{"id":355663,"date":"2025-12-19T14:43:10","date_gmt":"2025-12-19T14:43:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/355663\/"},"modified":"2025-12-19T14:43:10","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T14:43:10","slug":"brady-oliveira-believes-other-cfl-teams-would-have-offered-him-more-money-in-free-agency","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/355663\/","title":{"rendered":"Brady Oliveira believes other CFL teams would have offered him more money in free agency"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Photo: Reuben Polansky\/3DownNation. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n

Brady Oliveira\u2019s three-year contract extension with the Winnipeg Blue Bombers is worth close to an eye-popping $900,000 but he\u2019s confident he could have made even more money had he decided to test free agency in February.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think for sure I probably left some money on the table. I think other teams would have offered me more \u2014 I don\u2019t know how much more, but I definitely think teams would have offered me more, for sure,\u201d Oliveira told 3DownNation.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I wanted to go chase the money, I would have went to free agency and told my agent, \u2018Hey, go get me the largest contract that you can get.\u2019 It probably wouldn\u2019t have been with Winnipeg and I would have went somewhere else and played for the money. For me, it wasn\u2019t about the money \u2014 it\u2019s about leaving a legacy here in Winnipeg that I\u2019ve been building the last number of years with an amazing team around me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously, you want to be compensated correctly and I think I deserved what I got, absolutely, but it wasn\u2019t all about the money. It was all these other things \u2014 for me to play for my hometown and to leave a legacy here as a Bomber and hopefully to play my entire career as a Bomber.\u201d<\/p>\n

The five-foot-ten, 229-pound ball-carrier\u2019s new contract, which is reportedly worth $290,000 in 2026 and $300,000 in 2027 and 2028, has given some fans and pundits a serious case of sticker shock. There are few non-quarterbacks who earn that much money in the CFL and there aren\u2019t any other running backs near that figure.<\/p>\n

Oliveira left money on the table two years ago when he\u00a0received offers worth $260,000 and $275,000 annually from the B.C. Lions and Hamilton Tiger-Cats<\/a>, respectively. These proposals were made when the CFL\u2019s salary cap was significantly lower than it is now.<\/p>\n

Powered by RedCircle<\/a><\/p>\n

The league\u2019s salary cap was $5.525 million when Oliveira signed an extension with the Blue Bombers worth $230,000 in 2024 and $240,000 in 2025. With the salary cap currently set at $6.06 million for 2026, Oliveira\u2019s new cap hit of $290,000 is a relatively small percentage increase from his previous earnings.<\/p>\n

It should also be noted that at the recent Grey Cup in Winnipeg, the CFL Players Association indicated that the salary cap could still increase for 2026 based on an audit of the league\u2019s financials, which is expected to be completed sometime next month.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s become generally accepted in football circles that running backs don\u2019t deserve to be paid top dollar as the position is easier to fill than most. Oliveira is aware of this sentiment, though it doesn\u2019t appear he accepts it as fact.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think you should pay players based off production. For me as a running back, for example, am I getting paid a lot more than the next guy? Yeah, but has anyone else in this league been more productive than me year after year? I\u2019ll let you answer that. I would say no one else has,\u201d said the 28-year-old.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the deal that I got done with Winnipeg, they showed a lot of respect from the jump with the first offer that they gave me, and then the negotiations were very seamless. I think they offered me that deal because of production, not position. I\u2019m productive for this organization week in and week out.\u201d<\/p>\n

There\u2019s certainly no arguing with Oliveira\u2019s production. Since he became the team\u2019s starter in 2022, the native of Winnipeg, Man. has recorded 6,807 yards from scrimmage. CFL statistician Jeff Krever told 3DownNation on Thursday that this is the eighth-best total by any player in league history over a four-year span, behind only Mike Pringle, Charles Roberts, Andrew Harris, Joffrey Reynolds, Johnny Bright, and Kelvin Anderson.<\/p>\n

In 2024, Oliveira became the fifth Canadian player ever to win Most Outstanding Player. In 2025, he set all-new career-highs in receiving and led the league in yards per carry (min. 50 attempts) despite missing three games due to a shoulder injury.<\/p>\n

It also seems fair to question the commonly-held belief that running backs aren\u2019t worth much. The two teams that met in the Grey Cup both started rookie offensive tackles, a position generally considered to be best filled by high-priced veterans. Saskatchewan had the league\u2019s second-highest-paid running back, while the Alouettes had the league\u2019s second-highest-paid linebacker \u2014 positions that are both generally lower-paid.<\/p>\n

Regardless of whether or not critics consider Oliveira to be overpaid, one thing seems clear \u2014 if he\u2019d gone to free agency, he likely could have made even more money.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Photo: Reuben Polansky\/3DownNation. All rights reserved. Brady Oliveira\u2019s three-year contract extension with the Winnipeg Blue Bombers is worth…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":355664,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[437],"tags":[49,48,521,522,520,82],"class_list":["post-355663","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cfl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-canadian-football-league","tag-canadianfootballleague","tag-cfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355663","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=355663"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355663\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/355664"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=355663"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=355663"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=355663"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}