Who should the Cats protect in the expansion Draft?

Lets play armchair GM.

Existing teams may protect one quarterback and 10 additional import players, while only being able to select, at maximum, two quarterbacks in the draft. Ottawa will select one import player from each existing team in this round.
Starting with QB
Well the safe bet is to protect Henry here.
Can this team go in to next year with Dan LeFevour as your starting QB?
Probably not but would Ottawa pick up an aging FA with a big ticket in Burris with hopes of signing him...MAYBE, they need to sell tickets and Henry would give INSTANT credibility to the team. Would Ottawa even want LeFevour with other options available?
I say protect Henry.

10 Imports
Gable, Figueroa, Simmons, Ellingson, Boudreaux are my easy top 5.
McCollough (26), Breaux (24) are young DBs, coach loves Murray's versatility, Bakari Grant and
Norwood round out my 10.
I hate to leave off Tasker and Bowman but the team really has struggled to find good "D-lineman" so I need Norwood.

Next,

Existing teams may protect six total non-import players. Ottawa will select one non-import player from each existing team in this round.

Fantuz, Wojt, Bulcke, and Stephens are mandatory.
I can't let Plesius go so I protect him and Bartel.
HOPING Dyakowski's knee injury scares off Ottawa. Without knowledge of this injury it makes it difficult to know whether he will be ready for camp or not. If he will be ready for camp he HAS to be protected.
That means bye-bye Giguere.
The Ticat brass knows the likely hood of being able to resign Giguere or if he has eyes for Montreal which has been reported.
Also whether or not guys like Hage would be pissed off if not protected. Remembering back the last dispersal draft killed our O-Line as we lost 2 starters. One Import and 1-Non Import.

Have at it folks...it is NOT easy.

Ottawa stated they wont touch free agents in the draft, but could sign them Anytime When they become free agents in Feb.
sp protect Dan :slight_smile:

Rest seems reasonable

I would hate to lose Jamal Johnson and Brandon I
saacs. However, being free agents
Ottawa may skip them

Why is Kevin Eiben listed on the TC page as a free agent? I thought he was front office and now with Mac as a coach.

His contract is now expiring

Our two Defensive Ends are interesting...

My personal opinion is that Brandon Boudreaux,although good,may have plateaued...In otherwords,this is the best he will ever be...

On the other side is Eric Norwood,who although a rookie this year,I believe has tremendous up side...If it were me,I would protect Norwood and leave Boudreaux unprotected...

Okay,so I need a little clarification here,is it 6 non imports plus a kicker(non import)or is it 6 non imports,kicker included? Because if it’s the latter,won’t that mean that each team will stand to lose 2 non import starters as opposed to just one non import starter? The Cats 7 non import starters for most of the year were on Offense:Fantuz-wr,Giguere-wr,
Wojt-og,Dyakowski-og,Hage-c and on Defense were Bulcke-dt and Stephen-s.

My protected Canadians would be:Fantuz/Wojt/Bulcke/Stephen/Plesius if 5 can be protected if 6 can be protected than I would add Giguere with Bartel as my protected kicker. I would have included Dyakowski in there,but with his injury in the Grey Cup I’m thinking take a chance on Ottawa not wanting to pick up damaged goods and leave him unprotected.

My protected import list would be LeFevour-qb with my other 10 imports being on Offense:Gable-rb,Ellingson-wr,Grant-wr,Simmons-ot,Figueroa-ot, and on Defense: Boudreaux-de,Isaac-lb,Murray-lb/db,Breaux-db,McCollough-db

With Burris,Johnson,Davis and Lawrence all being pending FA hopefully the REDBLACKS shy away from drafting any of them.

Players that I feel we are at risk of losing the most are…Canadians: Delahunt-fb,Prime-lb,Nadon-dl,Fortin-de,Hazime-dt and maybe King-s also likely Giguere-wr if it’s only 6 non imports including a kicker.

Imports that we might possibly lose(only one per team)are Jones-wr,Tasker-wr,Walker-rb,Bowman-lb,Norwood-de
Bare in mind though that the RB’s can only choose one import player these 5 are who I think they might target for selection,depending on what else is made available to them from the other 7 teams lists.

Anyway this is my list and reasons why and who I would protect and speculation on who the Cats might lose on draft day.

The rules are:

  • 1st round - 1 QB and 10 imports
  • 2nd round - 6 non-imports plus and extra 2 NIs if a QB was selected in the 1st round, or an extra 1 if a kicker was selected
  • 3rd round - 6 more non-imports - no kickers can be selected in this round

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.

[url=http://www.cflhorsemen.ca/redblacks-mock-draft-intro.html]http://www.cflhorsemen.ca/redblacks-moc ... intro.html[/url]

The rest of the teams should be able to protect ALL of their own players.

Ottawa has had two years to get their roster together. They should be doing and paying for their own scouting and leg work. Not just sitting in front of the TV and writing down names. That's not scouting. That's not even working.

Hamilton has spent almost a decade of hard work finally getting together a competitive team through trial, error, blood, sweat, tears and development. The fans have suffered mightily too.

And after all of that, we're just going to hand this new team instant success.

Ottawa should need to do their OWN heavy lifting. This is just plain laziness.

