OUT OF THE TUNNEL: OUR ALL-FREE AGENT STARTERS

There are still a lot of warts to remove from the league and with the upcoming negotiations for a new collective bargaining agreement between the CFLPA and the league, there is now a chance to fix a few.

The one that was front and centre this week was the official announcement of the CFL free agency list. It was well noted across CFL media that this is a giant problem. Now we are not sure what the thinking was behind this but one of the reasons for the numerous free agents we have every year was having one-year plus team option contracts.

Now this isn’t the only reason behind having more free agents than signed players but it sure is a giant part of it. Americans are treated like second class citizens in the CFL and we have said this for the five years of this column but there needs to be a more fulsome reward for an American staying for five years or longer with one team.

Our cure has always been giving them a Canadian “green card”. As long as they stay with that team after five seasons, they secure Canadian status. Maximum of two starters per team. Once they leave, they would return to their American status again.

To satisfy the hyper-patriotic CFL fans up the number of Canadian starters to eight from the current seven.

The other thing that CFL fans bring up is the NFL option. This is a simple fix, if one has a chance to sign with an NFL team, just let them. No matter how much time remains on their contract. The numbers are so small in this case that this is not a significant factor in future negotiations.

Other than that, we will step away and let the people that are supposed to be smarter than us figure things out.

Either way, there are hundreds of potential free agents in the CFL so we might as well have some fun with it.

Here is our CFL salary cap-free starting lineup:

We will pick 12 starters on each of offence and defence, kicker, punter and returner. And because money is no object, we will have eight Canadian starters.

Quarterback – This isn’t as star-studded as in past seasons, which is a bit of a surprise but the biggest dog on the block is currently available. So we will sign back-to-back Grey Cup winning and 2021 Most Outstanding Player Zach Collaros. For some fun, we will ink Dane Evans as the backup.

Running back – This is where we could save a little money as running backs are now a dime a dozen and the current rushing title holder, William Stanbeck is still on contract with the Alouettes. We do have a gift with all-world Canadian Andrew Harris available. We will add him to the roster and as a backup we will also grab his current teammate in Winnipeg, Brady Oliveira.

Fullback – We are already breaking our own rules but we love this position, so Patrick Lavoie and Mike Miller have now been signed to our roster. 

Receiver – Of the four receivers, three will be American. Kenny Lawler, Jake Wieneke and Lucky Whitehead are all CFL All-Stars and that makes it easy. This also fills our returner position with Whitehead. As for our Canadian Juwan Brescacin is an easy choice and as a backup we will ink Brayden Lenius.

Offensive line – Again, the CFL All-Star team did a lot of the work for us here. We love Sean McEwen at centre and Brandon Revenberg at guard. Patty Neufeld will be the fourth in the three-man rotation in the middle of the offensive line as the other guard will be his Bomber teammate Drew Desjarlais.

As for the tackles I we will take Stanley Bryant on the left side and a Canadian at the right side with Landon Rice.

On offence we have six of the eight Canadian starters. We are a cliché CFL general manager here, load up on Canadians on offence and an almost all-American defence.

Defensive end – This is also very easy as the best defensive end in the CFL is available and Willie Jefferson will be a big-ticket signing. On the other side we will go with Ja’Gared Davis. He is a player we have loved since the Saskatchewan Roughriders Florida spring camp in 2016.

Defensive tackle – Mike Rose is an incredible three-technique in the middle of the defence and lined up beside him will be Micah Johnson. Micah is another one of the players that have been in our pea-pickin’ hearts for so long that this is an easy decision for us.

Linebackers – Micah Teitz had his breakout season with the Saskatchewan Roughriders and is one of two Canadians on defence. The other two linebackers will be the Stampeders Darnell Sankey. At 27-years-old and a whopping 96 tackles in 14 games this season puts him over the top. This gives us a pair of under-30 players at linebacker. At the cover side will be CFL All-Star Chris Edwards and his three interceptions from the linebacker position.

Safety – We copped out again going with East Division All-Star Tunde Adeleke at safety. The Canadian out of Carlton had a pair of interceptions in 2021 as well as a pair of sacks.

Halfback – T.J. Lee picked up his second CFL divisional All-Star nod this season and along with Cariel Brooks, this will give us an incredible one-two punch at half.

Corner – This is where we will stray from the all-star list and take ballhawk in Trumaine Washington from the Edmonton Elks on one side. He will be joined by DeAundre Alford on the other side. That is a combination of nine interceptions between the two players in just 14 games.

Kicker/Punter – Rene Parades was the top kicker in the CFL and has been at the top for many seasons and at punter we will go off the board and take Stefan Flintoff from the B.C. Lions.

Well, there it is and yes, we let the 2021 All-Stars lead the way but they are supposed to be the best in the CFL. Overall, these 30 players would cost us more than $4.5-million in contracts but because money is no limit we don’t care. It was just a fun foray into the abundance of players available come February 2022.

Julien is the Eagles all-time leader in punt average (44 yards) and total punt yardage (9,964) and was a second team all-MAC in 2021. He isn’t on the CFL scouting bureau watch list but adding a big Canadian leg is a must to any club.