{"id":451974,"date":"2026-02-03T21:42:14","date_gmt":"2026-02-03T21:42:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/451974\/"},"modified":"2026-02-03T21:42:14","modified_gmt":"2026-02-03T21:42:14","slug":"toll-on-body-not-contract-dispute-led-marc-antoine-dequoy-to-retire-from-cfl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/451974\/","title":{"rendered":"Toll on body, not contract dispute, led Marc-Antoine Dequoy to retire from CFL"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

Recently viewed as one of the CFL\u2019s top pending free agents<\/a>, Marc-Antoine Dequoy announced his retirement at the age of 31 on Monday. Though the decision led to speculation that he and the Montreal Alouettes must have hit a contractual stalemate, the proud native of \u00cele-Bizard, Que. made it clear that wasn\u2019t a factor in his decision.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I received (Montreal\u2019s first) contract (offer) in December, I had a voice inside of me that said, \u2018No,\u2019 and I didn\u2019t know what that voice was. It took the whole process to understand what it was. When you search inside of you and you don\u2019t know what you really want, sometimes you try to look for answers everywhere else. It just took all that time because it wasn\u2019t really clear what was in front of me,\u201d Dequoy told the media on Tuesday<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had an offer from another team, I had an offer from (general manager) Danny (Maciocia). \u2026 It was a good offer and I said with that offer, that\u2019s what I wanted to do, I wanted to play (in Montreal). I talked with the coaches and everything went right in front of me for me to sign and I still had that voice inside of me that still didn\u2019t know. I didn\u2019t feel quite right about it, and that\u2019s where that discussion (about retirement) happened.\u201d<\/p>\n

The six-foot-one, 195-pound defender was originally a second-round pick of the Alouettes in the 2020 CFL Draft, though he would have been taken higher had he not been under contract with the Green Bay Packers. He signed with Montreal in 2021 and quickly accomplished everything one could hope to achieve in the CFL.<\/p>\n

Dequoy became a full-time starter in 2022 and recorded his first interception off Cody Fajardo in Week 3. One year later, Fajardo joined the Alouettes and led them to an unlikely Grey Cup victory over Winnipeg. Dequoy recorded a career-high 62 tackles, five interceptions, three forced fumbles, and two touchdowns that year, earning his first of two All-CFL selections. After the Grey Cup, he went viral for criticizing the league\u2019s lack of bilingual representation at the event<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Universit\u00e9 de Montr\u00e9al product appeared in his second Grey Cup this past November and though his team suffered a loss to the Roughriders, he was pleased to see the CFL do a much better job of embracing bilingualism<\/a> in its branding.<\/p>\n

A championship? Check. All-CFL honours? Check. A viral moment? Check.<\/p>\n

Dequoy accomplished a lot in a short time, becoming a star in his home province.<\/p>\n

It would have been perfectly understandable if he\u2019d signed back with the Alouettes and finished his career with a few mediocre seasons. With nothing left to prove, Dequoy could have helped mentor the team\u2019s other defensive backs, including recently-signed former first-round pick Jonathan Sutherland<\/a>, while playing at a reduced yet decent level.<\/p>\n

Instead, Dequoy chose to hang up his cleats, never wanting to be one to mail it in.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t want to come in and just ride the wave and be that guy. As much as I would have loved selfishly to do it, I chose my respect for myself and for the game. Physically, I just couldn\u2019t do it, and it cleared up when everything was set in front of me to succeed and just play football. I had a contract and everything, the answer was clear,\u201d said Dequoy.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just realized at that point my body couldn\u2019t do it enough. I couldn\u2019t give 100 percent to that team. I have too much respect for my teammates, for the sport of football to sign a contract for 18 games if I knew that coming in May, I couldn\u2019t physically play that season.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s unclear what\u2019s next for Dequoy, who has recently appeared on several French-language television shows including Sortez Moi D\u2019Ici,\u00a0Sous \u00c9cote, and\u00a0Big Brother C\u00e9l\u00e9brit\u00e9s. It seems possible that broadcasting could be in his future, though his agent indicated there are currently no plans for that.<\/p>\n

Regardless, one thing is clear \u2014 Dequoy would rather step away from the game altogether than play it at a reduced level.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Photo: Reuben Polansky\/3DownNation. All rights reserved. Recently viewed as one of the CFL\u2019s top pending free agents, Marc-Antoine…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":451975,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[437],"tags":[166835,166836,50470,49,48,7028,521,522,185866,520,527,183363,2338,906,82],"class_list":["post-451974","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cfl","tag-3down","tag-3downnation","tag-alouettes","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-canadian","tag-canadian-football-league","tag-canadianfootballleague","tag-carabins","tag-cfl","tag-football","tag-marc-antoine-dequoy","tag-montreal","tag-quebec","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/451974","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=451974"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/451974\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/451975"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=451974"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=451974"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=451974"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}