At the beginning of 2016, the old-time receiver for the Alouettes, Éric Deslauriers, decided to take a step down from football and take on a new challenge. He decided to accept a position as a scout for the organization.

In his new role, Éric still gets to live out his passion for football. However, he is now in charge of evaluating potential players for the team.

Presently, Éric is preparing for this season’s draft, which will take place on May 10th, by evaluating the Canadian players coming from Canadian and American universities.

“I have to evaluate players coming from 20 different universities in order to prepare the team for the upcoming draft.” confirmed Deslauriers.

In addition to the CFL draft, the scout’s team is organizing tryout camps to assess the players that have completed university, but that are not eligible to attend the draft. “During these camps, we hope to find a diamond in the rough!” said the scout.

“I have to evaluate players coming from 20 different universities in order to prepare the team for the upcoming draft.”

What does the daily life of a scout look like? Every day, the Alouettes’ “talent seekers” view multiple videos that are transferred to them to evaluate the performance and the potential of the players. Following every evaluation, a report containing recommendations and opinions about the players is sent to the team of football operations.

“We have players like Jean-Samuel Blanc who had a great impact in the special units.”

When he observes the rookies that were brought to the Alouettes in 2015, he is nothing but satisfied of their performance. “We have players like Jean-Samuel Blanc who had a great impact in the special units.” confirmed Deslauriers. Also, he added that James Bodanis and Jacob Ruby may leave their mark in the upcoming season: “They are players that were brought here to fill in vacant positions on our team.”

For the next draft, Éric Deslauriers confirmed that the Alouettes aren’t looking for a precise type of player. However, he noticed that a peculiar trend has designed itself among the teams of the league regarding offensive line players. “Due to the fact that we are required to have 7 Canadian players on the field, we like to use them as offensive line players,” said Deslauriers. To summarize, Deslauriers confirmed that “the 2016 draft will be excellent and will allow for the CFL teams to be the bests.”

To conclude, Éric Deslauriers had some words of wisdom for kids who wish to play professional football in the CFL: giving your 100% in school is as important as the hard work you put on the field.