Thursday, May 15, 2014

2014 Ticats Draft Picks

The Ticats had the eight and ninth picks of the first round in the 2014 CFL draft, so they didn't have any of the very top picks that are generally more interesting.


The Cats took Beau Landry, a Western linebacker at eighth and Evan Gill, a Montreal defensive lineman from Manitoba at ninth. I'm surprised that one of those picks wasn't an offensive lineman but three were taken earlier so maybe there wasn't much available. I assume both picks have no NFL camp danger. Just based on statistics I doubt Landry will ever start at linebacker but could be a good contributor on special teams.

For Gill, having the best possible Canadian backup for Brian Bulcke at defensive tackle over the next few years will be important and maybe Gill will eventually be that guy. Starting two interior Canadian defensive linemen is virtually unheard of, however on the defensive line starters get swapped out frequently compared to other positions, so depth is doubly important.

The Cats, having pawned all their other draft picks for magic beans, didn't pick again until the eighth pick of the fifth round. There they took Christopher Johnson of noted football power the University of Toronto. To be honest, by the fifth round the chances of a player making the roster for any length of time is pretty limited. I should probably do an analysis of players in the CFL and their draft position.

In round six, pick seven was Mathieu Girard, a defensive lineman from Montreal and the Cats also had the eighth pick and took Stephen Mawa a defensive lineman from UBC. Finally the Cats took another defensive lineman with pick eight in round seven, Martin Pesek from Acadia. So that's three defensive linemen in the last two rounds plus one in the first. Clearly the Cats want one to pan out as a backup, although maybe not this year. Pretty light on other positions, although a lot of these kids will go back for a fifth year anyways.

McMaster had a kicker and a long snapper taken in the later rounds.

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