Third Round

Guys like Heenan are going to wear green for their career, unless they try NFL. The Riders will pretty much match any CFL offer on him, unless someone just gets stupid, and anything close to other offers, he is staying put.

Of course he will stay but that is the point they will need to pay him accordingly. If he is going to become a Canadian all star RT he will need to get top dollar from the riders. You cant pay everyone top dollar so if you have a lot of top players you may have to make a choice

well yeah, that’s part of why they moved a O-lineman later in the season. It is also part of why I said I would have left Picard unprotected in the expansion draft. He is big bucks, 32, and you have his replacement in place…while you want Watman to have another year before he starts, Picard could have another 4-5 years in him…do you sit on Watman until he is 28? Do you move him to another spot, and if so, who do you displace? You are not putting him blind side tackle (Fulton), Best/Heenan mesh pretty darned good, so you don’t want to split them up, so that leaves LG LaBatte and C Picard…both All-Stars, but LaBatte is a few years younger, and a local product…and hey, Watman is a Center and cheaper.

Haven't had a good look at this years "prospects" but I'm going to assume that their is a stud DT in the draft. Otherwise we wouldn't have done this.

your assumption is false. This is one of the weakest DL drafts in years

I dont think that Taman thought they would take Evans as well. Leaving Sholo unprotected they knew they were going to lose him. Making the DT spot an import position but for roster spots using Evans as the rotation guy saves a DI spot for another position. DE the same Foley, Taylor, and Chick will do the rotating. When Foley rotates out then Evans would rotate in as they did last year.
Also having Butler starting with Hurl and Newman in on d Packages would have made it very easy to have 2 ratio spots on defense
They do have Canadian depth elswhere to where as someone mentioned Foley would not be a part of the ratio 7 buut still a place on the NI roster to rotate in saves the DI spot for another position which could be DT.

On offense 6 ratio spots 4 on the O line and 2 at REC.

Still placing 6 ratio spots on offence is cutting it close should Heenan get hurt he does not have a Canadian Back up.
After Getz and Bagg Sisco has yet to show anything and McHenry is really just an in game emergency at WR he is much better at H-Back and really not that good a receiver, in means of getting open for passes but is a good blocing reciver when he is in.

If you have 2 NI DTs, one backs up the other. If you lose one, then you have to back up with import or else play the shuffle game every week. If you’re going to lose one, may as well just go import there so the 2nd NI DT becomes expendable. Besides, Sholo is twice the player of Evans. Evans isn’t THAT big of a loss.

Hurts to see Shologan go though. :frowning: But I’d much rather see a stacked roster like this lose an NI stud like Keith than to hardly lose anything because the cupboard is bare like Winnipeg. (although I do like Kohlert - underrated).

I do see the point you may want to go all import at DT but to have a 3rd DT canadian to rotate in is big. You only have 3 DI spots and with a lot of teams starting 8 Canadians now that gives you 4 imports to rotate in at certain ratating positions.
The Riders just limited themselves to dress 2 import starting DTs and a third to rotate in taking a DI spot. Schmidt at punter makes two.