{"id":396200,"date":"2026-01-08T13:51:31","date_gmt":"2026-01-08T13:51:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/396200\/"},"modified":"2026-01-08T13:51:31","modified_gmt":"2026-01-08T13:51:31","slug":"saints-add-cfl-star-wr-on-reserve-future-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/396200\/","title":{"rendered":"Saints add CFL star WR on reserve\/future deal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>By Ross Jackson<\/p>\n<p>The New Orleans Saints have added another big-bodied wide receiver for their 2026 roster. Canadian Football League (CFL) star Damien Alford has agreed to a reserve\/future contract with the Saints, <a href=\"https:\/\/3downnation.com\/2026\/01\/06\/canadian-receiver-damien-alford-signs-with-new-orleans-saints-sources\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">per 3 Down Nation\u2019s Justin Dunk<\/a>. The report was confirmed by Alford himself via a social media post.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"zxx\"><a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/tMiFlHKpMi\" rel=\"nofollow\">pic.twitter.com\/tMiFlHKpMi<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Damien Alford (@DamienAlford5) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/DamienAlford5\/status\/2008607293839912975?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">January 6, 2026<\/a>\n<\/p>\n<p>Alford tried out with the Saints during the 2025 season and while he did not land a deal then, he now gets a chance to arrive for camp this offseason in Metairia, La. with a chace to vie for a roster spot.<\/p>\n<p>The 6-foot-5, 215-pound wide receiver spent his collegiate years with Syracuse and Utah and ran an impressive 4.46-second 40-yard-dash at his Big 12 Pro Day workout. He added a 32-inch vertical leap and a 10-foot-6 broad jump. At the time, he weighed in around 224 pounds before slimming down in the CFL a bit.<\/p>\n<p>Alford only reeled in 20 receptions in 2025, but piled on 407 receiving yards and five touchdown receptions. His 20.4 yard-per-reception average ranked <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tsn.ca\/cfl\/statistics\/?category=receiving&amp;stat=receivingYards\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">No. 1 among players with at least 10 catches on the year<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Welcome to the Canadian Football League, Moose! \ud83e\udece<\/p>\n<p>Damien Alford is our <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/GatoradeCanada?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">@GatoradeCanada<\/a> Performer of the Game!<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/FuelledByG?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">#FuelledByG<\/a>\u26a1\ufe0f | <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/TogetherWeRide?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">#TogetherWeRide<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/3qgcuEWQK0\" rel=\"nofollow\">pic.twitter.com\/3qgcuEWQK0<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Calgary Stampeders (@calstampeders) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/calstampeders\/status\/1944834280120836532?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">July 14, 2025<\/a>\n<\/p>\n<p>He joins the Saints\u2019 wide receiver room that, heading into the offseason, had only two players (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.neworleanssaints.com\/team\/players-roster\/devaughn-vele\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Devaughn Vele<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.neworleanssaints.com\/team\/players-roster\/elijah-cooks\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Elijah Cooks<\/a>) taller than 6-foot-2 on the roster or practice squad.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Dunk also reported that the Saints offered Alford a guaranteed signing bonus, which caused the wideout to decline workouts with the Kansas City Chiefs, Cincinnati Bengals, Cleveland Browns and Denver Broncos.<\/p>\n<p>\t<script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Ross Jackson The New Orleans Saints have added another big-bodied wide receiver for their 2026 roster. Canadian&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":396201,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[437],"tags":[49,48,521,522,520,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-396200","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\/396200","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=396200"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396200\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/396201"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=396200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=396200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=396200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}