CFL Flashback: The 1996 CFL Draft

By Chris Lawton

The 2026 CFL Draft is coming soon. Sure, most American football fans focus will be on the NFL Draft running from the 23rd to the 25th of April. You only have to look at the Draft wing of Touchdown Towers to see that. But here in the three-down wing we are of course more focused on the comings and goings each year around the CFL. The 2026 CFL Draft will take place on the 28th of April, with the CFL Global Draft following on the 29th.  With the Draft coming later this month, I thought it might be fun to look back at the CFL Draft archives.

The 1996 CFL Draft seems like an interesting place to go. Partly because the now fondly remembered but all too brief US expansion era was officially over. With the expansion officially over, the league had folded the Birmingham Barracudas, Memphis Mad Dogs, San Antonio Texans, and Shreveport Pirates. Whilst the Baltimore Stallions had been relocated and re-formed into the Montreal Alouettes.

The 1996 Draft was held on May the 31st that year and saw 61 players selected over seven rounds. A lot of picks will not be remembered, but amongst them were two Division All-Stars and one Canadian Football Hall of Fame member.

The First Pick

The Edmonton Eskimos (as they were then called), had the first pick following a trade with the Ottawa Rough Riders. They used that first pick to select Don Blair. He started slowly as Blair had only one catch in his rookie season, however he saw more action in the next two seasons. In 1998, Blair had his best season with 64 catches for 1091 yards before being traded to the BC Lions.

The next pick saw the Toronto Argonauts select cornerback Kelly Wiltshire. He joined Toronto for the 1997 season after first trying out as a free agent with the NFL’s Jaguars.  Wiltshire was easily the best pick of the first round and went on to play 10 seasons in the CFL, spending time with Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa and Edmonton. He played mainly special teams in his rookie season, but did record 24 defensive tackles to go with his 13 special teams’ tackles. Wiltshire continued to be used on special teams, but also took over as a starter in 1998, recording 75 defensive tackles.  Wiltshire was named to the East All-Star team in 1998.  After upping his tackles to 78 in 1999, Wiltshire became a free agent and left Toronto to sign with the Montreal Alouettes. Wiltshire finished his CFL career having played in 157 games recording 683 tackles with 25 sacks, 15 pass interceptions and 15 fumble recoveries. He was a 2-time Grey Cup winner and 2-time East Division All-Star.   

The Best Pick

The 1996 CFL Draft provided two CFL Division All-Stars, the aforementioned Wiltshire, and Sheldon Napastuk, taken by Edmonton in the third round, 25th overall. Edmonton selected him despite Napastuk having declared that he still wanted to complete his college eligibility. He was in camp in 1997 but released before the season. Another false start came in Hamilton who tried to covert him from D-line to O-line, but he was once again released before the season. Napastuk was signed by the Saskatchewan Roughriders in 1999 and converted back to the defensive line. He dressed in 56 games overall for the Roughriders from 1999 to 2002. After that he signed with the Calgary Stampeders and dressed in 70 games for them between 2003 and 2006. He was a West Division All-Star in 2005. But he wasn’t the best pick of the CFL Draft. That honour goes to Brian Chiu of the Montreal Alouettes.

Chiu was the last pick of the second round in the 1996 CFL Draft and taken 18th overall by the Alouettes. The outstanding offensive lineman would spend his entire pro playing career with the Als, playing for them from 1997 through to 2009. The Als picked him in 1996, but he finished college having played for the Washington State Cougars in 1996 and graduating in 1997 with a degree in Sports Management.

How important was this pick to the Als? Well, some context will help here. The Alouettes were relaunched in 1996 and newly appointed GM Jim Popp was faced with the task of building his new franchise from the ground-up but without the benefits they had from the US labour laws that had helped create an All-American powerhouse in Baltimore for the Stallions. Popp and owner Jim Speros wanted to bring success rapidly to Montreal to attract the crowds. They succeeded too. Between 1996 and 2012 they had just one losing season, had 10 wins or more in the regular season fifteen out of seventeen times and appeared in eight Grey Cup games, winning three of them.

With the team’s first pick in the 96 Draft, Popp selected Quebec-born receiver Denis Montana from the Concordia Stingers. Montana would spend just two years with Montreal. However, with the next pick, and selection of Chiu, Popp hit it out of the park.

Chiu played in 218 games with Montreal, made seven Grey Cup appearances, won two championships, was named a Division All-Star nine times and a CFL All-Star seven times, as well as being named the 2002 Most Outstanding Lineman. All of which led to him being inducted into the Canadian Football Hall of Fame in 2025.

The Worst Pick?

Finding the ‘worst pick in the Draft’ seems a little harsh, doesn’t it? Drafting players is far form an exact science and every major franchise in every sport that drafts players can probably point to a bust that pulled a draft grade down. But this is something different. Because in 1996 the Alouettes, who had the best pick of the draft, also selected a player who had died the previous December.

The Alouettes selected defensive end James Eggink of Northern Illinois in the fifth round of the 96 CFL draft, only to learn a few hours later that the player had died of cancer the previous December. Alouettes owner Jim Speros said he had called the Eggink family to apologize. “I’m a little upset and embarrassed as an owner, no doubt,” Speros told Canadian Press.

Amazingly this wasn’t the first time this occurred as just the year before, the Ottawa Rough Riders has drafted Derrell Robertson a 27-year-old defensive end who played for Mississippi State University He had been signed by the Las Vegas Posse in 1994 and was part of a dispersal Draft in 1995 following them being disbanded. Sadly, he had died in a car crash four months earlier on December the 5th, 1994.

I doubt we will see any of the CFL teams draft someone who has passed in the upcoming Draft now that we live in a much more connected information age. But every team will be trying to emulate the Alouettes and find themselves a Brian Chiu style pick – a player that can be a bedrock of the team for years to come and eventually move to the Hall of Fame.

CHRIS LAWTON

CFL ANALYST

Chris originally started following the NFL with the ‘first wave’ of fans when it was shown on Channel 4 in the 1980’s. He has been a keen supporter of the Miami Dolphins since 1983. Chris first encountered the CFL in 2016 and instantly fell in love with the Canadian game. He has been writing about the CFL 2017. Chris has a degree in history, postgraduate degree in librarianship and can be found on twitter as @CFLfanUK

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