OUT OF THE TUNNEL: RATING THE DRAFT

BY: RODPEDERSEN.COM STAFF

It sure is nice to talk a little real-time football! The 2020 CFL Draft had the only live Canadian sports content over the past six weeks, and for the foreseeable future. TSN had a great opportunity to to give the CFL an impactful broadcast and test some stuff for the upcoming NHL draft this summer.

We were hopeful for a stellar broadcast because TSN had nothing but time to prepare and incredible people power to execute it. The broadcast was just…meh. 

1. Duane Forde is the man. There should have been more of him. Forde has been one of the few major media football analysts that carries the flag for Canadian college football talent analysis. He was on point again Thursday night and when he spoke, it felt like he knew the draft picks inside out and was able to independently make talent assumptions on his own and not use other outlets to fuel his analysis. 

2. Just having the spotlight. With this pandemic turning everyone’s lives upside down, TSN could have easily balked at broadcasting the draft and left it all up to the CFL. They stepped up and it was worth it.

The broadcast garnered the best ratings for a CFL Draft in years. It promoted Canadian content and the CFL itself. There were hundreds of thousands of eyes on the draft and that is nothing but a good thing.

3. The technical side was decent considering the conditions. The analysts had great quality cameras and the show was switched and directed as smoothly as possible. It was easy to do because this was a broadcast that took absolutely zero risks when this should have been an opportunity to take a few risks.

Three Negatives:

1. Too many simple mistakes. These are the things that kill a broadcast and its integrity. The two biggest being spelling mistakes on the draft pick graphic.

The first was when Tomas Jack-Kurdyla’s name was spelled incorrectly when he was selected as the fourth overall pick. The second came with the 7th overall pick Mattland Riley. Saskatchewan was spelled wrong.

2. The highlight packages of the draft picks were not broadcast quality. This is one of the easiest things to cover off.  You can tell that the majority of the game video was either provided to them as an awful quality or was ripped off from different video platforms.

It was glaring off the top with the first overall pick Jordan Williams from East Carolina University. The Pirates are an FBS school that has a national TV deal. In Williams’ final season in 2017 the Pirates played on either an ESPN platform or CBSSN.

All TSN had to do over the past few months was contact the ECU athletic department. We do know that the school may be in shutdown mode but with enough lead time Pirates athletics would have been able to get them HD quality footage.

Even easier, contact their American broadcast partners, ESPN for a little help.

3. The lack of player interviews. This is also an easy get. It took until very late into the broadcast before we saw the first overall pick interviewed. When it was finally aired, it was terrible quality. The reporter looked like he was broadcasting from Mars and the two-shot graphic build was not great. We critique this because over the past four weeks, news outlets have mastered the art of the video conference interview for broadcast.

It may feel like we are being hard on TSN but with a couple of easy tweaks and some extra effort TSN could have had an incredible piece of broadcasting.

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It was a fairly chalk draft and the Saskatchewan Roughriders were very down-the-middle with their selections.

We figured that they would take an offensive linemen with their first round pick and had a lot of comfort staying in their backyard with Mattland Riley.

The University of Saskatchewan standout is a natural guard and won’t have to make the switch from college tackle to guard. He won’t be a day one starter but like most Canadian offensive linemen, will take a little time but will come to be a solid starter in the CFL.

Something we didn’t see coming was the selection of a receiver with their next pick, which didn’t take place until the fourth round, 30th overall.

The Roughriders were a little handcuffed without a second or third round pick and with the selection of Kian Schaffer-Baker it marks that they are desperately looking for a Canadian receiver to give them four, or possibly five, national starters on offence.

What we also now know is that Roughriders general manager, Jeremy O’Day has a receiver type. And his type is of the giant variety.

2019 first and second round draft picks Justin McInnis and Brayden Lenius are both 6’5” and well over 200 pounds. Schaffer-Baker is the same build, 6’4” and 200 pounds.

The rest of the draft was a player for every position. The final pick was the reach of all reaches with the selection of Oklahoma defensive tackle Neville Gallimore. The Ottawa native was selected by the Dallas Cowboys in the 3rd round, 82nd overall. Gallimore should never see the light of day in the CFL.

The most interesting pick could be running back Jonathan Femi-Cole from Western Ontario. The 6’0”, 225 pounder from Vaughn, Ontario has NCAA division one talent having played three seasons with the University of Minnesota before transferring to Western.