April 16: One week away from Mini-Camp!
The deadness of the CFL off-season has never hit home so much as it does now, with nothing but crickets as CFL teams prepare for the CFL draft on May 3 and the NFL draft which will dictate the CFL draft choices before then.
The CFL combine and week has come and gone in Winnipeg and now CFL teams have to face the question of which players do they choose that are good enough to help their team but not that good to escape to the NFL and possibly never come back to Canada?
How CFL teams read those tea leaves, and perhaps ponder the possibility of a starting Canadian quarter back changing the ratio in the next Collective Bargaining Agreement, could spell the difference between a Grey Cup winner and a team desperately trying to hang onto relevence in its particular marketplace.
Henoc Muamba, released by the Riders for salary cap reasons, was picked up by Montreal for a three year deal. It’s likely Muamba got somewhere around $200K for his services, with a fair chunk guaranteed. The Riders let him go because his production versus the dollars they were paying him did not exactly equal out. And the Riders likely wanted to spend their dollars on Canadian talent that could make similar contributions.