Marc-Antoine Dequoy is calling it a career.<\/p>\n
The 31-year-old Canadian safety announced his CFL retirement Monday, after five seasons with the\u00a0Montreal\u00a0Alouettes. Dequoy, of l\u2019\u00cele-Bizard, Que., is scheduled to meet with reporters Tuesday in\u00a0Montreal.<\/p>\n
Slated to become a free agent Feb. 10, Dequoy said he had a deal with\u00a0Montreal\u00a0on the table but ultimately decided to walk away from the game.<\/p>\n
Montreal\u00a0took the six-foot-three, 198-pound Dequoy in the second round, No 14 overall, in the 2020 CFL draft. The league didn\u2019t play that season, and Dequoy attended the Green Bay Packers\u2019 rookie mini-camp.<\/p>\n
Dequoy joined the Alouettes in time for the 2021 CFL season, appearing in 73 regular-season games with\u00a0Montreal, earning league all-star honours in 2023 and \u201924 while helping the Als win a Grey Cup title in 2023.<\/p>\n
Dequoy registered 162 tackles, 21 special-teams tackles, three sacks, five forced fumbles and 12 interceptions while scoring three TDs over his CFL career.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to thank (Als owner) Pierre Karl P\u00e9ladeau, (GM) Danny Maciocia, and the\u00a0Montreal\u00a0Alouettes for allowing me to live out my childhood dream and spend my career in\u00a0Montreal,\u201d he said in a statement. \u201cThere was a genuine desire to return, and we had an agreement on the table, but after discussing it with my loved ones late into the night, I realized my body was no longer ready for that kind of sacrifice.<\/p>\n
\u201cI will never forget the fans of this city and all the love they gave me throughout my career. I cherished every second of my time in\u00a0Montreal, and I leave at peace, with a clear mind.\u201d<\/p>\n
He appeared in 15 regular-season games in 2025, recording 34 tackles, four special-teams tackles, three sacks and an interception return for a touchdown as\u00a0Montreal\u00a0reached the Grey Cup game before losing 25-17 to the Saskatchewan Roughriders.<\/p>\n
Dequoy played collegiately at the University of\u00a0Montreal, helping the Carabins reach the 2019 Vanier Cup. He was a U Sports all-star in 2017, \u201918 and \u201919.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to thank Marc-Antoine for the service he has given us since the beginning of his career with us,\u201d said Maciocia, formerly the\u00a0Montreal\u00a0Carabins head coach. \u201cI recruited him out of the Universit\u00e9 de\u00a0Montr\u00e9al\u00a0when he was playing at the CEGEP level, and I have always admired his talent as well as his warm and charismatic personality.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe played a key role in our Grey Cup championship in 2023 and has been deeply involved in all of our community initiatives since joining the nest. We will miss him, but I am confident he will enjoy great success in the job market in the years ahead.\u201d<\/p>\n
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 2, 2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Marc-Antoine Dequoy is calling it a career. The 31-year-old Canadian safety announced his CFL retirement Monday, after five…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":450083,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[437],"tags":[49,48,521,522,520,82],"class_list":["post-450082","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\/450082","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=450082"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450082\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/450083"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=450082"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=450082"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=450082"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}