Forty years ago, Belleville native Mike Schad was a novelty in the NFL.
The six-foot-five, 290-pound offensive lineman was — and remains today — the only Canadian ever selected in the first round of the NFL draft directly from a Canadian school. In this case, Queen’s University in Kingston.
However, unlike a lot of other first-round bonus babies, Schad did not step into immediate stardom in Los Angeles after the Rams chose him 23rd overall in the 1986 NFL draft. Far from it. Not only did Schad not start, he found it difficult to get any playing time at all.
The NFL was a massive culture shock for the graduate of Moira Secondary School. And Schad, despite his prodigious strength and outstanding athleticism, was admittedly unprepared.
“It was a huge, huge, monumental difference in play, the style of competition, speed, strength,” Schad told NFL writer Jim Geham during an interview in 2020. “I don’t even know why (Rams) drafted me. They had four Pro Bowl linemen.”
A free agent three years later, Schad could’ve packed up his gear and moved back to Canada and anchored the offensive line for the former Ottawa Rough Riders, who’d selected him fourth overall in the 1986 CFL draft. There would’ve been no shame in that. He’d given the NFL a shot. Time to move on.
But a determined Schad had other ideas. Although he didn’t play much in Los Angeles, he was a sponge in practice. He worked hard. And he learned.
Schad wasn’t ready to give up on his NFL dream. Fortunately, then Philadelphia Eagles head coach Buddy Ryan understood that vision. He gave Schad a chance. And Schad made the most of it.
Honing his skills by facing one of the NFL’s toughest defences in practice every day, Schad would go on to start on the Eagles offensive line for all of the 55 career games he played in a Philadelphia uniform from 1989-93. The late Paul Zimmerman, a longtime and highly regarded NFL writer for Sports Illustrated, once selected him for his All-Pro team.
Schad did in fact finish his pro career in Canada with Ottawa in 1995 during the CFL’s brief and ill-fated expansion into the U.S. For a September away game in Birmingham, Alabama, the cash-strapped Rough Riders (the franchise folded a year later) used a combination of buses and short flights to cut costs. The pre-game meal was a boxed lunch.
To make matters worse, the cavernous confines of Birmingham’s Legion Field were mostly empty. And the Riders got spanked, 40-9.
Years later, Schad laughed while recounting that story.
“If a fan whispered 100 rows up, you could hear it on the field,” he said. “Worst road trip ever.”
NEED TO KNOW: Week 1 of the 2026 NFL campaign kicks off in full this weekend with many pundits picking the Buffalo Bills and Los Angeles Rams as early-season Super Bowl favourites. ESPN ranks its top-10 Super Bowl contenders with Rams and Bills 1-2 followed by: 3. Ravens; 4. Seahawks; 5. Chiefs; 6. Chargers; 7. Eagles; 8. Bengals; 9. Texans; 10. Patriots.
