2015 CFL draft set for May 12, which should be perfect relative to the NFL draft

One of the big issues surrounding recent CFL drafts has been the difficulty of gauging the NFL interest in certain top prospects. The NFL has picked up more and more Canadians recently, drafting three in 2012 and a record-breaking four Canadian-born players last year, and the four Canadians who attended this year's full NFL combine illustrate how that trend isn't going away. The CFL is responding well, though, with a couple of big changes that should make it easier for its teams to gauge NFL interest in prospects. One substantial change was announced Thursday when the CFL finally revealed the date of its 2015 draft, Tuesday, May 12. That's 10 days after the NFL's draft wraps up on May 2, a big change from the three-day buffer we saw last year, and one that should give CFL teams enough time to see which players sign in the NFL as undrafted free agents.

This date change is a big deal for the CFL, as it should drastically reduce the amount of guessing its teams have to do leading up to the draft. Consider last year's draft, held on May 13, three days after the NFL draft wrapped up May 10. That draft saw the Montreal Alouettes select Montreal Carabins offensive tackle David Foucault fifth overall. It was known at that point that the NFL had some interest in Foucault, as he'd received several minicamp invitations; that was a big part of why he didn't go higher in the CFL draft. However, minicamp invitations don't always mean a lot, so at that point, Foucault was still likely worth a first-round pick. On May 19, though, Foucault officially signed with the NFL's Carolina Panthers, where he's stayed and turned into a starter. If the CFL draft had been 10 days after the NFL draft in 2014, teams would have known that Foucault had officially signed in the NFL, which is much more information than him just receiving minicamp invites.

Foucault would have still been chosen in the 2014 CFL draft even if it had been held 10 days after the NFL one, but he likely would have gone much later. Montreal's pick isn't necessarily completely wasted, as some players still come back to the CFL after a couple of years in the NFL (Toronto LB Cory Greenwood is a case in point). Still, for the moment, it looks like the Alouettes gambled that the NFL interest in him wasn't substantial, and it looks like they lost. This date change should help make it so teams have to do less high-stakes gambling against the NFL in the CFL draft.

This also fits in with the 2013 changes to draft eligibility that started to kick in last year, resulting in a 2014 draft that was mostly CIS players. The 2015 draft that will see CFL teams drafting undeclared NCAA redshirts after their senior season for the first time, which will also help dramatically with weighing NFL interest. If the NFL's going to take these players, it will be doing so in the same year, and doing so before the CFL does. The previous setup of taking NCAA players after their redshirt junior year (when they still had a season of NCAA eligibility, and thus would be drafted by the NFL the following year) led to problematic cases like that of Danny Watkins, the Baylor guard who B.C. picked fourth overall in the 2010 CFL draft.

At that time, Watkins had played reasonably well for the Bears and there was some rumoured NFL interest in him, but not enough to dissuade CFL teams (or at least the Lions). Baylor improved from 4-8 to 7-6 in 2010, though, with quarterback Robert Griffin III starting to emerge as a star, and that helped focus a lot of NFL attention on their team, boosting Watkins' profile substantially. He was eventually taken by the Philadelphia Eagles 29th overall in the 2011 NFL draft, becoming the first Canadian to go in the first round of the NFL draft since Tim Biakabutka in 1996. Things didn't work out for Watkins in Philadelphia, and he's now quit football to focus on firefighting, so that pick might have gone south for B.C. even without NFL interest. Still, his case shows the difficulties of weighing NFL interest under the old setup.

There's another former Baylor offensive lineman whose case is also illustrative, current Montreal Alouette Philip Blake. Blake was widely seen as one of the top talents heading into the 2011 CFL draft, but there was already substantial NFL interest in him, so he fell to Montreal in the third round. Following a great 2012 Baylor season where the team went 10-3 and Griffin won the Heisman Trophy, Blake was chosen by  the Denver Broncos in the fourth round of the 2012 NFL draft. He only lasted a year with them, briefly caught on with the Arizona Cardinals in 2013 and spent 2014 out of football before signing with Montreal in January, so that's a pick that did wind up working out for them in the end. Still, most NFL fourth-round picks aren't ever going to head to the CFL, and it's unlikely Blake would have been drafted in the CFL's third round if teams already knew the NFL would take him that high.

Changing the draft date and the draft eligibility should be exceptionally useful for CFL teams as they approach the 2015 draft. There will also be more information on non-NFL prospects available thanks to the continued expansion of regional combines. The league will hold regional combines March 23 in Edmonton, March 25 in Montreal and March 26 in Toronto before the March 27-29 national combine in Toronto; that should improve teams' files of information on prospects and help to catch some who might have slipped through the cracks otherwise. Having a late draft, and one that includes NCAA redshirt seniors for the first time, may be even more important, though. The NFL's a substantial factor in the attempt to collect Canadian talent these days; these changes should help CFL teams be more aware of just how much interest the NFL has in top prospects, leading to a better CFL draft.