{"id":407917,"date":"2026-01-14T04:50:15","date_gmt":"2026-01-14T04:50:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/407917\/"},"modified":"2026-01-14T04:50:15","modified_gmt":"2026-01-14T04:50:15","slug":"former-second-round-cfl-draft-pick-josiah-schakel-retires-at-age-26","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/407917\/","title":{"rendered":"Former second-round CFL draft pick Josiah Schakel retires at age 26"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

Canadian defender Josiah Schakel has retired from the CFL at the age of 26.<\/p>\n

The six-foot, 220-pound defender made one defensive tackle and eight special teams tackles over 15 regular-season games with the Edmonton Elks in 2025, his third season with the team. He first joined the club as a free-agent in 2023.<\/p>\n

The native of Sherwood Park, Alta. was originally a second-round pick in the 2022 CFL Draft by the Calgary Stampeders. He dressed for seven regular-season games as a rookie but was released early the following season.<\/p>\n

In total, Schakel played 46 regular-season CFL games and made two defensive tackles and 29 special teams tackles.<\/p>\n

\u201cPlaying in the CFL was a dream I had from when I was a child watching the Eskimos play. Luckily I\u2019ve been able to live out that dream over the past four years. I want to thank the Edmonton Elks organization for giving me the opportunity to play for them for the past three seasons,\u201d Schakel wrote in a statement to\u00a03DownNation.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am also grateful for the friendships and connections I have made through my time playing. It was a difficult decision to retire but I knew it was the right time for me and my growing family. Football will always be a part of my life and I\u2019m looking forward to giving back to the sport in my community.\u201d<\/p>\n

The University of Alberta product won the Presidents\u2019 Trophy in 2021, naming him the top defensive player in all of U Sports football. Over 33 games with the Golden Bears, he recorded 194 total tackles, 21 tackles for loss, 7.5 sacks, six pass knockdowns, five forced fumbles, and one interception.<\/p>\n

Schakel was a pending CFL free agent.<\/p>\n

The Edmonton Elks finished fifth in the West Division standings in 2025 with a 7-11 record, missing the playoffs for the fifth straight season. Cody Fajardo started the team\u2019s final 13 regular-season games and went 6-7, throwing for 3,408 yards, 14 touchdowns, and seven interceptions. Tre Ford started the first five, going 1-4, and threw for 984 yards, five touchdowns, and three interceptions.<\/p>\n

The Elks ranked ninth in net offence, ninth in net defence, and fifth with a turnover differential of plus-four. The club\u2019s leading rusher was Justin Rankin with 1,013 yards, leading receiver was Kaion Julien-Grant with 820 yards, and leading tackler was Joel Dublanko with 80 tackles. Edmonton finished seventh in attendance with average crowds of 19,050, which was a 7.1 percent decrease from the previous year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Photo: Timothy Matwey\/3DownNation. All rights reserved. Canadian defender Josiah Schakel has retired from the CFL at the age…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":407918,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[437],"tags":[166835,166836,901,49,48,7028,521,522,520,23752,13264,77213,527,119433,171852,82,168682],"class_list":["post-407917","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cfl","tag-3down","tag-3downnation","tag-alberta","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-canadian","tag-canadian-football-league","tag-canadianfootballleague","tag-cfl","tag-edmonton","tag-edmonton-elks","tag-elks","tag-football","tag-golden-bears","tag-josiah-schakel","tag-sports","tag-u-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407917","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=407917"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407917\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/407918"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=407917"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=407917"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=407917"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}