Shrine, NFLPA star games on sched … Both the East-West Shrine Classic in St. Petersburg and the NFLPA All-star game in Carson, California will be played later this afternoon as the all-star game season kicks into high gear. And in a bit of scheduling genius, both games will be played at 4 PM ET with the Shrine game going on the NFL Network at that time, while coverage for the Players Association game will be provided on ESPN2. And while its unlikely that any player in either game will be selected in the opening round of this year’s draft, there will at least be several mid-to-late round prospects in the Shrine game. Syracuse OT Sean Hickey, Kentucky DE Za‘Darius Smith, Texas RB Malcolm Brown, Arizona WR Austin Hill, and Fresno State DT Tyeler Davison, for example, are all ranked with the GBN Top 150 prospects for the upcoming draft, while over at CBS Sports, Dane Bugler wil be watching these 5 guys. At the same time, the Shrine game QBs include Taylor Kelly of Arizona State, Georgia‘s Hutson Mason and record-setting Taylor Heinicke of Old Dominion. As well, each year the Shrine game rosters also include a couple of players from Canadian colleges and this year’s CIS reps are 6-5 Regina WR Addison Richards and Western Ontario DT Daryl Waud. In fact, there will be a 3rd Canadian in St. Petersburg as UNLV OT Brett Boyko is among the regular invitees. At the same time, the top small-college players at this year’s Shrine week include WR Tre McBride of William and Mary, Southern Illinois TE MyCole Pruitt, as well as DE Kyle Emanuel and RB John Crocket of from FCS national champion North Dakota State. Here are the full rosters for the East and West teams for this week’s Shrine game. And we’ll have boots on the ground as GBN Chief Scout Pigskin Paul Guillemette will be in St. Petersburg reporting directly from the game. Stay tuned. On the other hand, the NFL Players Association game does not appear has anything close to a top 150 prospect for the upcoming draft, but does have some later round candidates including Texas A&M CB DeShazor Everett, UCLA G/T Malcolm Bunche, Utah WR/KR Kaelin Clay, UCL LB Terrance Plummer, Nevada DE Brock Hekking, and Kansas WR Nick Harwell, while the PA game QBs include Rakeem Cato of Marshall, Clemson’s Cole Stoudt and Canadian Brandon Bridge of South Alabama. Here are the full rosters for the NFLPA game.
