{"id":438192,"date":"2026-01-28T07:59:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-28T07:59:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/438192\/"},"modified":"2026-01-28T07:59:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-28T07:59:08","slug":"darian-durant-shares-insight-into-cfl-free-agent-process-from-players-perspective","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/438192\/","title":{"rendered":"Darian Durant shares insight into CFL free agent process from players’ perspective"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Photo courtesy: Saskatchewan Roughriders.<\/p>\n

Darian Durant knows what it\u2019s like to be a player going through the CFL free agency process and shared his perspective as athletes with expiring contracts work through uncertainty about their futures.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou definitely have that anxiety.\u00a0You don\u2019t know where home is going to be, and most importantly, you\u2019re looking at a\u00a0potential pay raise,\u201d Durant said on The SportsCage.<\/a><\/p>\n

The three-down league\u2019s free agency communication window opens Sunday, February 1 at 12 p.m. ET and closes one week later. That leads into the official market opening on Tuesday, February 10 at 12 p.m. ET when players can put pen to paper on contracts with rival teams in the CFL.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen your finances are at the forefront of this thing,\u00a0because we all know that this is a business first, it\u2019s nerve-wracking,\u201d Durant said. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou want to be in the best situation, but you don\u2019t want to go to a team and make all the money in the\u00a0world, but you\u2019re in a bad situation where you could only get one or two years out of that. It\u2019s tough for guys to look around the league and find a situation.\u201d<\/p>\n

The two-time Grey Cup champion has said in the past he regretted not taking a pay cut to finish his CFL career with the Saskatchewan Roughriders<\/a>. No. 4 spent 11 seasons with the Green and White then left for one year with the Montreal Alouettes after a contract dispute<\/a> between him and Chris Jones.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s\u00a0definitely nerve-wracking for the guys. This could be life-changing money for some of these guys. This is an opportunity to make the type of money you never thought you could have,\u201d Durant said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll speak from a\u00a0receivers\u2019 point of view. You\u2019re looking for a team with a solidified quarterback, a guy who\u00a0is accurate, a guy who is looked at as one of the top guys in the league.\u00a0You have to look at those type of things when you\u2019re deciding which team to go to.\u201d<\/p>\n

Durant infamously signed a one-year contract<\/a> with the Winnipeg Blue Bombers<\/a> in January 2018, which included a $70,000 signing bonus<\/a>. Over three months later, he announced his retirement from the CFL<\/a> and kept the upfront money paid to him by the Blue and Gold.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Photo courtesy: Saskatchewan Roughriders. Darian Durant knows what it\u2019s like to be a player going through the CFL…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":438193,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[437],"tags":[166835,166836,50470,22070,22936,49,48,7028,521,522,520,13412,177963,2315,2338,941,45083,55574,24373,4400,82,22073,7504],"class_list":["post-438192","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cfl","tag-3down","tag-3downnation","tag-alouettes","tag-blue-bombers","tag-bombers","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-canadian","tag-canadian-football-league","tag-canadianfootballleague","tag-cfl","tag-chris-jones","tag-darian-durant","tag-jones","tag-montreal","tag-montreal-alouettes","tag-riders","tag-roughriders","tag-saskatchewan","tag-saskatchewan-roughriders","tag-sports","tag-winnipeg","tag-winnipeg-blue-bombers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/438192","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=438192"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/438192\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/438193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=438192"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=438192"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=438192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}