{"id":428021,"date":"2026-01-23T12:27:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-23T12:27:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/428021\/"},"modified":"2026-01-23T12:27:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-23T12:27:11","slug":"ottawa-redblacks-communicating-with-justin-hardys-representation-regarding-cfl-contract-extension","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/428021\/","title":{"rendered":"Ottawa Redblacks communicating with Justin Hardy’s representation regarding CFL contract extension"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Photo courtesy: Matt Smith\/CFL.<\/p>\n

The Ottawa Redblacks have had conversations with pending free agent receiver Justin Hardy about a potential contract extension.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe love Justin. He does as much off the field as he does on the field for us. I\u2019ve been\u00a0communicating with his representation. Deals take time, you have to see how everything ebbs and flows. On top of that, having Ryan [Dinwiddie] join our staff,\u201d said vice president of football operations Shawn Burke from the CFL\u2019s winter meetings.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I addressed the players at the end of the year, I said, \u2018We\u2019re going to take our time to evaluate things.\u2019 The reality is,\u00a0we have to be a better football team, and that takes honest evaluation to go through. We\u2019re conversing with Justin. Definitely an important part of our organization.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 34-year-old produced his third consecutive 1,000-yard season in 2025 despite working with four different starting quarterbacks: Dru Brown<\/a>, Matthew Shiltz<\/a>, Dustin Crum, and Tyrie Adams. He recorded 78 receptions for 1,019 yards with eight touchdowns in 18 regular-season games.<\/p>\n

Hardy was the third-highest paid pass-catcher in the CFL last season<\/a>, earning $227,000 for his efforts. He\u2019s been named a CFL all-star once and East Division all-star three times since signing with Ottawa in 2022. The Vanceboro, N.C. native has registered 304 catches for 3,787 yards with 16 touchdowns over 59 career CFL games.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u00a0say that since Justin came in these doors, I\u2019ve had a great relationship with\u00a0him. He\u2019s given the organization everything he has,\u00a0I know he wants to be a Redblack and help us win\u00a0football games here,\u201d Burke said. \u201cUntil you get pen to paper, there\u2019s nothing final in this business.\u201d<\/p>\n

After his two-year CFL rookie contract expired following the 2023 season, Hardy has signed two one-year contract extensions with Ottawa. He led the three-down league with 97 receptions in 2024 and ranked second with 1,343 receiving yards, earning $147,000 that year.<\/p>\n

Hardy was selected in the fourth round, 107th overall during the 2015 NFL Draft by the Atlanta Falcons out of East Carolina University. He posted 95 receptions for 946 yards with nine touchdowns over 73 career NFL games and earned over $3.8 million USD in five years with the team.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Photo courtesy: Matt Smith\/CFL. The Ottawa Redblacks have had conversations with pending free agent receiver Justin Hardy about…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":428022,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[437],"tags":[166835,166836,49,48,7028,521,522,520,40639,20739,14967,70504,101255,82],"class_list":["post-428021","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-justin-hardy","tag-ottawa","tag-ottawa-redblacks","tag-redblacks","tag-shawn-burke","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428021","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=428021"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428021\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/428022"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=428021"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=428021"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=428021"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}