There's more and more American interest in Canadian football players all the time, as Brad Gagnon noted last month in an excellent CBS feature on Canadian-born and Canadian-trained talent in the NFL. That has major implications for the CFL and for the CFL draft in particular. CFL teams are now not just drafting based just on pure skill or how they project a player in Canadian football, but also on their understanding of the amount of NFL interest in a player. That's why there are such differences between the prospect rankings and who's likely to actually go near the top of the draft.

Gauging that NFL interest accurately is crucial. If done right, this can lead to top talent being picked later in the CFL draft and eventually coming north. A case in point is Bo Lokombo; he topped the 2013 prospect rankings but wasn't taken until the 21st pick thanks to NFL interest, which wound up being a tremendous deal for B.C. as Lokombo joined the Lions last fall. If that NFL interest is poorly gauged, though, this can lead to high picks being spent on guys who will never play in Canada, such as Danny Watkins.

Unfortunately for the CFL, the NFL interest in Canadians has only gone up in recent years, with a record four Canadian-born players being drafted last year and another record four Canadians attending this year's full NFL combine (plus others working out at regional combines and other U.S. events). Fortunately for the CFL, estimating the level of NFL interest in any particular draft-eligible player should be easier than ever this year, thanks both to a later draft and to the change to draft eligibility rules that will see NCAA players who redshirted drafted by both leagues in the same season for the first time this year. We won't have a complete picture of how American football views these guys until after the NFL draft at the end of April and the following weeks of NFL teams signing undrafted free agents, but we can start to get an estimate now based on a few tiers. Here's a breakdown of the varying levels of proven NFL interest in players thus far.

Tier I: NFL national combine invitees: This is the most obvious level of NFL interest, and it's an important one. Over 300 players participated in the league's national combine, so that's where the vast majority of the 256 picks in this year's NFL draft will come from. Four Canadians took part in that event: UNLV offensive lineman Brett Boyko (ranked #1 on the December prospects list), Yale running back Tyler Varga (#4), Rice defensive tackle Christian Covington (not on the list only because he declared for the draft late), and South Alabama quarterback Brandon Bridge (not on that list thanks to being a quarterback; there's still no ratio benefit to playing a Canadian quarterback, so CFL teams will draft them late if at all). None of those four are locks to be chosen in the NFL draft, but all have drawn substantial interest and would seem likely to either go late in the draft or be signed as undrafted free agents. Thus, CFL teams probably won't be picking them high unless they're completely passed over by the NFL.

Tier II: Players who took part in other U.S. events: This includes players like UConn offensive lineman Alex Mateas (ranked #2 in December), Western defensive lineman Daryl Waud (#3), Calgary offensive lineman Sukh Chung (#6) and Regina receiver Addison Richards (#10). Mateas turned down the CFL combine in favour of UConn's pro day, where he put up impressive numbers. Waud and Richards were the two CIS players who competed in the NCAA East-West Shrine Game this year. Chung attended NFL regional and super-regional combines before the CFL one. This is not an exhaustive list; I may not have heard about all the CFL prospects who've attended U.S. events, so this tier could be larger.

This is a difficult tier to evaluate; pro days, the Shrine Game and regional combines can lead to NFL finds, but they often don't. These players didn't attend the full NFL combine, so that suggests there may be less NFL interest in them than those who did, but there are always some NFL draft picks who didn't go to the full combine, and there are lots of undrafted free agent signings from those ranks. What is important about this tier is that these guys have at least been on the NFL radar for a while. That may not affect their CFL stock too much depending on what happens in the NFL draft/undrafted free agent signings; Waud and Chung are still amongst my top-five draft prospects, but that's if they don't sign NFL deals before the draft. The length of NFL interest in them does mean that the NFL's a definite possibility for them, though.

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