It happens after every draft in every sport. General managers will say the same thing when asked about a player they had just selected, “We couldn’t believe he was still on the board.”
In 2014 your humble typist was working at TSN, providing Argo content for the network’s website. In an effort to find out how much of that GM-speak was true, this scribe asked then-general manager Jim Barker if it would be okay to go behind the scenes and document the process. After conferring with head coach Scott Milanovich, full access to the draft room was granted, and aside from one season, that tradition has continued for the last seven years for the Argonauts. ca.
This year was an excellent example of why the request was made in the first place. The Argos would say they had a near-perfect draft, and in this case, they’d be telling the truth.
Before it was over, they’d have selected the two global players they had atop their board, while in the main draft they would select their top-ranked player at four different positions.
The only restrictions that Argonauts.ca had when composing this article were that the names of any players the Argos did not select could not be mentioned, nor could the names of any players mentioned in trade discussions.
There was a different look to this year’s draft team. Since he joined the football operations team in 2014, Vince Magri had been a major component of the Argos draft preparation, but shortly after last year’s draft, the assistant general manager announced he was leaving his hometown of Toronto to join the scouting staff of the NFL’s Buffalo Bills.
Most things remained the same. Michael “Pinball” Clemons remained the man in charge. The general manager would still have senior advisor to the general manager John Murphy and head coach Ryan Dinwiddie providing major input; special teams coordinator Mickey Donovan did a ton of preparation, but this year a new face would be given a louder voice, having also helped with the prep work.
The increased responsibility was awarded to Marcus Grandison, who for the past three years has worked in the team’s video department and was promoted to scouting assistant and quality control coach this year. The Toronto native joined the Argos from Simon Fraser University, where he was not only on the team’s coaching staff but also one of their recruiters.
His role this year was to organize the prospects, produce video cutups of each player, rank the prospects, and then showcase his work to Clemons, Murphy, and Dinwiddie.
His work started just after Magri shuffled off to Buffalo and culminated with Tuesday’s drafts. It was a bit overwhelming for his first year in his additional new role.
“It was like drinking from a water hose,” he told Argonauts.ca of his first experience. “You’re not sure where to look at first, but overall, it was good.”
Grandison was among the first to arrive at the Argos football operations office at Coca-Cola Coliseum, located three John Haggerty punts east of BMO Field. He would be preceded in the office by Melissa Frith, the team’s director of football operations.
They would be joined by Clemons and Murphy before the global draft began.
The office used for the “war room” is roughly 15 feet by 15 feet with three of the walls adorned with magnetic boards, each filled with individual magnets for each player.
One wall was filled with the rosters of the other eight CFL teams, another with an Argos depth chart, and the third filled with draft prospects. The magnets on the draft wall would include each eligible player’s name, position, school, height, and weight.
Across the top there were abbreviations for each position: quarterbacks, running backs, receivers, interior offensive linemen, offensive tackles, interior defensive linemen, defensive ends, linebackers, and defensive backs. A separate column midway down the left side featured just three names of fullback/tight end prospects.
Written on the board next to some of the players was a letter; N was for a player who had signed with an NFL team, M for a medical concern, C for a character issue, and S for a player who said they would be going back to school next year.
The global draft would be held first. This was a magnet-free event, as all of the rankings were on Grandison’s computer.
A handful of minutes before the clock struck 11:00, the voice of CFL associate vice president of football operations Ryan Janzen appeared on a speakerphone, which was located in the middle of a boardroom table located closest to the east wall.
Grandison sat at his desk, with his computer screen opened to the team’s draft preparation. Murphy stood beside him, with Clemons seated at the table on which the speakerphone was placed.
As the clock hit 11:00 sharp, Janzen announced that Calgary was on the clock.
With Haggerty and Jeremy Edwards both under contract, the Argos didn’t need a punter, so each time one was selected, it was good news for the Boatmen. The team realistically had its heart set on two players, one from Austria and the other from Tonga. There was one player they assumed would be chosen before they had their first pick, and that happened. The hope was that at least one of the other two dropped to them with the ninth pick.
