Reality check for the NFL here - the CFL remains for the NFL another fertile ground for a few players to crossover each season, with the gap in performance and training of many CFL players quite low or near zero as compared to the NFL standard, including also beyond merely play on special teams (for which the NFL draft serves as the feeder, especially in the 5th through 7th rounds, along with a few undrafted free agents).
But the NFL Godfather is not giving up its ambition to build a farm league, now known as the UFL 4.5.
I still don’t see the NFL making spring football controlled by proxies and media puppets a success on its own accord, but damnit, like the NBA with its G League, what the NFL wants, the NFL will have even if they have to lose some money.
The prospect of an American Draft by the CFL, to at in some degree to replace players who would be otherwise on merely the negotiation list, proves rather interesting in these regards of the flow of players from the US to Canada and vice versa, whatever their respective nationalities.
As far as going to the CFL from the NFL, here are six players recently in the NFL who will have their shot for the 2026 season yet would be ripe for recruiting for the CFL for late in the 2026 season, for I very much doubt they are going to look back to the UFL ever again.
Here’s a good list of former USFL 2.0 trash hub league players who have been in the NFL, with some of them likely great prospects now for the CFL after perhaps one more run at the NFL to earn a slot on the final roster by the end of August 2026: