Saskatchewan Roughriders’ general manager Jeremy O’Day has been busy since his team won the 112th Grey Cup in Winnipeg.
The Green and White entered the offseason with 44 pending free agents. Many have been re-signed by the Riders so far, including Trevor Harris, Tommy Stevens, Jermarcus Hardrick, Samuel Emilus, Kian Schaffer-Baker, Caleb Sanders, Tevaughn Campbell, Nelson Lokombo, and DaMarcus Fields among others.
Contract talks with star running back A.J. Ouellette are running in the right direction, according to O’Day. However, there are some key players who have yet to sign contract extensions with the communication window set to open at 12 p.m. ET on Sunday, February 1 and the market officially opens on Tuesday, February 10.
Let’s get updates from the Grey Cup-winning GM on some big names.
Question: Can you characterize where negotiations are with A.J. Allen? And do you expect him to be back with the Riders?
O’Day: “I would say that they’re early on discussions, probably haven’t had discussions very often. We’ll wait and see — I’ll never say that there’s no chance.”
“I will tell you, we’re not going to get all of our guys back that are free agents. I probably won’t get into the specifics of who or what we figure will happen. We had early-on discussions.”
“He’s very valuable, other teams see that as well. Those discussions are somewhat ongoing, but there’s only so much room that you have on your cap when you’re signing so many guys back.”
Question: Malik Carney, the top pending free agent pass rusher. From the winter meetings you said contract negotiations with him were at a stalemate. Has that changed?
O’Day: “Same exact answer with A.J. Allen there. Nothing’s really changed on that one. We had some conversations early and everything that I said for A.J. is the same for Scoop.”
Question: One player that seems to have caught people’s attention around the league would be Habakkuk Baldonado. He’s not even viewed as a Global anymore, most people talk about him as an American.
We saw Corey Mace use him in a similar role to Malik Carney, different spots on defence. Do you think Baldonado‘s a guy that would be able to replace Carney if he moved on? Are you close to getting him back?
O’Day: “Haba’s arrow is definitely up. I think he’s been anxious to try to get his opportunity to play more. He got in the rotation a little bit [in 2024] and more so this [past] year, did some good things. I think his arrow is up.”
“We would like to have him back. Those conversations have been going on for some time now, but ultimately the player has to tell us he wants to be back and until we get to that point, there’s nothing really to report. I do think that Haba has the potential — he started half the season last year for us — to prove that he can do it. It’d be nice to see him do it for the full year.”
Question: In the secondary, you’ve brought some guys back who have played safety such as Nelson Lokombo and Jaxon Ford. Antoine Brooks really showed well at strong-side linebacker last year.
Do you need C.J. Reavis back or could he get squeezed out while trying to re-sign as many players as possible from a title team?
O’Day: “That’s a tough one there. I think part of the conversation is how’s our ratio going to shape up? Where are we going to play our Canadians? Which may impact C.J. C.J. has been an all-star for us, been a core part of our team.”
“Those discussions are still ongoing with where everyone’s going to fit because you can’t sign everyone back, and then you have guys that you want on the field that can’t get on the field. C.J. has been a very good player for us.”
“You are right, Antoine Brooks did play well for us at SAM, but C.J. also played good at safety, made some big plays and was a team player when he went back there. [Conversations are] ongoing. How that all fits together is still yet to be determined.”
“We’d love to have everyone back, but we do have restrictions of what we can do with the [salary] cap. That’s our job to put it back together.”
Question: Do you have a plan to bring returner Mario Alford back? There’s going to be some free agent returners out there, could you look at another option?
O’Day: “Still evaluating it, probably goes into the window for sure. We’ll see. Mario’s been a great player for us, has some historic numbers for us that we don’t forget about, but it has to fit and those conversations are ongoing.”