When Calgary selected a punter first overall, there were smiles in the room. Ears perked up when Ryan Janzen announced a trade that saw Winnipeg acquire the second pick in the draft.
By the time the Ticats had made the eighth overall selection, five punter/kickers had been chosen, with both of the Argos’ preferred options still on the table. They were able to get a player they wanted all along, Valentin Senn, a 6’7”, 305-pound offensive tackle from Austria, who started his final 38 games as a left tackle at the University of Connecticut. He just signed a contract with the Arizona Cardinals of the NFL.
The selection was made via speakerphone at 11:11 by Murphy.
“He’s a starting offensive tackle at an NCAA program,” said Murphy when asked about the pick. “He’s going to get a good opportunity to get looked at at Arizona. He’s someone who could dress as a global (player) at a position that’s different from what we’ve done before.”
A quick round of handshakes and fist bumps quickly gave way to discussion about the 18th pick in the draft. Several players were discussed, but with only two non-kickers/punters chosen in the first eight picks of round two, the other player the Argos had targeted as a potential first-rounder was still available.
At 11:18, Grandison hit unmute on the conference call and selected Soane Toia, a defensive lineman from San Jose State.
“If Senn was gone, we would have picked (Toia) there,” said Murphy.
The two rounds took just 18 minutes to complete. The Argos had done well, able to walk away with the two players they had hoped to land, never expecting that to happen.
Then the long wait began, as there were six hours and 42 minutes to kill before the main event was to begin.
The draft time was changed to six o’clock to accommodate fans of one of Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment’s other properties, the Toronto Maple Leafs. Last week the CFL opted to move the beginning of the draft forward; that way, fans who wanted to watch the Leafs and Ottawa Senators Game Five could also watch the first hour of the draft on TSN.
Everyone seemed fine with the move. In the past, there had been over an eight-hour waiting period between the end of the global draft and the beginning of the main event. This knocked two hours off the downtime, which nobody complained about.
During the still lengthy break between drafts, much was discussed; some topics were football-related, some not. The volume on one of the televisions in the room was turned up when TSN ran the Grey Cup version of its “CFL Wired” series, allowing for a little reminiscing of a fondly remembered evening in Vancouver.
There was also discussion related to the upcoming draft as Murphy talked trade with a couple of other teams.
Argonauts.ca was curious about the results of several mock drafts conducted by the Argos. Members of the coaching staff would each be responsible for filling the role of another CFL team, drafting a player that they felt would best help that club. The goal was to give the personnel department a relatively accurate idea of which players may be available at certain points in the draft.
The two players selected most often by the Argos with pick seven were Jeremiah Ojo, a defensive end from the University of Montreal, and Paris Shand, a defensive tackle from LSU.
Murphy also mentioned Ojo when asked about which player he hoped could realistically fall to the seventh overall pick. When asked about a player that he would pound the table for later in the draft, the name Murphy mentioned was Istvan Assibo-Dadzie, a defensive back from Windsor.
It was not the last time the Lancers’ name would be heard in that room.
Grandison was asked the same question. Shand was his favorite player in the draft, while he mentioned two players that he hoped would be available in later rounds, but both would be selected by other teams.
Clemons would not take the bait. His reason was that he was more invested in positions than players. He didn’t want to be disappointed if he had his heart set on a player and he wasn’t available. The GM preferred to make his preference known by position and have input on a player when it was time for the pick. He was quick to point out that the defensive line was the most important need in the draft.
There was an interesting, lengthy conversation between Clemons and Murphy, focusing on the giant Argos depth chart along the north wall of the office. It was a discussion of the new players, the versatility of the current lineup, options of who could play which positions, where any new players would/could fit in, and how the night ahead may help fill any voids.
As the clock hit 5:00, Clemons and Murphy were discussing a couple of potential deals, each of which would involve the Argos moving back in the draft. One involved giving up two Toronto picks for a pick and a roster player from another team. The two discussed not only the ramifications the deal would have on the position played by the specific player but also on the entire roster.
The discussion stopped but resurfaced about half an hour later. It was an offer that the team was seriously discussing, but it would risk losing not just one, but potentially all of their top targets as the seventh and sixteenth picks would both be involved.
