Riders unscathed by NFL draft
Courtesy Regina Leader Post:
The Saskatchewan Roughriders emerged relatively unscathed from the NFL draft on the weekend.
Eric Tillman, the Riders general manager, said only one player off the CFL team’s 35-player negotiation list was selected during the two-day draft. Negotiation lists are confidential and Tillman would only say the player was selected in the sixth round.
“This weekend validated several months of work and the accuracy of most of our predictions,” Tillman said Sunday after the completion of the NFL draft.
Heading into the NFL draft, the Riders had 17 players on their negotiation list who could have been selected in the NFL draft. The ones who weren’t drafted are now free agents. Tillman said that 12 or 13 may sign with NFL teams as free agents but that remains to be seen.
“We’re looking at guys for 2009,” Tillman said. “We may get a player or two but we have done our homework for 2008. The guys who weren’t drafted (this weekend) will be the ones rolling in here in late August or September.”
The Riders straddle a fine line with their negotiation list. Tillman wants the best players possible on that list but doesn’t want to lose that player to NFL. That means the team has lost the time it has invested in scouting the player and the place the player has taken up on the negotiation list.
“If you were a team who had 10 or 15 guys on your negotiation list who were drafted, then you spent months protecting the wrong guys,” Tillman said. “If he was taken in the third round, he’s a bonus baby in the NFL. You didn’t need to waste a spot on your neg list. This is an art form of protecting players that you can get. This is about identifying guys whose strengths are well suited to the CFL game and are available to come here.”
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