The problem with that is that Ottawa was unable to sign free agents and draft choices the last two years like other teams could. And without that ability, they are now behind the other teams. The draft allows them to select a few of those players - and not the best ones, who will be protected - that the other teams were able to sign while Ottawa was forced to sit on the sidelines.

What players would Ottawa have if not getting many of them through the expansion draft? A team made up of only players cut from other teams in the last few months and free agents only? Good luck if that were the case. They couldn’t sign any players before now because how would they have paid them to be on a roster that was for a team not playing any games yet?

‘Hey Ottawa - Thanks for spending millions on a new stadium and come on people in Ottawa and Gatineau snap up season tickets please!’ But by the way your roster is gonna only be made up of rejects who could not make any of the other 8 teams rosters and your not gonna get many free agents to sign with you because the rest of your roster will be in such rough shape - so you will be lucky to win a game or two for your first couple of seasons. Glad you are back in the family though!’

If I were in Ottawa and that was what was being presented to me as a football fan - I would unequivocally be saying ‘fat chance you are getting a penny from me until my team has a chance to be even remotely competitive.’

I've posted my picks, and my reasons, previously in a different thread, and here they are again. I have adjusted my picks, replacing free agents with other players.

Because of the depth we have at linebacker and, believe it or not, defensive back, I wouldn't focus on protecting any players at those positions in the import round. The most we'll lose is one player at one of those spots. Instead, I'd focus on protecting key players in the rest of the positions.

QB: LeFevour (and then re-sign Burris before the free agent deadline)
RB: Gable
WR: Ellingson, Grant, Jones, Tasker
OL: Simmons, Figueroa
DL: Boudreaux, Norwood (and then re-sign Davis)
DB: Breaux

Things change a bit for the first non-import round. In this case, I'd protect a couple of marquee players, but then focus on ratio busters and future prospects. I realize this means we'll probably lose an offensive lineman, but we have a fair amount of depth here and I think we can afford it.

WR: Fantuz, Giguere
FB: Delahunt
DL: Bulcke
LB: Plesius
S: Stephen

For the second round of non-imports, I'd protect as many players as possible at the positions taken in the import and first non-import rounds.

Interesting. My reasoning is the same. But I see the depth at import receiver, given Ti-Cats will likely continue to play two NI receivers. So on the import list, I would not protect Grant, Jones or Tasker figuring that the Cats would be OK with any two of the three, particularly as they are probably in the market for a deep threat. Then I would protect Isaac, Murray and McCullough. But I will take a very wild guess and say that in either case Ottawa takes E. Davis, who neither of us would protect.

Ottawa is behind because they haven’t done any work yet, other than making notes on other team’s players, so they should be behind. Why should they be able to pick the best one from other teams? They did not pay the costs of scouting and developing them. Whether Ottawa can or can’t sign free agents or weren’t able to do whatever during this time is not my concern as a fan of another team. My issue is that my team after a long, long struggle is now at the crest of ultimate success and is being pulled back by a franchise who should be looking after themselves, instead of expecting everyone else to spoon feed them.

I would not label the unprotected players as rejects. After all, the other teams can only protect so many. They may well be ones that need some further development, or are waiting for the incumbent to retire or move on. I would hardly consider Frederic Plesius a reject, but he could end up on that list available. If Ottawa only wins a limited number of games this season, it could well be because of bad coaching or management as much as who they get to choose.

Hamilton, as well as other teams throughout the league have suffered through bad seasons and meantime try to maintain their fan base. Why should Ottawa be able to escape that problem. This is the issue with that city and their fans, they hardly supported this team when they were successful. If they won’t because their first season or two does not result in a Grey cup or playoff appearance, then this team has much deeper issues than player selection.

A lot of work done here and all very interesting.
You have had to make a lot of assumptions though.
IMHO though I do not believe that free agents will be left alone. I think other teams feel the same way.
I can see that there will be several free agents protected before the draft.
Ottawa is in business to build the best team they can. They have to. If the flounder out of the gate
they will not have time to right the ship so to speak before fans become disillusioned (I am talking a few seasons)
If they think they can sign a free agent or two and can convince them to sign, that will make all the difference to them.

Good point about our depth at import receiver. I’d still protect Jones, as I think his versatility makes him a key player. But that does open up a couple of spots. Murray for sure, but I’d be flipping a coin between Isaac and McCollough.

The fact that they hadn’t signed any players up until very recently isn’t because they haven’t done any work yet, but because they haven’t been able to offer players playing time or salary until now. I wouldn’t be surprised that they have been scouting already. The fact that they have already signed three players tells me they have.

Also, they won’t be picking the best players from other teams. The best players will be protected.

But, three player signings does not look very impressive. That’s not a lot of names.

Ottawa may not get the best players, but I’m sure that those who are on the list are still valued by their original teams, and now those GM’s will need to put some focus on replacing them instead of attending other equally important matters.

I would like to have my team looking at next season rather than dealing with the aftermath of a draft for a franchise that will likely go the way of the previous incarnations.

I'm shocked that nobody has protected Arthur Hobbs yet. Great cover guy who really came in to his own through the second half of the season. Just turned 24 a couple weeks ago.