That was a move the Argos were reluctant to make.
A couple of coaches stopped by the office to say hello. Quarterbacks coach Mike Miller chatted about the two highest-rated QBs in the draft, while defensive line coach Greg Marshall stopped by to compliment the front office on acquiring Soane Toia, a player he likes a great deal, in the second round of the Global draft.
With just 15 minutes left until showtime, Grandison added the Argos war room to the league’s conference call. The downside was that the room was suddenly filled with the stereotypical nondescript instrumental music you hear whenever you’re placed on hold.
It was one of the few disappointments of the evening.
Thankfully the musical interlude ended some ten minutes later when Janzen’s voice again was heard over the speaker. He went through the ground rules of the draft, mentioning that each team would have six minutes to make their pick in round one, five minutes in the second round, and three minutes in rounds three to eight.
Each pick would be sent to the league and its broadcast partners via email, and then the pick would be announced on the conference call the second that newly appointed CFL commissioner Stewart Johnston was announcing the selection on the TSN broadcast.
At 6:00 sharp, Janzen put Calgary on the clock; eight minutes later, Johnson would do the same on TSN. That didn’t mean the Stampeders had an extra eight minutes to make their choice. They had to make their pick in the same six-minute span; it just wouldn’t be announced until later.
The conversation in the draft room is much like being in your fantasy draft. As players were selected, people within the Argos room gave their opinions of the picks; some comments were complimentary, some not so much.
At 6:35, Marshall was called back from the adjoining boardroom where he was sitting with the rest of the coaching staff. There were still a couple of picks to go before the Argos were up, and there were a few options, most of which involved defensive linemen. The d-line coach talked about the strengths of each player and where they would fit into the Argos’ short-term and long-term plans.
There was also still an option to potentially pull the trigger on a trade.
When the commissioner said the Winnipeg Blue Bombers were on the clock with the sixth pick, the room went quiet for a couple of minutes, as those in the room just stared at the board. It made for an anxious period as they feared their Grey Cup opponents would take one of the two players the Argos had narrowed their choice down to: Ojo or Shand.
Ojo would join the team immediately and add depth to a positional group that was picked apart by free agency, a trade, and the NFL. Shand, a local product, had just signed with the NFL’s Buffalo Bills, meaning he wouldn’t be able to join the team until likely September at the earliest. He could, however, turn out to be the best player in the draft.
The Bombers didn’t make the decision any easier when they chose linebacker Connor Shay.
The Argos had to quickly decide whether to trade down or select either Ojo or Shand. Because of the uncertainty of Shand’s availability, it was Dinwiddie who made the final call to add Ojo now, with a slight hope that Shand would fall to them in the second round.
Murphy called the other team’s GM for one final discussion. The trade idea was nixed, and the Argos decided to make the selection. Murphy was so happy with the Ojo pick that he forgot the protocol was to email the selection to the league and instead announced it to everyone on the conference call.
Janzen quickly reminded everyone that during the period of the television broadcast, the picks were to be emailed rather than announced.
High fives were exchanged as the Argos had their man, the player whose magnet was listed above all others under the defensive end position. Dinwiddie called Ojo to tell him the good news, then commented back in the war room that the newest Argo had, in his opinion, “the best interview at the Combine by far.”
When asked by Argonauts.ca why the team liked their first pick so much, Dinwiddie was all smiles.
“We like the way he can bend the edge, his pass-rush skills, and his willingness to play the run game as well,” said the coach. “We feel like he’s a guy that’s going to come in and be a problem for opposing offensive lines. He’s an impact player, and in round one, you always want to get a guy who can play meaningful snaps in year one, and we feel like he’s that guy.”
“When you can win the Grey Cup and get one of the most athletic defensive linemen in the class, it’s a good day.”
There was no time to sit back and celebrate, though, as the team had pick 16 to worry about. The hope was that Shand would fall to them, though they weren’t particularly confident he would. They also discussed moving down in the draft because even if he was still there, they hoped that the Shand NFL signing, which included a signing bonus, would scare off teams from using a second-round pick to choose him.
Multiple teams were contacted about trading down. In a perfect world, the Argos would be able to move no more than a handful of picks back while being able to move up later in the draft.
