The Ottawa Redblacks added Jake Maier in CFL free agency and it appears head coach and general manager Ryan Dinwiddie is high on the veteran quarterback.
“I scouted (Maier) a ton when he was (in college) at UC Davis and I was at Calgary. We (had) him on the neg list there. I know his college coach — he was actually my college coach — so I have a good relationship with Jake but never got a chance to coach him,” Dinwiddie told TSN 1200 in Ottawa.
“(Maier) knows the system, obviously Dru (Brown)’s injuries have been an issue. Now, there’s a lot of things that can lead into that — I wouldn’t say Dru’s injury-prone — but he has been injured. In this league, you’ve gotta have two quality quarterbacks. Jake knows the system, he’ll fit in right away.”
Maier unseated Bo Levi Mitchell as the starting quarterback in Calgary during the 2022 season, though the Stampeders chose not to retain him after the team missed the playoffs for the first time in 20 years in 2024. The pocket passer spent the 2025 season as the backup to Trevor Harris in Saskatchewan, throwing for 617 yards, two touchdowns, and two interceptions to go 1-1 as a starter.
The 28-year-old should fill an important depth role in Ottawa as Brown, the team’s incumbent starter, regressed in 2025. After going 8-6-1 as a starter and throwing for almost 4,000 yards in 2024, Brown made only eight starts this past year, passing for 2,389 yards, 14 touchdowns, and 10 interceptions.
With incumbent backup Dustin Crum now in Montreal, the retirement of Matthew Shiltz, and Tyrie Adams no longer under contract, the Redblacks have only two other quarterbacks on the roster: Matt Morrissey and Hajj-Malik Williams. Both players joined the team partway through the 2025 season, though neither has ever taken a regular-season snap at the professional level.
“I’m starting to watch those guys, evaluate them and evaluate some of our quarterbacks we have on the neg list,” Dinwiddie said. “We’ll probably bring a few to rookie camp with the other two we have on the roster now and let them all compete in rookie camp, see what they got.”
Dinwiddie, who was hired away from the Toronto Argonauts in November, also discussed the free-agent addition of A.J. Allen. The native of Burlington, Ont. will earn $240,000 in hard money in 2026, making him the highest-paid linebacker in the salary cap era of the CFL. Nyles Morgan is pencilled in as the starter at middle linebacker, while Allen is expected to start at weak-side linebacker.
“He’ll be the (weak-side) linebacker and he’ll be penciled in there as the starter, but him and (Lucas) Cormier are competing. We might be more of a nickel team when we put three linebackers on the field with three (defensive) linemen,” Dinwiddie said. “When we got Nyles in the building, that was a big pickup for us, so we’ll kick Allen over, and then Cormier will focus on the (weak-side) as well.”
The Redblacks didn’t retain incumbent middle linebacker Jovan Santos-Knox in free agency, while four different players started at weak-side linebacker, including Davion Taylor, Frankie Griffin, Ace Eley, and Cormier. Cormier, the only Canadian on the list, is the only one still under contract in Ottawa, making him a nice fit for the team’s new ratio.
Ottawa finished fourth in the East Division standings in 2025 with a 4-14 record, missing the playoffs for the fifth time in the last six seasons. Dru Brown went 2-7 over nine starts at quarterback, throwing for 2,389 yards, 14 touchdowns, and 10 interceptions. Dustin Crum went 2-4 over six starts, throwing for 1,771 yards, six touchdowns, and two interceptions.
The Redblacks ranked sixth in net offence, fifth in net defence, and ninth with a turnover differential of minus-16. The club’s leading rusher was William Stanback with 698 yards, leading receiver was Justin Hardy with 1,019 yards, and leading tackler was Adarius Pickett with 84 tackles. Ottawa finished eighth in attendance with average crowds of 18,136, which was a 4.2 percent decrease from the previous year.
