There hasn’t been (and may not be) a land rush from NFL teams to sign AAF players, now that they can.
But their personnel counterparts north of the border look at it differently.
Via the CFL’s official website, Canadian personnel departments were in a rush to stake a claim to some of the AAF’s players after the league ceased operations this week.
“[Tuesday] was a crazy day in the CFL. The status reports that came out were loaded,” Hamilton Tiger-Cats football operations consultant Jim Barker told CHQR radio.“Every team [was] dropping six and seven players and adding six or seven players.”
A few CFL players defected south to play in the start-up league, and any players with CFL experience who played in the AAF are free agents now. The rest will go on negotiation lists, where teams squat on the rights of players. Those transactions aren’t publicized.
“You had to be fast. We lost two players to a team that beat us to the call,” Barker said. “It was a crazy day in the CFL in personnel offices across the league. I think everybody was prepared for it but it was a crazy day. I believe you’ll see maybe 20 players that were in that league [come to the CFL].”
Even with NFL rosters at offseason limits of 90, it’s unlikely that anywhere near that many will find jobs on NFL rosters.