Ever since Feb. 10, the day the Bombers signed Stanley Bryant and Marc Dile in CFL free agency’s opening hours, it’s been ‘Stanley Bryant this’ and ‘Marc Dile that’ when talking about the tackle positions on the offensive line for the upcoming season.

Jace Daniels was left wondering: Hey, what about me?

The 26-year-old from Escabana, Mich., started the final three games at right tackle last season and by all accounts fared well. He wasn’t surprised, however, to see the Bombers go hard after offensive linemen in free agency. Winnipeg did, after all, allow a franchise worst 71 sacks last season.

“When I left here I left as a starter, but I knew that there were no guarantees,” Daniels said. “It’s a business, and they’re going to bring guys in for competition. And that’s what they did.”

The Bombers signed Bryant to start at left tackle, but the Dile situation wasn’t the same. He was coming off a couple of injury plagued seasons with the Hamilton Tiger-Cats, so he was nowhere near a lock to start on the right side.

Then only one or two days into camp Dile suffered an undisclosed injury that has kept him off the practice field for the last two weeks. He isn’t expected to play in Friday’s pre-season finale against the Tiger-Cats, which just means more reps for Daniels.

The 6-foot-4, 315-pound Northern Michigan grad admitted he used Winnipeg’s free agent affinity for offensive linemen as motivation during his off-season workouts.

“Yeah. That drove me in the off-season and what not, but I knew that was already going to happen,” Daniels said. “I knew they were going to bring in guys. If you don’t do that, then the team’s not doing what they’re supposed to do.”

There are some around the CFL who feel the Bryant signing won’t mean much if the right side of the line can’t protect quarterback Drew Willy. Teams will simply load up their best defensive linemen against the right side of Winnipeg’s O-line. Therefore, it’s critical the Bombers find someone solid to man the position. The identity of that person is remains to be seen.

Head coach Mike O’Shea said Dile isn’t out of the picture yet, even though he won’t play in the pre-season and has practised only once or twice.

“We like what we know about him,” O’Shea said. “Now we need to see him compete. We’ll take it from there.”

Bot how can they see him compete if he’s never on the field?

“We’ll just have to figure that out. Lots of things happen in exhibition games,” O’Shea said cryptically. “We’ll see how it works out.”

Daniels brings a tremendous amount of versatility to the table as well. He played centre and guard for Northern Michigan and for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, with whom he spent the 2013 season on their practice squad.

“Experience goes a long ways, and I don’t think people realize that enough,” he said. “The more experience, the more that’s going to help.”

Daniels has been taking reps at centre, guard and his regular tackle position during training camp and has positioned himself well to grab a starting role.

“With football you never know where you stand, so I really don’t know,” Daniels said. “That’s how you want to look at it, but you never know.”

kirk.penton@sunmedia.ca

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