{"id":449141,"date":"2026-02-02T13:02:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-02T13:02:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/449141\/"},"modified":"2026-02-02T13:02:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-02T13:02:09","slug":"shawn-lemon-wont-be-back-with-montreal-alouettes-but-wants-to-keep-playing-in-cfl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/449141\/","title":{"rendered":"Shawn Lemon won’t be back with Montreal Alouettes, but wants to keep playing in CFL"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

Montreal Alouettes\u2019 general manager Danny Maciocia confirmed veteran defensive lineman Shawn Lemon will not be back with the team in 2026.<\/p>\n

The 37-year-old is a pending CFL free agent and is currently set to hit the open market on Tuesday, February 10. He can negotiate with other three-down league teams during the communication window.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to move on from Shawn. If you take a look at the way we are structured\u00a0on the defensive side of the ball \u2026 with Isaac Adeyemi-Berglund, with Josh Archibald, with Lwal Uguak, they\u2019re Canadians, they\u2019re ratio-changers (at defensive end),\u201d Maciocia said from the winter meetings in Calgary.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe anticipate\u00a0that\u2019s how we\u2019re going to line up here in \u201826. We\u2019ll go to training camp and see how that all unfolds. From an edge position,\u00a0we\u2019re dealing from\u00a0a position of strength\u00a0with our Canadian players.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lemon spent the last three seasons in Montreal. His best campaign with the Alouettes came in 2023 when he recorded 26 defensive tackles, nine sacks, two interceptions, one touchdown and one forced fumble in 13 regular-season games that year. The proven pass rusher helped Montreal win the 110th Grey Cup<\/a> by registering nine tackles and four sacks in three playoff games.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to continue playing in the CFL and believe I\u2019m the best pure pass rusher in the league,\u201d Lemon told 3DownNation.<\/p>\n

The Charleston, South Carolina native has played 147 regular-season CFL games with the Saskatchewan Roughriders, Edmonton Elks, Ottawa Redblacks, Calgary Stampeders, Toronto Argonauts, B.C. Lions, and Alouettes, recording 270 defensive tackles, 103 sacks, 30 forced fumbles, three interceptions, two special teams stops and one touchdown.<\/p>\n

The six-foot-two, 248-pounder was a CFL all-star in 2022 and earned the West Division\u2019s Most Outstanding Defensive Player award that same year. He was an East Division all-star in 2016 after recording 14 sacks in 16 games with the Argos.<\/p>\n

The three-time Grey Cup champion has the most sacks among all active players and a higher sack rate than Willie Jefferson<\/a>, who has 77 QB takedowns in 178 regular-season games with Edmonton, Saskatchewan and Winnipeg.<\/p>\n

Lemon ranks No. 12 on the CFL\u2019s all-time career sack list:<\/p>\n

Grover Covington \u2014 157 sacks | 168 games | 0.93 sacks per game
\nElfrid Payton \u2014 153 sacks | 205 games | 0.75 sacks per game
\nBobby Jurasin \u2014 140 sacks | 199 games | 0.70 sacks per game
\nJames Parker \u2014 139.5 sacks | 161 games | 0.87 sacks per game
\nJoe Montford \u2014 135 sacks | 185 games | 0.73 sacks per game
\nJohn Bowman \u2014 134 sacks | 230 games | 0.58 sacks per game
\nCharleston Hughes \u2014 132 sacks | 190 games | 0.69 sacks per game
\nVince Goldsmith \u2014 130.5 sacks | 163 games | 0.80 sacks per game
\nSteward Hill \u2014 126 sacks | 164 games | 0.77 sacks per game
\nTyrone Jones \u2014 110 sacks | 151 games | 0.73 sacks per game
\nRodney Harding \u2014 105 sacks | 201 games | 0.52 sacks per game
\nShawn Lemon \u2014 103 sacks | 147 games | 0.70 sacks per game
\nOdell Willis \u2014 101 sacks | 191 games | 0.53 sacks per game<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Photo: Reuben Polansky\/3DownNation. All rights reserved. Montreal Alouettes\u2019 general manager Danny Maciocia confirmed veteran defensive lineman Shawn Lemon…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":449142,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[437],"tags":[166835,166836,50470,3179,11137,49,943,48,7028,521,522,520,185018,185019,13264,68627,185020,3300,2338,941,174755,14967,4400,942,82,15656,114896,7504],"class_list":["post-449141","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cfl","tag-3down","tag-3downnation","tag-alouettes","tag-als","tag-b-c-lions","tag-ca","tag-calgary-stampeders","tag-canada","tag-canadian","tag-canadian-football-league","tag-canadianfootballleague","tag-cfl","tag-charleston-hughes","tag-danny-maiocia","tag-edmonton-elks","tag-grey-cup","tag-grover-covington","tag-lemon","tag-montreal","tag-montreal-alouettes","tag-odell-willis","tag-ottawa-redblacks","tag-saskatchewan-roughriders","tag-shawn-lemon","tag-sports","tag-toronto-argonauts","tag-willie-jefferson","tag-winnipeg-blue-bombers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/449141","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=449141"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/449141\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/449142"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=449141"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=449141"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=449141"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}