The Winnipeg Blue Bombers selected burgeoning Wilfrid Laurier quarterback Taylor Elgersma with the No. 18 overall pick in the 2025 CFL Draft on Tuesday.
The native of London, Ont. has rocketed to stardom over the past year, which saw him win the Hec Crighton Trophy as the top player in all of U Sports football and receive an invitation to the Senior Bowl, the top annual showcase game for NFL prospects, becoming the first Canadian quarterback ever to do so.
In the meantime, however, Blue Bombers’ general manager Kyle Walters wants to avoid making any bold projections for the young passer as he’s yet to even sign his first professional contract.
“We just want to kind of temper expectations, I would say, before anointing that this is the future of the organization at this point. Let’s let him just get in and learn to be a pro,” he told the media on Wednesday.
“We expect him to come in and learn and grow like all the young guys. The Canadians, regardless of position, it’s a big jump coming from a U Sports school to a professional training camp at any position. We haven’t had this with a quarterback, but you can see the American quarterbacks that come up here and take some time to adjust, so we’ll just take it slow with Taylor. I don’t want to project or put too much pressure on him.”
Speaking with the humility of the Canadian he is, Elgersma echoed these sentiments. Despite the accolades and NFL hype, he seems grounded and level-headed entering the professional ranks.
“For me, the most important thing – and this is what I said to teams in interviews, too – is my first year is all about building trust with my offensive coordinator, building trust in my head coach, developing within a system,” said Elgersma.
“Coming to the pros, your goal is to always become the best version of yourself and the best player you can and, for me, that is ultimately to become a starter one day, but I think putting a timeline on it isn’t doing myself justice. My job is to go into a building, develop, get better every single day, and build those relationships and that trust so when I do get the opportunity to go out there and start, I can make the most of it.”
Danny McManus, a Canadian Football Hall of Fame quarterback and Winnipeg’s longtime assistant general manager, scouted Elgersma in-person at the Senior Bowl where he completed four-of-seven pass attempts for 57 yards with limited four-down experience.
Since the departure of Dru Brown to Ottawa last offseason, fans in Bomberland have been wondering about the team’s future under centre. Zach Collaros, who is coming off a relative down year that saw him throw for 17 touchdowns and 15 interceptions, will turn 37 in August and there’s no clear heir apparent on the roster.
Winnipeg’s youngest quarterback is currently Terry Wilson, who completed one pass during his rookie season in 2024. He’s not exactly bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, either, having turned 27 earlier this offseason.
Chris Streveler seems like the favourite to keep his incumbent backup job, which allows him to perform short yardage duties and special packages that take advantage of his athletic traits. The team’s other two passers are Saskatchewan Roughriders’ castoffs Jake Dolegala and Shea Patterson.
Elgersma still has NFL interest as he’s set to attend rookie mini-camps with the Green Bay Packers and Buffalo Bills after garnering invitations from over a dozen teams. His visit with the Packers will start on Thursday before he heads to Buffalo next week. NFL mini-camps rarely lead to players signing contracts, but it’s happened before.
As someone with prototypical size, a good head on his shoulders, and a rocket for an arm, it’s not hard to imagine Elgersma signing an NFL deal. In conversations with people around the CFL leading up to this year’s draft, most thought he would already have signed one by now.
“My dream’s always been to be a professional quarterback, that’s never been tied to a specific league. I’m super fired up about the opportunity here at Winnipeg,” said Elgersma. “I’m confident in myself and I’m confident that I’m going to go down to these mini-camps and show the best that I can. I’m hopeful that that will lead to a contract, but I’m definitely excited to get to Winnipeg and get to work if those don’t work out.”
Elgersma recently connected with Collaros as they threw together with Out The Chamber Sports, a training program owned and operated by longtime CFL receiver Shamawd Chambers, who attended Elgersma’s alma mater of Wilfrid Laurier. He also already has three CFL training camps under his belt, having participated in the league’s quarterback internship program with the Argonauts in 2022 and 2023 and the Tiger-Cats in 2024.
If Elgersma ends up with the Blue Bombers in 2025, it remains to be seen how the team will structure their gameday roster. Only three quarterbacks can be on the active roster, which would likely mean Elgersma, Wilson, Dolegala, and Patterson competing for the final spot.
Demoting Elgersma to the practice roster probably wouldn’t be prudent as doing so would allow another team to try to claim his rights. Instead, it’s possible the Blue Bombers could stash him on the one-game injured list as a healthy scratch, which is permitted under league rules. While players on the six-game injured list are exempt from the salary cap, players on the one-game injured list aren’t.
This strategy may not have been possible in past years as Winnipeg wouldn’t have had extra cash to spend but with the salary cap having suddenly increased to $6.06 million this offseason and the team having yet to spend the new money, keeping Elgersma on the one-game injured list for his rookie season should be possible. Doing so would allow him to practice all year, which is key for his development.
There’s also no incentive for Winnipeg to dress Elgersma as far as the ratio is concerned. Quarterbacks are essentially exempt from the ratio under league rules, which means it doesn’t matter if they’re Canadian or American. The exception is if a Canadian starts, in which case he counts as one of the team’s Canadian starters, of which there must be at least seven.
Walters indicated that there’s been some chatter about changing the rule, though he believes it would be abused. His suspicion is that some CFL teams would dress a token Canadian third-stringer – possibly a short-yardage specialist – who never actually got any reps practices. In the event of an injury, an American from the practice roster would then be promoted to the backup spot with the Canadian remaining in the third-sting role.
“Would that help those Canadian kids develop? No,” said Walters. “But it would be good for the players playing that position that you’re on a CFL game day roster.”
Walters also pointed out that the roster rules are collectively bargained, which means nothing can realistically be done until the current agreement expires in four years.
Elgersma didn’t start playing football until high school as his primary sport was hockey. There was nothing glamorous about his game – he was a big-bodied, shot-blocking defenceman – but he kept the mentality of an enforcer when he became a quarterback in grade ten. In a conversations with defensive linemen at the CFL Combine, they said Elgersma was impossible to rattle in the pocket, even after taking hellacious hits.
For at least part of his collegiate career, Elgersma worked an overnight snow removal job because it fit his academic and athletic schedule. A quarterback who likes hockey and isn’t afraid of snow removal? Talk about a perfect fit for Winnipeg.
The Blue Bombers used their first two picks at the linebacker position, taking Connor Shay of Wyoming at No. 6 and Jaylen Smith at No. 15. Shay, who could have gone as high as No. 1 overall, projects as a future starter at middle or weak-side linebacker, while Smith is more of a jack of all trades who can contribute at multiple defensive spots, plus special teams.
It doesn’t appear as though Elgersma was in serious consideration for the Blue Bombers with their first two selections, as the team hoped to get him with their second pick in the second round at No. 18 overall.
“All along, we had thought that that second pick, the extra pick at the end of the second round, was a good spot for him and if he was there, it would be a hard name to turn down. It just so happened on our board, he was the guy that really stood out after we took Jaylen, that if Taylor was going to be there, we were going to make the move because he’s a good football player and the position he plays.”
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