{"id":609329,"date":"2026-04-17T02:36:12","date_gmt":"2026-04-17T02:36:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/609329\/"},"modified":"2026-04-17T02:36:12","modified_gmt":"2026-04-17T02:36:12","slug":"elgersma-on-board-with-blue-bombers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/609329\/","title":{"rendered":"Elgersma on board with Blue Bombers"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Winnipeg Blue Bombers long, long wait for quarterback Taylor Elgersma is now over.<\/p>\n

Elgersma and the Blue Bombers officially agreed to terms on a standard rookie contract (two years plus an option) late Thursday afternoon and the Canadian pivot will now report for rookie camp on May 6th.<\/p>\n

He will hold a Zoom call with the media Friday afternoon.<\/p>\n

Selected in the second round, 18th overall, in last year\u2019s CFL Canadian Draft, Elgersma was signed by the Green Bay Packers last May as an undrafted NFL free agent. He attended training camp with the Packers and appeared in three NFL preseason games, completing 16-of-23 passes for 166 yards with one touchdown and no interceptions.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

He was released by the Packers after training camp and then had NFL looks from the New York Giants, San Francisco 49ers, Chicago Bears and Miami Dolphins before joining the Birmingham Stallions of the UFL.<\/p>\n

The Stallions are already three games into their 2026 season but Elgersma had yet to suit up for the team as he was not able to secure his U.S. work visa, despite multiple attempts by the Birmingham management staff.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve got a lot of things to say about it, I\u2019m just going to leave it as it\u2019s something you should probably ask the league about,\u201d said Stallions head coach AJ McCarron in an interview with @Birmingham Sport last Friday.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been a nightmare to deal with and I\u2019ve gone as a GM, head coach and now an immigration officer, having to do a lot of things. I\u2019m trying as much as I can. I have everybody on it that I know\u2026 for me to call Senator Tuberville and work with the State of Alabama.\u201d<\/p>\n

McCarron said the club would continue to pursue landing the work visa for Elgersma right up until Wednesday of this week. When those attempts failed, Elgersma \u2014 who had committed to the Stallions in the hopes his work there might get him another NFL look \u2014 then turned his attention to the Blue Bombers and a return to Canada.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

His addition changes the Blue Bombers quarterback room significantly. Zach Collaros remains the clear-cut QB1 as a former two-time winner of the CFL\u2019s Most Outstanding Player Award and won of the most prolific passers in franchise history. He is also now 37 and heading into the final year of his current contract while coming off a season in which he missed five starts.<\/p>\n

With veteran Chris Streveler having recently retired<\/a> and Chase Artopoeus also opting to step away from the game, Terry Wilson is now the lone quarterback behind Collaros with CFL experience. That said, while he has dressed for 36 games over the last two seasons, he has attempted just 21 passes, completing 11, in limited action \u2014 most of it in a win over the Montreal Alouettes in last year\u2019s regular season finale in which some veterans were rested for the playoffs.<\/p>\n

The club also signed two other pivots in the offseason.<\/p>\n

Bryce Perkins, 29, was the UFL\u2019s MVP and Offensive Player of the Year last season with the Michigan Panthers and also started one game during his time with the Los Angeles Rams, including being part of their Super Bowl LVI championship.
\nPayton Thorne, 24, was in camp last season with the Cincinnati Bengals after signing as an undrafted free agent. He spent three seasons at Michigan State before transferring to Auburn where he made 22 starts.<\/p>\n

Elgersma now brings his considerable U Sports resum\u00e9 to Winnipeg\u2019s QB fold. A 6-5, 227-pound beast with a howitzer arm, he was compared by Collaros to Ivan Drago, the fictional gigantic Russian fighter in Rocky IV.<\/p>\n

\u201cI threw one time with him last year,\u201d said Collaros in February of Elgersma. \u201cWalked in, I just couldn\u2019t believe how tall he was. I didn\u2019t know who he was, to be quite honest with you. I thought he was a tight end or a left tackle or something. Not that he\u2019s a heavy dude, but he\u2019s big. Like Ivan Drago, honestly. Really, it was like, \u2018If he dies, he dies.\u2019\u00a0\u00a0(Quote from Drago after his pounding of Apollo Creed leads to him dying in Rocky\u2019s arms).<\/p>\n

\u201cBig guy. He throws it very hard. Seemed like a good guy. Spent about an hour and a half throwing with him. I think this was before we drafted him. Seemed like a great dude, and has a lot of physical gifts, for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n

Elgersma was sensational during his days at Wilfrid Laurier, where he was a U Sports First Team All-Canadian in 2024 and a Second Team All-Canadian in 2023.<\/p>\n

He capped his collegiate career by capturing the Hec Crighton Trophy as the top player in U Sports football in 2024 after throwing for 4,252 yards and 35 interceptions against 11 interceptions for the Golden Hawks. He then became the first quarterback from a Canadian university to participate in the Senior Bowl, which earned him so much NFL attention over the last year.<\/p>\n

Rookies are on the field for Blue Bombers training camp from May 6-8th, with main camp opening on Sunday, May 10th.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Winnipeg Blue Bombers long, long wait for quarterback Taylor Elgersma is now over. Elgersma and the Blue…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":609330,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[437],"tags":[49,48,521,522,520,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-609329","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cfl","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-canadian-football-league","11":"tag-canadianfootballleague","12":"tag-cfl","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/609329","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=609329"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/609329\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/609330"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=609329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=609329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=609329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}