The Edmonton Eskimos will get one more rookie this year.
Just five days away from the 2013 Canadian Football League draft, the league has announced that it’s tacking on a seventh-round to the proceedings.
“The talent of football in Canada is the strongest it’s ever been,” Kevin McDonald, the CFL’s vice president of football operations said in a statement issued with the league’s press release. “And with this increase in the depth of Canadian talent, we wanted to ensure our teams had an increased opportunity to draft, train and coach Canadian players.”
The release added that the draft order for the seventh round is determined by waiver priority. The order will be: Hamilton, Winnipeg, Edmonton, Saskatchewan, Montreal, BC, Calgary, Toronto.
The Hamilton Tiger-Cats have the first overall pick this year. The Eskimos will pick 10th overall, with the first pick in the second round. Edmonton lost its first-round pick to the Montreal Alouettes (third overall) in September when the team traded for kicker Brody McKnight, who was subsequently traded to Saskatchewan on March 1 along with Edmonton’s sixth-round pick for a pair of fifth-round picks.
Check out the full draft order here along with the CFL Scouting Bureau’s final rankings of this year’s draft-eligible players.
With the added players to teams’ rosters through free agency and the draft, the league offered some clarity on roster size prior to the start of rookie camps opening on May 29.
League rules permit teams to bring 75 players to training camp plus players selected in the 2013 CFL Draft, two additional non-imports, players selected in a previous draft by the team that have never attended a professional training camp in Canada or elsewhere, any junior player who has been identified to the League Office (to a maximum of four per team), a Rookie non-import quarterback who is participating in training camp at the quarterback position and an underclassman non-import quarterback who is ineligible to sign a contract or play in a pre-season game.
Eskimos re-sign Marcus Henry, new DB
Marcus Henry’s long wait is over. A free agent since Feb. 15, the talented receiver from Hinesville, Georgia, was re-signed on Wednesday by the Eskimos after originally signing with the team on April 5, 2011. While not a focal point of the Eskimos’ offence in 2012, Henry was a solid option as the season progressed, using his six-foot-five, 224-pound frame to make athletic plays to the tune of 28 catches for 382 yards and one touchdown. His numbers came after spending the first half of the season on the nine-game injured list.
The Eskimos also signed non-import defensive back Otis Merrill. The 24-year-old spent some time with the Green Bay Packers in 2012 after a three-year college career at Illinois State, where he had 76 tackles, one interception, a forced fumble and seven pass knockdowns.
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