I know every CFL fan can't wait to see what is going to happen for the upcoming REDBLACKS Expansion Draft. I am no different, and as soon as I saw the release of the free agent lists, almost uncontrollably, I started to assemble the protected lists for each team and conduct a draft. You can see all of my work here. It took several hours to compile and I hope you appreciate the effort.
I suspect that there will be different ideas that what I presented and so I encourage you to let me know how I did in my first ever Expansion Mock Draft. Hopefully we will have a few more of these in the upcoming years.
Lots of good work. Clearly you worked hard don that. Some changes I would make however, is instead of protecting Jalil Carter and Jamie Robinson, I expect the Argos to protect Aaron Maybin and Demtrice Morley.
As for the Canadian portion, I would at first protect Watt, and Epple over Van Zeyl and Matt Black.
I expect the Argos to lose:
Import:
DB Jalil Carter or DT Marcus Thomas
Non- Import:
T Van Zeyl
S Matt Black
We can afford to lose Van Zeyl because of having Epple and Tyler Holmes. We also will have Sewell come training camp. Gabriel can be a starting Safety in this league which IMO makes the older Black expendable.
No way Argos don’t protect Van Zeyl if he isn’t a free agent. We got to keep Van Zeyl, Holmes and Keeping. I don’t want to lose Eppele either, but there are Laing, Durie and Gabriel to protect also. Sewell may be on the way, but I never count a rookie until he proves he can play.
I'm sure you put a lot of work into this but your Winnipeg picks are way off. A few comments:
Shannon Boatman was our worst OL this season. He's gone.
Terrence Edwards won't be protected.
Ian Wild will definitely be protected. Same with Jarvis Jones.
Replace Jake Thomas with Tyson Pencer.
Highly unlikely Cauchy is protected. He has potential but was terrible at safety this season.
Greg Peach won't be protected.
Even if they do not protect Van Zyl and Black in the firts round of Canadian draft if Ottaw does not take one of them the other will be defeinetely protected in the 2nd round of Canadian players.
They will have a decision to make in the first 8 protected. Although many may consider Black to be expendable more than Van Zeyl with Gabriel also playing safety it is becoming ever more important to have two good Canadian Safeties.
Hamilton found that out as Neil King had to start in lace of Courtney Stephan. Also gives teams a lot more flexibilty on cover two schemes.