The Saskatchewan Roughriders have\u202fre-signed American\u202frunning\u202fback\u202fA.J. Ouellette\u00a0to a one-year contract extension.\u202f\u00a0<\/p>\n
Ouellette\u202f(5\u20198-208)\u202fwas\u202fa key member of the 2025 Grey Cup championship team.\u202fHe rushed for 1,222 yards,\u00a0the second-highest\u202fregular-season\u202ftotal in the\u00a0CFL,\u00a0and\u00a0led the Roughriders in touchdowns (nine).\u202fHe scored eight rushing touchdowns, one of which was a 47-yarder,\u202fand caught 35 passes for 250 yards and another major\u202fen\u202froute to being named the Wireless Age Player of the Year.\u202f\u00a0<\/p>\n
A banner regular season was followed by back-to-back stellar showings in November. In the Western Final, Ouellette rushed 17 times for 113 yards in a 24-21 home-field victory over the B.C. Lions.\u202fHe then carried the ball 17 times for 83 yards and one touchdown in a 25-17 Grey Cup\u202fwin\u202fover the Montreal Alouettes on Nov. 16 in Winnipeg. His four-yard TD run was part of the 50\u202fyards he produced during an 11-play, 92-yard march.\u202fAs well, Ouellette contributed to airtight pass protection that prevented the opposition\u202ffrom registering a sack in the Western Final or the 112th\u202fGrey Cup Game.\u202f\u00a0<\/p>\n
Ouellette signed with the Roughriders on Feb. 13,\u202f2024\u202fafter spending his first four CFL seasons with the Toronto Argonauts. In Year 1 as a Roughrider, he rushed for 558 yards in eight games,\u00a0a 1,256-yard pace over a full 18-game\u202fschedule,\u00a0and\u00a0scored three touchdowns over two playoff games.\u202fHis two majors helped Saskatchewan defeat B.C. 28-19 in the\u202f2024\u202fWestern Semi-Final at Mosaic Stadium.\u202f\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Covington, Ohio-born Ouellette joined the Roughriders as a free agent after being an East Division All-CFL selection in 2022 and 2023.\u00a0He rushed for\u00a01,009 yards\u00a0and eight touchdowns in 15 games during his final season with Toronto.\u00a0Ouellette\u2019s\u00a0previous\u00a0season (2022) was highlighted by his two rushing touchdowns in the Argonauts\u2019 24-23 Grey Cup victory over the Winnipeg Blue Bombers at Mosaic Stadium.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In 62 career regular-season games, Ouellette has rushed 700 times for 3,562 yards \u2014an average of\u202f5.1 yards per carry \u2014\u202fand 21 touchdowns. He has also caught 110 passes for 949 yards and five touchdowns.\u202f\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Saskatchewan Roughriders have\u202fre-signed American\u202frunning\u202fback\u202fA.J. Ouellette\u00a0to a one-year contract extension.\u202f\u00a0 Ouellette\u202f(5\u20198-208)\u202fwas\u202fa key member of the 2025 Grey Cup…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":447534,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[437],"tags":[49,48,521,522,520,82],"class_list":["post-447533","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cfl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-canadian-football-league","tag-canadianfootballleague","tag-cfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/447533","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=447533"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/447533\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/447534"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=447533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=447533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=447533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}