Canadians at NFL draft: Senior has best chance of getting named called
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The Canadian with the best hope of being selected in this week’s NFL draft is an offensive tackle, Justin Senior of Montreal.
A three-year starter on the right side of Mississippi State’s line, the 22-year-old helped to protect a high-profile quarterback from 2014-15: current Dallas Cowboys starter Dak Prescott, during his last two years as a Bulldog.
The NFL draft runs Thursday to Saturday in Philadelphia.
Senior is one of four Canadians who have the best shots at being drafted, late Saturday afternoon when the final two of seven rounds take place.
The other three Canadians: Tight end Tony Auclair of Notre-Dame-des-Pins, Que. (a Laval University product); offensive guard/tackle Geoff Gray of Winnipeg (University of Manitoba); and defensive lineman Eli Ankou of Ottawa (UCLA).
Senior, the son of Jamaican immigrants, faced many of U.S. college football’s best edge rushers at Mississippi State, as the Bulldogs compete in the Southeastern Conference (SEC) against the likes of Alabama, LSU, Florida, Georgia and Tennessee.
“Like they say, the SEC is the closest thing to the NFL,” Senior told reporters early last month at the NFL scouting combine in Indianapolis. “It really makes me feel good about what I’m doing. It’s like, ‘Oh, I’m not that far off.’
“Before, the NFL seemed kind of like a dream. You might say if you come from Canada, this doesn’t really happen. Everything really felt like a dream opportunity. Now it finally feels like something I can attain, something I can grasp.”
Although some draftniks a month or two ago had pegged Senior to be a middle-round draft pick, his stock apparently has fallen since the combine and his pro day, when he battled injuries. He visited with three teams at the Senior Bowl in late January: Baltimore, Cleveland and the New York Giants.
“I like Justin Senior,” NFL Network’s lead draft analyst Mike Mayock said last Friday. “I spent some time watching him. I’ve got him at the top of the sixth round right now. He’s got size. He played at a major college in a major division … I think he’s going to be a right tackle at the next level.”
Mel Kiper, ESPN’s long-time draft analyst, said Monday he sees Senior either as a “late round” pick, or a priority free-agent signee shortly after the draft ends early Saturday evening.
If his NFL dream fails to materialize, Senior has an impressive fallback. Since September he has been rated the No. 1 CFL draft prospect by that league’s scouting bureau.
Football aside, Senior picked up a degree from Mississippi State in sociology two years ago and was working toward a second degree in political science last fall.
Auclair, the Laval tight end, and Gray, the Manitoba O-lineman, are the Canadians with the next best NFL draft chances. Both were invited to take part last January in a U.S. college all-star bowl, the East-West Shrine Game in St. Petersburg, Fla. There, both caught the eyes of NFL talent evaluators, scoring numerous interviews.
Auclair played quarterback as a youngster growing up in a parish in the Beauce-Sartigan Regional County Municipality, south of the St. Lawrence River in the Chaudière-Appalaches region of Quebec. That’s just 55 km northwest of Sandy Bay Township, Maine.
It wasn’t until his third year of CEGEP — a post-secondary level of education in Quebec that functions as a segue, of sorts, between high school and university — that Auclair switched to tight end.
Auclair — who usually is listed by his given first name of Antony (pronounced Anthony in English) but he said he prefers Tony — sees himself as a prototypical tight end who can block as well as catch.
Now 6-foot-53/8 and weighing 257 pounds, the 23-year-old said he has been dreaming about becoming an NFLer since he was eight.
“I was watching a game with my dad and I remember saying, ‘I want to play in this league,’ ” said Auclair, who will watch the draft with his parents, one brother and three sisters in Notre-Dame-des-Pins.
Ranked the No. 7 CFL draft prospect, Auclair said he has visited with 10 NFL teams during the pre-draft window.
“Auclair is really interesting to me,” Mayock said. “He ran big routes. He’s a big, strong kid that’s athletic and tough. But he also happens to face the deepest tight-end class in years. I think some teams would love to get him as a priority free agent. But I think there is a chance he could go late in the draft.”
Gray, 22, started his last three years with the Manitoba Bisons — mostly at right guard, but some at right tackle.
A competitive weightlifter on the side over the past four years, Gray has studied mechanical engineering and hopes some day to specialize in thermo-fluids.
Pro football is his focus now. He’s the No. 3 ranked CFL prospect holding out hope of being drafted by an NFL club on Saturday.
“I’ve got Gray as a priority free agent,” Mayock said. “Don’t think he’s going to get drafted. But I think he’s going to be in somebody’s camp.”
The Green Bay Packers two weeks ago flew the 6-foot-6, 315-pounder down to Titletown for his lone official NFL visit.
“Then I’ve had just a number of calls from a few teams, talking with their offensive line coaches,” said Gray, who plans to watch the draft at his parents’ home in Winnipeg.
It’s easier for a Canadian O-lineman to segue into the NFL at guard rather than at tackle, because American football has no one-yard neutral zone. But Gray said he’s willing to play either position.
He also fits the bill as a prototypical offensive lineman who’s exceedingly quiet, polite and unassuming off the field, but ferocious on it.
“I would say that I’m definitely someone who plays with an aggressive edge,” Gray said. “I’m not like that off the field by any means … When it comes to a game, you don’t want to hurt people and do anything outside the rules, but you definitely want to dominate the person in front of you.
“I don’t really talk about it. I’m not a talkative-type person. I don’t really think about it one way or another really. It’s not a conscious decision. I just put the pads on go out there and, uh, things happen for a couple of hours.”
Ankou, the son of a father who emigrated in 1989 from the West African country of Togo and a mother raised on a farm in Field, Ont., is the No. 2 CFL draft prospect. He was born in Ottawa South and raised both there and in the Ottawa suburb of Orleans.
After attending U.S. football camps as a teen, Ankou compiled his own YouTube highlights video, and that caught the attention of UCLA first, before a wave of other top NCAA universities. After a year at a prep academy in Delaware, Ankou relocated westward to Westwood, home of UCLA’s famed campus. At the time he stood 6-foot-3 and weighed 265 pounds.
Now Ankou tips the scales at just over 330 pounds. In his four years at UCLA he played at every position along the defensive line, from end to nose tackle. That versatility should help him as he tries to land an NFL job.
“I’ve worked out for the (L.A.) Rams, (L.A.) Chargers and Dallas Cowboys, and I’ve visited the (Indianapolis) Colts and Green Bay Packers,” said the 22-year-old, whose parents are flying to California to watch the draft with him at his Westwood apartment.
Asked to assess the draft chances of Auclair, Gray and Ankou, EPSN’s Kiper said: “The tight end has a chance, maybe, late. But I’d say, for me, the way I grade them out: late-round or priority free agents, (and) I would shade priority free agent for all of them, pretty much.”
Other Canadians — including CFL scouting bureau No. 4 prospect Danny Vandervoort of McMaster, a receiver from Barrie, Ont., — similarly hope to score at least a free-agent contract on Saturday night, when NFL clubs scramble to outbid each other for the cream of the undrafted crop. Failing that, they’d take at least a tryout at an NFL rookie mini-camp in early May.
The NFL’s 82nd entry draft begins with Round 1 Thursday at 8 p.m. EDT in the NFL Draft Theatre at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Rounds 2-3 Friday starting at 7 p.m., and Rounds 4-7 on Saturday at noon.
NFL Network is televising all seven rounds live.
TSN2 is airing ESPN’s live feed only for Round 1 on Thursday night, although TSN subscribers can watch ESPN’s live feeds Friday and Saturday online, at TSN GO.
