Roughriders quietly gain and lose a few in CFL free agency

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While the focus is usually on who the Saskatchewan Roughriders acquire during the CFL’s free-agent frenzy, there were also a few players who quietly left the green-and-white confines of Mosaic Stadium. It’s apparently not “Good riddance,” it’s just “Goodbye.”

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“We didn’t lose anyone that we didn’t offer,” said Roughriders general manager Jeremy O’Day, when asked which players he was disappointed about losing.

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That means centre Peter Godber, quarterback Shea Patterson, defensive linemen Anthony Lanier, Christian Albright and Miles Brown, defensive backs Amari Henderson, Deontai Williams and Godfrey Onyeka, linebacker Adam Auclair and receiver Jerreth Sterns weren’t formally offered contracts. As of Thursday morning, those were the players who had had joined other teams after their Roughrider contracts expired Feb. 11.

Godber, Brown and Auclair were the biggest surprises, based on past performances.

Although Godber missed nine games during the past two seasons, he had been Saskatchewan’s starting centre since leaving the B.C. Lions as a free agent in 2023.

Brown was a promising defensive tackle, despite getting in trouble last season for penalized hits on opposing quarterbacks.

Auclair was a Canadian, part-time starter.

Godber was quickly replaced by all-star centre Sean McEwen, who was signed away from the Calgary Stampeders. Brown was basically replaced by Mike Rose, a powerful tackle who was waived by Calgary before free agency began. And the Roughriders have six, probably cheaper, Canadian linebackers under contract, led by A.J. Allen, who can likely replace Auclair.

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Some of the departees were free to leave because they didn’t fit into Saskatchewan’s future plans, but that doesn’t mean the Roughriders didn’t want a few back for less money. Some of those ex-Riders likely had a dollar figure in mind, but the team had a smaller amount preordained for a contract, so a formal offer was never discussed.

Because the Roughriders signed a defensive lineman (Shane Ray) and defensive back (Tevaughn Campbell) with NFL experience, plus the addition of former Stampeders quarterbacks Jake Maier and Tommy Stevens as the backup and short-yardage pivot respectively, Lanier, Williams, Onyeka, Henderson, Williams and Patterson weren’t especially coveted by their former team.

It’s a harsh metaphor and isn’t meant to disparage anyone’s ability, but one man’s trash is another man’s treasure. Hence there were other teams interested in Saskatchewan’s castoffs.

“It something to be said about the number of our players that sign with other teams in the offseason as a credit to our personnel department and the job they do,” said O’Day. “There’s a lot of good players that won’t be back for us that unfortunately we just weren’t able to sign.”

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All nine CFL teams operate under a salary cap for player salaries.

The cap was expected to be $5.65 million in 2025, but three days into last week’s free-agent negotiating window outgoing commissioner Randy Ambrosie announced — in one of those only-in-the-CFL moments — there was an additional $18 million available through a revenue-sharing agreement with the CFL Players’ Association. The CFL and CFLPA ham-handedly decided that extra money would be earmarked solely for salaries, so each team’s salary cap was increasing by $400,000.

During a media conference Wednesday to discuss his team’s free-agent activity, O’Day was asked when he learned about the increased salary cap.

“The same day as it came out publicly,” said O’Day. “That was surprising. And then everyone’s trying to figure out how that was going to impact everything. But the majority of agreements were already in place with most teams and, to my knowledge, it didn’t really change much in free agency.

“If the cap goes up, it doesn’t mean teams are going to spend it. It’s probably on a team-by-team basis. We’re going to have discussions about what it’s going to look like, so it didn’t really have an impact on us dealing with free agency.”

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It’s a strange way to conduct business, finding out there’s an extra 400 Gs available after planning to spend $5.65 million. A good-news announcement quickly turned into questions about how something like that could happen in the middle of the busiest contract-signing days of the year. Blame it on inefficiency by the league and its players’ association.

Maybe the extra cash will help retain some veterans by extending contracts, increasing salaries or adding bonuses. But those players who have departed won’t be coming back.

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