CFL European Draft Order & Eligible Players

I can`t seem to find any player rankings from Mel Kiper Jr.

what category do they fall under, National ( Canadian) or International ( American ) or European ?

I think they are going under the name of “Global”.

That won’t be 100% known until the CBA is ratified. The indication was leaning towards Global with 2 starters and the content coming out of Nationals (leaving internationals unchanged). I tend to think that was a number put out there so there is “middle ground” to be negotiated. I would suspect they want this portion of the CBA conditionally agreed upon prior to this draft…otherwise, how the heck do you plan on it.

My guy is that national and global become blended…but it’s purely a guess.

My understanding is they would start on the practice roster. You can’t expect teams to fill global roster spots right away. There has to be a little grace period.

The best solution would be to make the ratio Canadian and global players. That way if global players aren’t ready to make the roster you’ll still have Canadians.

The Global players should not get any free pass. They should be competing for one of the 21 National roster spots. If they can beat a Canadian out for a National spot, great.

But don`t automatically give them a National roster spot.

To me, Global players should come under Int. players. I doubt that any will make active rosters. Could be on practice rosters,which should be expanded from 10 to 12 or 13 to also include Mexican players.

Richard

IMHO, If Ambrosie wants European and Mexican TV contracts, Which the CFLPA will want also,
he is going to want these players dressed and on the field at some point on Special teams

Could be…but RA was on the radio recently…and the link is here somewhere…and they asked about the 7 to 5 ratio matter. Of course he couldn’t speak to that directly…but he immediately talked about global players and needing to make adjustments to bring them into the fold. It wasn’t hard to read between the lines that he pitched 2 global starters. Is that shooting really high to give negotiation room…probably

I agree with the blended portion. I’ve said it a few times. It doesn’t take starter jobs away from nationals… It just creates more competition. I spoke more on it in the rider forum…but basically, if it were me I would mandate 2 blended in 2019 and add one a year for a couple seasons…simeting like that. Maybe even landed 2 on pr for 19 then 2 on 44 in 2020 and so on. If you lack a global player…you dress one less player. It allows development time… .and if they win reps…great. It also makes tracking in game easier for officials. Keep the number of ratio spots at 7 though.

Many feel handing anyone a spot because of passport is ridiculous

Tyler Johnstone and Derrick Dennis had a solid conversation about it on a recent podcast…TJ speaks interesting thoughts on it seeing as he is a National and there is nothing Canadian about it…didnt even know qualifying as a National was an option for him until Huf told him.

At any rate…i don’t see them reducing the spots for the most abundant supply of close to pro ready players in the world…that means nationals take the hit…be it starters or a blended ratio

I don’t think it’s necessarily set in stone that adding global players has to mean a reduction in international or national players. They could just expand the current rosters instead, which is what I’d prefer to see happen.

Of course, that would mean bumping the cap commensurately, which teams might not like (or reducing average pay commensurately, which players would not like). Hopefully, the Mexican (and whatever else might materialize) broadcast deals would be enough to cover additional global player salaries.

I also wonder if it would be legally possible to include global players with national players while excluding US internationals. I’m no legal expert, but it seems to me that protecting the jobs of your own citizens is one thing but then discriminating against citizens of one foreign country (US) but not others would not be legal.

CFL will have competition for International players.

https://www.tsn.ca/4-international-players-added-to-nfl-rosters-for-2019-season-1.1287441

And it will be tough to compete with the big NFL machine.

Perhaps some of the NFL’s internationals will make their way on to CFL rosters, assuming they can’t crack an NFL team.

I like that they’re only adding them as practice roster exemptions. I’d like to see the CFL go one step further an have our global players simply as roster exemptions, allowing them to fit as an extra body (or two) on the active roster.

The AFC East clubs will carry the overseas players on their rosters until the end of training camp. At that time, the players will become eligible for an international player practice squad exemption. That means the teams would get an 11th practice squad player who is ineligible to be activated during the 2019 season.

Holy smokes this International player pathway program started in 2017 .

Never knew it ; I thought the CFL idea was fresh .