{"id":476056,"date":"2026-02-15T07:28:27","date_gmt":"2026-02-15T07:28:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/476056\/"},"modified":"2026-02-15T07:28:27","modified_gmt":"2026-02-15T07:28:27","slug":"official-edmonton-elks-make-malik-carney-highest-paid-american-defensive-player-in-cfl-salary-cap-era","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/476056\/","title":{"rendered":"Official: Edmonton Elks make Malik Carney highest-paid American defensive player in CFL salary cap era"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

The Edmonton Elks have officially signed defensive lineman Malik Carney to a two-year contract, which makes him the three-down league\u2019s highest-paid American defensive player. 3DownNation reported the agreement during the negotiation window<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Per sources, Carney received a $150,000 signing bonus to ink the deal, which is worth $270,000 in hard money for 2026 and 2027. That totals $540,000 in hard money over the two-year term. He becomes the highest-paid American defensive player in the CFL\u2019s salary cap era. The contract was negotiated by veteran agent Rob Fry.<\/p>\n

The six-foot-three, 230-pound defender recorded a single-season career-high eight sacks in 2025, helping the Saskatchewan Roughriders win the 112th Grey Cup. He also made 39 tackles and one forced fumble in 18 regular-season games, then added five tackles and two tackles for loss in the West Final and Grey Cup.<\/p>\n

The 30-year-old has played five years in the CFL with Saskatchewan and the Hamilton Tiger-Cats, registering 146 defensive tackles, 25 sacks, five special teams stops, four forced fumbles, and one interception in 72 career regular-season games.<\/p>\n

Pending CFL free agents were able to communicate with teams around the league from February 1 to 8, during which time contracts could be negotiated and agreed upon but not signed. Starting Tuesday, February 10 at noon EST, players can officially change teams.<\/p>\n

Edmonton finished fifth in the West Division standings in 2025 with a 7-11 record, missing the playoffs for the fifth straight season. Cody Fajardo started the team\u2019s final 13 regular-season games and went 6-7, throwing for 3,408 yards, 14 touchdowns, and seven interceptions. Tre Ford started the first five, going 1-4, and threw for 984 yards, five touchdowns, and three interceptions.<\/p>\n

The Elks ranked ninth in net offence, ninth in net defence, and fifth with a turnover differential of plus-four. The team\u2019s leading rusher was Justin Rankin with 1,013 yards, leading receiver was Kaion Julien-Grant with 820 yards, and leading tackler was Joel Dublanko with 80 tackles. Edmonton finished seventh in attendance with average crowds of 19,050, which was a 7.1 percent decrease from the previous year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Photo: Reuben Polansky\/3DownNation. All rights reserved. The Edmonton Elks have officially signed defensive lineman Malik Carney to a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":476057,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[437],"tags":[166835,166836,901,49,48,7028,521,522,520,23752,13264,77213,527,14108,68627,3801,69897,10599,45083,55574,24373,82,167300,174757],"class_list":{"0":"post-476056","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cfl","8":"tag-3down","9":"tag-3downnation","10":"tag-alberta","11":"tag-ca","12":"tag-canada","13":"tag-canadian","14":"tag-canadian-football-league","15":"tag-canadianfootballleague","16":"tag-cfl","17":"tag-edmonton","18":"tag-edmonton-elks","19":"tag-elks","20":"tag-football","21":"tag-free-agency","22":"tag-grey-cup","23":"tag-hamilton","24":"tag-malik-carney","25":"tag-regina","26":"tag-riders","27":"tag-roughriders","28":"tag-saskatchewan","29":"tag-sports","30":"tag-tiger-cats","31":"tag-yeg"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/476056","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=476056"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/476056\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/476057"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=476056"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=476056"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=476056"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}