Piecing together the parts for a CFL expansion franchise is anything but a 9 to 5 job.

Being able to think without much sleep one of those left-unsaid qualifications built into the job description for football operations people.

RedBlacks assistant GM Brock Sunderland doesn't mind. He's been in the NFL, as a scout with the New York Jets, and he's worked with the Montreal Alouettes, but like the rest of the fired-up RedBlacks football ops employees who are working out of a temporary office on Industrial Ave, he's excited to be part of this liftoff.

“Having a team from the start up — it's rare you're ever going to get the opportunity in professional football to have your hands on something from ground zero,” said the 34-year-old Sunderland, whose own college football career as a receiver/punt returner at the University of Montana was derailed by six knee surgeries.

The plan is for the RedBlacks to go into training camp in four months or so with 87 players. So far, about half of that sits on a RedBlacks depth chart in Sunderland's office. Each day, they scan through the CFL's daily status report, which updates signings, players cut, added or deleted from their neg lists.

“It's daunting a bit, but exciting is a better word,” said Sunderland. “A lot of times you go to a team and the roster's pretty well set. We're hand picking these guys. Every player we have, we can look down and say we legitimately say this player can get us to where we want to get to, which is winning championships.”

Sunderland, along with GM Marcel Desjardins, scout Jeremy Snyder, Canadian scout Miles Gorrell, interns Patrick Bourgon and Joey Swarbrick, video co-ordinator Colin Farquharson and football administration co-ordinator Chantal Covington are trying to give coach Rick Campbell a solid team to work with out of the chute. Watching game film and watching more game film is a daily routine. The football ops folks have checked out four recent college football bowl games in the U.S. — the Medal of Honor Bowl in Charleston, the NFLPA Bowl in Los Angeles, the East West Shrine Game in St. Petersburg and the Dream Bowl in Virginia Beach. Four players were added to the team's 35-man neg list as a result.

“We're beating the bushes,” said Sunderland. “Ninety-nine percent of the guys we see at the all-star games are going to wait and see if they're going to go to the NFL. You try to be strategic in who you put on your neg list.

“The way I try to phrase is you want the best of the rest. The guys you know are sure-fire NFL players, you're probably going to avoid them unless something goes wrong during their career. You want the guys that have the talent and ability to play in the NFL, but they may just be missing something, whether it be height, ideal weight, school size, whatever it may be. But you want to get the best talent you think you can get as quickly as possible.

“The reality is they're all going to want to play in the NFL. Some of these guys will get drafted, others will sign as free agents. They may get cut during NFL camps, they may want to wait and linger for tryouts, they may say 'Ok, I'll come up to the CFL,' so you add them mid-season, or they may wait until next season. So it can be a year or longer process.

“We may not see a guy for 2-3 years. A good example is (quarterback) Troy Smith. The Alouettes had him on their neg list for years. Some guys, you're just patient for. Other guys you see, they know where they fit and you sign them the next day.”

It can be a scramble, a race to the phone in some cases — with scouts from other CFL teams watching the same games. It's first-come, first-served when it comes to players who are not already on another team's neg list.

“There's a player I saw at the NFLPA game,” said Sunderland. “I was immediately thinking not only might he come up here, but I think he immediately has all-star potential. I was at practice and immediately sent the transaction to the league office. It can be that quick where you see him and you have that 'a-ha' moment. Is he a guy that will go to an NFL camp? Probably. Will he stick? Maybe not. But I think he would be dynamite up here.”

San Jose State quarterback David Fales is one player on the RedBlacks' neg list who may never play a game here. He could be chosen as early as the second round in this year's NFL Draft. Or maybe not. Maybe last season's five games of more than 400 yards passing, one game with six TD strikes, won't mean anything in the NFL. Either way, the RedBlacks will wait and see. It's worth the neg-list spot.

Sunderland said last month's CFL expansion draft gave the RedBlacks some great building blocks. They will likely look to add a couple of big pieces to those building blocks in free agency, which begins Feb. 15.

“There are a couple of players we think would make an immediate impact and if they come to market, we'll be aggressive,” said Sunderland.

The team, which has heard from guys hoping to play here from as far away as Australia, will hold five more tryout camps across the United States in March and April, then one in Ottawa.

Long hours and many cups of coffee aside, the folks constructing the RedBlacks are excited to be the architects of a team that will hit the field soon enough.

“The week leading into the expansion draft was a sprint,” said Sunderland. “We really grinded. But you try to pace yourself, it's a marathon. The season doesn't start until June. The nice thing is Miles, Marcel, Jeremy and myself — we've done this before, we've all been in pro football for at least eight years. You're excited, but you're calculated. You not only try to sign players, you try to sign the right players.

“We have a plan. We're going to plan to work and work to plan. Everybody in the industry is highly competitive and is in it to win. We don't have a benchmark as far as second round of playoffs or hosting a playoff game or a specific number of wins, but we're doing what we can to have a winning team from Day 1. We think we're doing it the right way. We're not taking any shortcuts.”

It's that good old lunchbucket attitude, the front office's vision of no pain, no gain.

“We get in here at 6 in the morning, or if you're Marcel at 5, and before you know it, it's 6 at night,” said Sunderland. “Time just flies by with the film and all the other stuff. It's fun every day. A big part of coming up here was the people I was going to work with. We hang out outside of work. That makes it fun.”

The biggest fun is yet to come.

Twitter: @timcbaines

DRAFT PICKS

The RedBlacks participated in the 2013 CFL Draft, allowed to choose only Canadian redshirted players from U.S. college football. They chose last in each of the first four rounds of the draft. So far, none of these draft picks have signed CFL contracts.