{"id":632479,"date":"2026-04-27T19:00:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-27T19:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/632479\/"},"modified":"2026-04-27T19:00:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-27T19:00:09","slug":"ottawa-redblacks-sign-canadian-luiji-vilain-to-three-year-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/632479\/","title":{"rendered":"Ottawa Redblacks sign Canadian Luiji Vilain to three-year deal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph\">OTTAWA \u2014 The Ottawa Redblacks signed Canadian defensive lineman Luiji Vilain to a three-year contract Monday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Ottawa acquired Vilain\u2019s rights last week from the Toronto Argonauts.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Vilain, a 28-year-old Ottawa native, played five games over two NFL seasons with the Minnesota Vikings (2022-23) and Carolina Panthers (2023), registering four total tackles. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">He also spent time with the Cleveland Browns (2024) and Dallas Cowboys (2024-25). <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Toronto selected the six-foot-four, 250-pound Vilain in the third round (No. 25 overall) of the 2021 CFL draft. He finished his NCAA career at Wake Forest in 2021 with 34 tackles (10 for loss), a team-leading nine sacks, two forced fumbles and a fumble recovery. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Vilain began at Michigan, appearing in 12 games over two seasons (2019-20) with 11 tackles (one for loss) and a forced fumble. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">\u201cI can say I\u2019m extremely happy to be back home representing my city, my community and the Redblacks,\u201d Vilain said in a statement. \u201dOttawa is my home, it\u2019s where I grew up.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">\u201cIt\u2019s where my family is. I always knew that I would play in the CFL at some point in my career, and deep down I always wanted it to be Ottawa, so for that to happen it\u2019s honestly a dream come true.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 27, 2026.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">The Canadian Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"OTTAWA \u2014 The Ottawa Redblacks signed Canadian defensive lineman Luiji Vilain to a three-year contract Monday. Ottawa acquired&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":632480,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[437],"tags":[49,48,521,522,520,82],"class_list":["post-632479","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\/632479","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=632479"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632479\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/632480"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=632479"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=632479"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=632479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}