Yantz gets chance to show Bombers what he can do

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This article was published 14/05/2015 (3792 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

JORDAN YANTZ can fling it and whether he is American, Canadian, Albanian or Martian means little to the Winnipeg Blue Bombers.

Late Tuesday — not long after the CFL Canadian Draft had been completed and Yantz hadn’t been selected — the Bombers put in a claim for the University of Manitoba Bisons quarterback. It was accepted by the league head office and he will join the club at their training camp later this month.

“He’s going to come in and compete,” said Bombers GM Kyle Walters. “We think he’s a good quarterback, regardless of nationality.

“He’ll be the fifth quarterback in training camp and this is because we think he’s better than some of the guys we saw in Florida that weren’t under contract.”

That says a lot about Yantz’s game. He threw for 2,474 yards last season and led the nation with 25 TD passes in his final year of CIS eligibility; all this after spending last year’s training camp with the Bombers.

Each CFL team is allowed to add two Canadians after the draft who will not count as roster players during training camp. The Bombers will likely use their other non-counter on Quinn Everett, the offensive lineman drafted last year who returned to school.

FROM STAR-STRUCK TO THE BIGS: The Bombers’ second pick in the draft, University of Regina receiver Addison Richards, told the Regina Leader-Post earlier this week a story about going to a Saskatchewan Roughriders autograph signing as a boy and being tongue-tied when spying Nealon Greene and Nate Davis.

And now he’s about to line up alongside and against many CFLers he was watching live at Mosaic Stadium or on TV just last fall.

“It’s pretty amazing,” said Richards. “As a kid, these pro football players, they don’t realize how a little bit of attention… how far it goes to a young kid. When I was younger, pro football players were guys I looked up to, guys that I aspired to be like, and now that’s here. Now that’s me, so it’s a pretty amazing feeling.

“It’s honestly crazy. This is a game I’ve been playing since I was 10 or 11 years old. I fell in love with it, and I’ve always wanted to take it as far as I can. This is my first shot at a pro career. It’s a lot of hard work that’s gone into this, and I just want to take advantage of this opportunity and take it as far as I can.”

Richards said he knew he was on the Bombers’ radar screen, especially after interviewing with them at the CFL combine.

“It’s kinda weird. The team that I felt most comfortable with and I interviewed the best with was Winnipeg,” said Richards. “I could tell right away that they seemed to really like me as a player, liked what I had on film, and they seemed to like how I was as a person. Chatting with coach (Mike) O’Shea, he was really high on me, which meant a lot and he was the one that phoned me and gave me the news. I’m just so excited.”

BLUE NOTES: Walters hopes to have deals in place with the other Bomber draft picks soon… The Bombers still have four or five training camp spots open and are eyeing two receivers, two defensive backs and one linebacker.

ed.tait@freepress.mb.ca Twitter: @WFPEdTait