{"id":375330,"date":"2025-12-29T15:16:12","date_gmt":"2025-12-29T15:16:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/375330\/"},"modified":"2025-12-29T15:16:12","modified_gmt":"2025-12-29T15:16:12","slug":"saskatchewan-roughriders-make-samuel-emilus-highest-paid-canadian-receiver-in-cfl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/375330\/","title":{"rendered":"Saskatchewan Roughriders make Samuel Emilus highest-paid Canadian receiver in CFL"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>            <a href=\"https:\/\/cdn.3downnation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/RPS05505-scaled.jpg\" data-caption=\"Photo: Reuben Polansky\/3DownNation. All rights reserved.\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"696\" height=\"464\" class=\"entry-thumb td-modal-image\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/RPS05505-696x464.jpg\"   alt=\"\" title=\"Samuel Emilus\"\/><\/a>Photo: Reuben Polansky\/3DownNation. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n<p>The Roughriders made Samuel Emilus the CFL\u2019s highest-paid Canadian receiver to keep him in Saskatchewan for two more seasons.<\/p>\n<p>Per three-down league sources, the <a href=\"https:\/\/3downnation.com\/2025\/11\/17\/trevor-harris-paints-grey-cup-masterpiece-and-seven-other-thoughts-on-saskatchewan-25-17-win-over-montreal\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">112th Grey Cup Most Valuable Canadian<\/a> signed a two-year contract worth $285,000 in hard money for 2026. He\u2019s set to earn $290,000 in hard money in 2027, which includes a $100,000 base salary guarantee.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s believed Emilus\u2019 new contract makes him the highest-paid national pass catcher in the CFL\u2019s salary cap era and possibly in league history. His agreement was negotiated by Ottawa-based agent Rob Fry.<\/p>\n<p>Emilus was selected in the first round, seventh overall during the 2022 CFL Draft. After registering 10 catches for 165 yards in his rookie year, the Montreal native posted 70 receptions for 1,097 yards with eight touchdowns in 2023. He followed that up with 87 grabs for 1,064 yards and five majors in 2024, earning West Division all-star honours.<\/p>\n<p>During the 2025 regular season, the 28-year-old was limited to seven games due to foot and knee injuries, notching 37 receptions for 588 yards with two touchdowns. That works out to 84 receiving yards per game and extrapolates to 1,512 over an 18-game regular schedule.<\/p>\n<p>Emilus finished on a high in the CFL playoffs. He made nine catches for 100 yards in a 24-21 West Final win over the B.C. Lions and recorded 10 receptions for 108 yards in the 112th Grey Cup victory against the Montreal Alouettes, earning MVC honours. In two postseason games, No. 19 totalled 19 catches for 208 yards.<\/p>\n<p>The six-foot, 200-pound pass catcher has developed into one of the premier receivers in the CFL. Saskatchewan offensive coordinator\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/3downnation.com\/2025\/11\/16\/the-best-player-in-the-league-riders-hope-most-valuable-canadian-samuel-emilus-finally-gets-respect-he-deserves-with-grey-cup-win\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Marc Mueller called him \u201cthe best player in the league\u201d<\/a>\u00a0after the Green and White hoisted the Grey Cup and the confetti had fallen at Princess Auto Stadium.<\/p>\n<p>Through 57 career CFL regular season games, all with the Roughriders, Emilus has registered 204 receptions for 2,914 yards, including 999 after the catch, 13 touchdowns with a 14.3 per catch average. He\u2019s played in four playoff games, recording 32 catches for 372 yards with one touchdown.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/3downnation.com\/2025\/04\/15\/cfls-highest-paid-receivers-for-2025\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Emilus earned $168,200 through the 2025 regular season<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/3downnation.com\/2025\/12\/25\/how-much-every-saskatchewan-roughriders-player-was-paid-for-winning-the-grey-cup\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">$23,000 in postseason bonus money<\/a>. He gets a shot at going back-to-back with the Riders in 2026 and potentially play in Grey Cup at Mosaic Stadium in 2027 as Saskatchewan hosts the CFL championship game.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Photo: Reuben Polansky\/3DownNation. All rights reserved. The Roughriders made Samuel Emilus the CFL\u2019s highest-paid Canadian receiver to keep&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":375331,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[437],"tags":[49,48,521,522,520,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-375330","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cfl","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-canadian-football-league","11":"tag-canadianfootballleague","12":"tag-cfl","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375330","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=375330"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375330\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/375331"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=375330"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=375330"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=375330"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}