The CFL’s free-agency process opened with quite a bang Sunday.<\/p>\n
The CFL negotiation window \u2014 the time when teams can contact pending free agents \u2014 opened at noon ET on Sunday. Within a half hour, reports came that DB Jonathan Moxey had agreed to terms with the Winnipeg Blue Bombers.<\/p>\n
Starting on Sunday, teams can contact and make binding, registered and non-retractable offers to pending free agents. The window closes next Sunday, after which current teams have a 48-hour period to speak with their own pending free agents.<\/p>\n
Before free agency officially opens Feb. 10, players have the right to accept any offer made to them. If they opt not to accept any, they can become free agents and previous binding offers will no longer be valid.<\/p>\n
Other agreements reported Sunday included:<\/p>\n
\u2014 Winnipeg also reaching two-year deals with Canadian receiver Tommy Nield, offensive lineman Jarrell Broxton and defensive lineman Jake Ceresna, both Americans.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Edmonton coming to terms with offensive linemen Coulter Woodmansey and Brendan Bordner, defensive lineman Malik Carney and quarterback Taylor Powell. Woodmansey is Canadian, the other three are Americans.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Ottawa agreeing to terms with American running back Greg Bell, who ran for a career-high 1,038 yards last season with Hamilton, and returner James Letcher Jr., another American who spent last season with Montreal. The Redblacks also reach an agreement with Canadian linebacker A.J. Allen, who had 87 tackles last season with Saskatchewan.<\/p>\n
\u2014 The Toronto Argonauts agreeing to terms on a one-year contract with American defensive back Robert Priester. He was with the Argos from 2022-24 \u2014 winning Grey Cups in ’22 and ’24 \u2014 before spending last season with Ottawa.<\/p>\n
\u2014 The B.C. Lions agreeing to a two-year deal with defensive back Demerio Houston. The 29-year-old American, a 2023 CFL all-star, appeared in five games last year with Winnipeg but has 14 career interceptions in 50 regular-season contests with the Bombers (2020-23) and Calgary (2024).<\/p>\n
\u2014 With Bordner agreeing to a deal with Edmonton, the Hamilton Tiger-Cats reached an agreement in principle with Eric Lofton, an American offensive lineman who spent the last two seasons with Winnipeg.<\/p>\n
One player drawing much interest Sunday was American receiver Ayden Eberhardt. The 27-year-old set career highs last year for catches (45), yards (863) and TDs (four) with the B.C. Lions.<\/p>\n
Eberhart’s 19.2-yard average per catch was second-highest in the CFL behind Calgary’s Damien Alford (20.4). Alford, 24, of Montreal, signed with the NFL’s New Orleans Saints this off-season.<\/p>\n
Three teams were reportedly also interested in Houston. The 29-year-old appeared in five games last year with Winnipeg but has 14 career interceptions in 50 regular-season contests with the Bombers and Calgary.<\/p>\n
Before the window opened, a league source told The Canadian Press that Edmonton had restructured American defensive back Chelen Garnes’s rookie contract. The Elks redid his second year (2026) and extended Garnes through 2027, with the new deal being worth $200,000 in hard money with a maximum value of $210,000.<\/p>\n
Garnes had 62 tackles and an interception last year and was Edmonton’s nominee for the CFL’s outstanding rookie award. The source spoke on the condition of anonymity as Edmonton hadn’t announced the move.<\/p>\n
Also, the Grey Cup-champion Saskatchewan Roughriders signed American running back A.J. Ouellette \u2014 who was a pending free agent \u2014 to a one-year extension. The five-foot-eight, 208-pound Ouellette was the CFL’s second-leading rusher last season with 1,222 yards and a team-high nine TDs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The CFL’s free-agency process opened with quite a bang Sunday. The CFL negotiation window \u2014 the time when…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":461364,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[437],"tags":[49,48,521,522,520,82],"class_list":["post-461363","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\/461363","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=461363"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461363\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/461364"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=461363"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=461363"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=461363"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}