By: Justin Dunk – Sportsnet.ca
Photo: Chris Mikula – Ottawa Citizen/Jeff Mcintosh – Canadian Press
It’s not often you see the No. 1-overall draft choice traded in any professional sport. So in rare instances when a top pick is dealt, it becomes the main headline of any draft.
It was just 30 minutes before the 2014 CFL draft when the Ottawa RedBlacks and Calgary Stampeders officially announced a deal involving the No. 1 selection. No one outside of the teams’ front office staff and the players who were a part of the swap knew about it until then—exactly how both sides wanted it to go down.
Calgary sent 28-year-old five-year veteran and West Division All-Star offensive lineman Jon Gott to Ottawa for the first overall pick and the rights to Marwan Hage. Initial trade discussions heated up on the Friday before the draft and both sides came to an agreement on Monday about 30 hours in advance of the pick-fest.
FRIDAY, MAY 9
As the draft drew closer, Ottawa had made it clear around the league what they were looking for if a team was going to approach them about trading the first pick: a veteran Canadian offensive lineman had to be part of any deal. Four days before the pick-fest, RedBlacks head coach Rick Campbell reached out to Stampeders assistant GM John Murphy to see if Calgary might be interested in making a swap. Campbell, his coaching staff and GM Marcel Desjardins had already discussed the player they wanted to target if Calgary was open to trade talks.
As initial discussions began, different ideas were thrown back and forth—draft picks for draft picks and players for draft picks. And it was easy for Campbell and Murphy to have honest and open conversations because of a strong relationship developed during their time spent working together in Cowtown. Campbell was the defensive coordinator for the Stamps during the 2012 and 2013 seasons before he accepted Ottawa’s top coaching job early last December.
“I know Murph and Huff (Calgary head coach and GM John Hufnagel) very well,” Campbell says.
After feeling-out talks took place, Campbell mentioned Ottawa was eyeing Gott. Murphy responded by saying his side viewed Gott’s value as being equal to the No. 1 pick. So Campbell felt there was legitimate interest from the Calgary side and he presented what Ottawa felt was a fair trade: an opening offer of Gott straight up for the first-overall pick. At that point it was serious, not just two former co-workers throwing around fun what-if scenarios anymore. So Murphy informed Hufnagel about the trade proposal.
“Essentially on Friday it was brought to me about would I be interested in trading Jon Gott to Ottawa,” Hufnagel says. “Truthfully when it was first brought to me, I wasn’t in favour of it. But that’s why I don’t make decisions—if I don’t have to—instantly. I told them I would think about it over the weekend.”
SATURDAY, MAY 10, and SUNDAY, MAY 11
It was a busy weekend at the Stampeders’ team headquarters, located right beside McMahon Stadium in Calgary. The first order of business was deciding if the proposed trade fit into the Stamps short- and long-term plans.
“We wanted to clearly understand what would be the positives versus the negatives,” says Hufnagel, whose team already owned the seventh-overall pick. “Both columns had some things in it.”
In a nutshell, on the negative side, if Calgary went ahead and traded Gott they would be giving up an established Canadian offensive lineman, always in demand in the CFL. Over on the plus side the Stamps would instantly make their team younger. After all of the main decision-makers had their say it became clear the group felt comfortable with the idea of making the trade. There was a second part to the equation, though—Calgary had to decide exactly which player they were going to select at the top of the draft. So the Stampeders’ player-personnel staff reviewed film, pored over draft-prospect notes and had meetings to arrive at a decision.
“I wanted to fully understand who would we be picking with that first pick,” Hufnagel says. “We quickly came to the conclusion that Pierre [Lavertu] would have to be the guy.”
Lavertu was a pro-ready offensive lineman out of the University of Laval. Calgary believed he had the skills and credentials to develop and play at a high level in the pros.
Meanwhile back in Ottawa, the RedBlacks staff didn’t just sit around and wait until time passed to hear from Calgary on Monday. The coaching and player personnel staff put together different plans based on the trade happening or not.
“We planned on both contingencies and would be comfortable either way,” Campbell says. “If they said yes we were going to do it and if they didn’t feel comfortable doing it then life was going to move on with our other plans.”
MONDAY, MAY 12
When Hufnagel and Murphy called Ottawa on Monday morning, Desjardins and Campbell were on the other end. Hufnagel wanted the rights to Marwan Hage, a recently retired offensive lineman who has yet to file his official papers to the league, as an insurance policy. So the four men talked through the details and hashed out a deal. Gott would be sent to the RedBlacks in exchange for the first-overall pick and the rights to Hage. It wasn’t just the swap that both sides agreed upon—each team wanted to keep it a secret from the rest of the league so teams wouldn’t be able to adapt to the fact Calgary would be selecting first overall and prepare accordingly.
“We turned it into the league after Monday’s transaction wire was sent out so that it wouldn’t appear on that day’s report and be known to other teams at that point,” Desjardins says. “Huff told everybody on his side they better not say a word. And we did the same thing here.”
TUESDAY, MAY 13
Calgary and Ottawa even waited a while on draft day to submit the trade agreement. It wasn’t until 4:00 p.m. EST on Tuesday afternoon that it was filed to the league, giving them enough time to process and make the deal official before the draft was set to get underway at 7:00. Originally Hufnagel wanted the CFL to hold off on announcing the trade until the time that the first pick was on the clock, but the league felt it needed to be released at 6:30. Surprisingly, in this age of intense media coverage and social media the trade was nearly unknown league-wide until the official announcement was made.
“It’s not easy, is it?” Desjardins says with laugh. “So we pulled off a coup.”
Keeping the trade quiet allowed Calgary and Ottawa to have a leg up on the rest of the teams heading into the draft. No one did a mock draft or prepared for any scenario with the Stampeders picking No. 1.
“It had everything to do with the fact that we wanted the first round to have its own momentum that evening rather than giving teams 24 hours to prepare for it,” Murphy said. “It made for quite an event.”
Calgary’s unexpected trade up to No. 1 seemed to set off a chain reaction around the league, exactly the kind of chaos both hoped to spur on. In total, six of nine first-round picks changed hands on draft day and it all was triggered back when the discussions between Calgary and Ottawa became serious on the Friday before the draft.