They were taking the gamble that Shand would still be there. If not, they were confident a player they really liked would still be available if the LSU Tiger was gone.
After they collectively weighed options, Murphy suggested accepting BC’s offer of draft picks 19 and 29 for picks 16 and 37. It would allow them the opportunity to land one of their later targets with the first pick rather than the final pick of the fourth round. It would allow them to have the first two selections of round four while still hopefully keeping them within range of selecting Shand.
The deal was made, and the wait began. It was the quietest it had been all night, even more so than just before the Ojo pick.
After Calgary and BC both passed on Shand, only Winnipeg stood between the Boatmen and their target. When Argonauts.ca mentioned Shand’s name in passing during that period, Clemons, standing nearby, looked down as if a no-hitter or shutout had been mentioned before the game was over.
When the Bombers selected Laurier QB Taylor Elgersma, the draft room was all smiles. Somehow, they had traded back to the end of the second round and still were able to choose the player they almost selected a dozen picks earlier.
With that it was back to the draft board, where for the second time in two picks the player listed above all others at a position had become an Argo, this time in the category of interior defensive lineman.
The Shand magnet was removed from the wall.
“He was one of the top players on our board,” Dinwiddie said following the pick. “For us to get him there, we felt we couldn’t pass him up. Will we see him? We don’t know, but we feel he’s one of the better d-linemen in the group and a guy we could get down the line to help us in the future.”
When talking to Shand’s agent immediately after the selection, Murphy was told the player was all smiles because in the last couple of days he had been signed by the Bills and drafted by the Argos, the Scarborough native’s two favorite teams.
Drafting a player who has ended up in the NFL for a while has worked in the past for the Argos. Ryan Hunter was chosen in 2018, not joining the team until 2022. Tyler Holmes also spent some time in the NFL before starting for the Argos on the 2017 Grey Cup championship team.
The rest of the night provided little drama. Discussions would be held before each of the selections without anything becoming heated.
The most interesting conversation revolved around Jalen Rayam, a linebacker from the University of Texas at El Paso via Middle Tennessee State. A tremendously talented player, the 6’0”, 225-pound linebacker was one of the players with the letter M for medical issue next to his name.
Rayam was raised in Alabama but was born in Calgary while his father, Thomas, an all-star offensive lineman and Grey Cup champion, was playing for the Stampeders.
He’s an athlete who could eventually play at either the middle or weak side linebacker spots. After an outstanding 2022 season at MTSU, Jalen was injured in 2023, then needed rehab again last year with UTEP because of another injury suffered on the third play of the game in the season opener at Nebraska.
He was also the linebacker whose magnet was sitting in the highest slot on the linebacker list. The magnets of the players selected after him were gone, but his name was still perched in the number one position in the LB column.
Though suffering a couple of injuries in the last two seasons, he was a high-end prospect when he entered the NCAA and put together solid video before the injuries. Considering he was drafted as late as he was, with the 46th pick, it becomes a low-risk, very high-reward selection.
“It’s a little bit of a risk,” Dinwiddie told Argonauts.ca. “We have to see how he recovers, but we feel he’s a really good football player that we had high on our board. We were willing to take that reach because of the (current Canadian) depth we have. The medic didn’t really scare us, and we did think he’d fall a bit.”
The other player the Argos ranked first at his position was Joey Zorn, a running back from the University of Windsor. He was a safety at Michigan State before heading to UW and converting from a defensive to an offensive back. He’s a player that may be able to help the Argos on special teams on day one.
The evening was a tremendous success for Toronto, but not perfect. In a couple of instances, the team was discussing a player they were ready to take when just before it was the Argos pick, another team selected that prospect. A pivot was quickly made, and the Argos would be happy with the player they selected instead of their initial target.
“The energy of draft night is palpable. It drips of dreams, compliments our clubs, and will always be a night to remember for football families. The defensive line was our greatest need, and that was mitigated by picks one and two.”
When the draft concluded, people quickly looked for the exit. It was a long day, and everyone wanted to go home, regroup, and get ready to reassemble in Guelph, as training camp is just a couple of weeks away.
