Let's see here, all across the CFL there are 23 quarterbacks on active rosters, two on practice rosters, three injured and one on reserve.
Zac Champion of the BC Lions is the one on reserve and is irrelevant to this discussion while Ricky Santos (Montreal), Graham Harrell (Saskatchewan) and Jason Boltus (Hamilton) are "injured" and also irrelevant here.
And also for the purpose of this discussion (which you're not sure about yet) let's exclude every free agent quarterback and every quarterback who'll be cut by the NFL.
Now, where am I headed with this? You'll see in a minute.
In Calgary there's a bit of a quarterback controversy and I'd say they'd like to keep Burris, Nealy and Tate with them for now while they sort it out.
Hamilton likes Porter, Glenn and Tafralis, Montreal is good with Calvillo, McPherson and Leak while in Winnipeg Bishop, LeFors and Randall are good enough for them.
Now that leaves BC, Saskatchewan, Edmonton and Toronto.
If you saw the game between BC and Toronto last night, you saw Buck Pierce and Travis Lulay go down with head injuries for BC while Jarious Jackson was inconsistent.
In Toronto, Joseph and Pickett are doing battle but Pickett looked good enough and they don't seem to need a third guy and the only other QB on the roster is Stephen Reaves (practice roster) who probably won't garner much interest.
Edmonton and Saskatchewan however have some moveable pieces.
With Graham Harrell's expected arrival any week now from the injured list, Saskatchewan could part with either Steven Jyles or Dalton Bell in a trade but that would require a team give up something like a draft pick.
On the Riders practice roster is high flying quarterback Cole Bergquist and all a team would have to do is sign him and give up nothing but money to the guy.
Edmonton on the other hand has starter Ricky Ray, veteran Jason Maas and rookie Jared Zabransky.
Zabransky has shown the Eskimos enough promise to keep him on while Maas has a proven track record.
Now to the point of this article, if Pierce and/or Lulay are going to miss any significant amount of time or if Calgary decides they need more QB help or Toronto decides they need a third guy but don't want it to be Reaves then watch out for some moves.
If anyone goes I'd expect Bergquist to get signed, Bell might get dealt and Maas could go if Zabransky continues to improve.
Of course Harrell is just being protected from being claimed by being placed on the injured list while he learns. Saskatchewan is very deep in QBs.
ReplyDeleteThere's a lot of suspicion that Toronto's coach has an NFL cut in mind because he has a particular fondness for having people around him that he has played with before.
I doubt Winnipeg's very satisfied. Of course they'd like to develop LeFors and Bishop has the ability to play but the knock on Bishop's always been that he doesn't have the ability to keep a big playbook and opponent's soon enough learn how to exploit his tendencies. You can keep up with his fantastic arm strength and athleticism but you'll have a hard time winning a championship.