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.
…Nice work and a lot of detailed work Childress…Appreciate the post :thup: …We’ll see how close you get in 16 days…I agree the Ottawa RedBlacks won’t be a big contender out of the gate…Like you say …too many holes to fill…Coaching will also be a biggie…They’ll definitely be in tough with the rest of the teams in the east…
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.
They must have started researching this a while back with Boatman on the protected list. Jarvis Jones has clearly stepped in and made a huge impact at RT so he will be protected as one of their 10 imports for sure. Boatmen will be released if not selected. Depending on how they may handle some of the FA’s could change things but they do have a lot of FA’s this season but the others on that list seem reasonable with who is left after leaving out who is a FA for the 2014 season
There seems to be so many free agents that are key players that the Bombers would like back it is hard to figure out who will be protected. Some for sure though will be.
Imports
Januray OT
Jones OT
Wild LB
Dunn DB/SAM
Wahington DB
With all of the FAs maybe Sims Walker just in case. One outstanding game does not a player make but the way he dominated to go with a history of playing at the highest of level in other leagues makes it a good bet that this guy is not ready to stop playing football and the CFL is his chance to play at that high level again.
Canadians
Neufeld OT
Pencer OL
Watson REC
I am sure there are more that are not FAs but these would seem to be a must
The interesting one is Henoc Muamba - heading for FA, a must have player for this team. He’s got some room to grow and get better but compared to the other NI talent here I’d call him an elite NI. Do you protect him or leave him exposed to Ottawa in hopes they skip over him due to his FA status and NFL aspirations?
The one good thing about not having a lot of NI depth is we should be able to protect the upper tier assets easier than other teams and it’ll hurt less to lose some of the other guys off our roster. Hamilton for one is in line to lose a couple good players with the number of their guys still under contract.
Yea not having a lot of NI depth does make it easier to protect the ones you have. It looks like no one is going to protect any free agents and Ottawa is not going to pick any.
I agree that Muamba is a must sing deal at all cost. Also Some house cleaning for Walters means that the Bombers will be active in the FA market. Need to upgrade their talent across the board.
Having import like Wild who are starters and probably at the low end of the salary scale while letting go A higher salary Canadian first round pick in Etienne can open up some cap space for sure.
Also some better scouting of new import DBs that can come at a bargain rate. Toronto and hamilton have found some really good young import DBS that will currently still have low salaries help with their cap. BBs should do the same thing and just rid them of the left over swaggerville guys and start building DBs around Wahington and Dunn
