WINNIPEG \u2013 The Winnipeg Blue Bombers today announced on Monday the team has agreed to terms on a one-year contract with National defensive tackle Tanner Schmekel.<\/p>\n
He was scheduled to become a free agent in February.<\/p>\n
Schmekel (six-foot-one, 286 pounds) returns in 2026 for his fourth year with the Blue Bombers and after a 2025 campaign that was cut short due to injury and limited to just four games.<\/p>\n
RELATED \u00a0<\/p>\n Schmekel was having arguably his best start to his young pro career last year before the injury with a pair of tackles and a sack in those four contests, with his season ending in Saskatchewan in the annual OK Tire Labour Day Weekend Classic.<\/p>\n He has now suited up for 26 regular season games for the club since he was selected in the fourth round, 35thoverall, in the 2023 CFL Draft. Schmekel was a 2022 U Sports First-Team All-Canadian and Canada West All-Star.<\/p>\n The club also announced they have released National offensive lineman Chris Kolankowski.<\/p>\n Kolankowski spent five seasons with the Bombers, appearing in 73 games and being a part of the team that won the 108th Grey Cup. The 33-year-old started his CFL career with the Toronto Argonauts and was a part of the squad that won the 105th Grey Cup.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WINNIPEG \u2013 The Winnipeg Blue Bombers today announced on Monday the team has agreed to terms on a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":390421,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[437],"tags":[49,48,521,522,520,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-390420","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\/390420","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=390420"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390420\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/390421"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=390420"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=390420"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=390420"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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