful tips about how they can extend their career. In the CFL, because of the limited roster size the more a player can do, the more valuable he becomes."
