{"id":406278,"date":"2026-01-13T10:27:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-13T10:27:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/406278\/"},"modified":"2026-01-13T10:27:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-13T10:27:10","slug":"saskatchewan-roughriders-malik-carney-at-a-stalemate-in-cfl-contract-negotiations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/406278\/","title":{"rendered":"Saskatchewan Roughriders, Malik Carney ‘at a stalemate’ in CFL contract negotiations"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Photo courtesy: Arthur Ward\/CFL.<\/p>\n

It seems as though Saskatchewan Roughriders\u2019 defensive lineman Malik Carney would like to cash-in after recording a single-season career-high eight sacks in 2025.<\/p>\n

The 30-year-old remains a pending free agent as the CFL\u2019s communication window draws closer. His contract is set to officially expire on Tuesday, February 10, which would make him a free agent. General manager Jeremy O\u2019Day characterized where contract negotiations stand with Carney.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d say they\u2019re probably at a stalemate right now,\u00a0to be honest with you. Love to have them back. I think that,\u00a0as you\u00a0can understand, players only play for a short period of time, so they\u2019re going to try to capitalize as much as they can,\u201d O\u2019Day told 3DownNation from the winter meetings in Calgary.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom our standpoint, we want guys that\u00a0want to be on our team and it can\u2019t be always just about the money, it has to be about the team aspect as well. We\u2019re trying to do something\u00a0special here that hasn\u2019t been done (in winning back-to-back Grey Cups). Ultimately, love to have him back, but it has to fit for us. It has\u00a0to be a two-way street, it has\u00a0to work out for him and also work out for the club.\u201d<\/p>\n

Carney earned $178,400 last year<\/a>, which put him among the top-15 highest-paid players at his position in the CFL. He recorded 39 tackles with one forced fumble in 18 regular-season games and added five tackles, two for loss, in Saskatchewan\u2019s West Final and Grey Cup wins. Head coach Corey Mace used him as a versatile chess piece within his defence.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith Scoop,\u00a0every year in our defence\u00a0there\u2019s a player that\u00a0from the front standpoint\u00a0you move around and try to win some matchups,\u00a0Scoop was that guy for us. (Folarin) Orimolade has been that guy for us in the past, Ja\u2019Gared Davis<\/a> has been that guy in the past, so there\u2019s always opportunity,\u201d Mace told 3DownNation.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut with that, a lot of those guys,\u00a0they\u2019ve made a lot of money. Scoop\u00a0certainly is going to be in that same conversation as most of our guys, who\u2019s been a heck of a player, helped us win and looking for something.\u201d<\/p>\n

Orimolade was the highest-paid American defensive end in the three-down league in 2025, earning $230,000. Using Mace\u2019s reference, that\u2019s likely the kind of money Carney wants to re-sign with the Riders. If the six-foot-three, 230-pound pass rusher reached the open market, he\u2019d be 3DownNation\u2019s No. 1 available defensive lineman<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m hitting them up like, \u2018Hey, whatever that looks like, man, you know, see if we can get back,\u2019 and, \u2018Hey, you know\u00a0who your coach is,’\u201d Mace said. \u201cAll this stuff, but ultimately, it\u2019s going to come down to what makes the most sense for\u00a0us and for Malik. We\u2019ll see how that goes,\u00a0could be Green and White, let\u2019s do it again, but time will tell.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Photo courtesy: Arthur Ward\/CFL. It seems as though Saskatchewan Roughriders\u2019 defensive lineman Malik Carney would like to cash-in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":406279,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[437],"tags":[166835,166836,49,48,7028,521,522,520,60449,171300,68627,171301,131099,69897,10599,45083,55574,24373,4400,82],"class_list":["post-406278","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cfl","tag-3down","tag-3downnation","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-canadian","tag-canadian-football-league","tag-canadianfootballleague","tag-cfl","tag-corey-mace","tag-folarin-orimolade","tag-grey-cup","tag-jagared-davis","tag-jeremy-oday","tag-malik-carney","tag-regina","tag-riders","tag-roughriders","tag-saskatchewan","tag-saskatchewan-roughriders","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406278","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=406278"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406278\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/406279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=406278"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=406278"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=406278"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}