{"id":772579,"date":"2026-07-01T04:31:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-01T04:31:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/772579\/"},"modified":"2026-07-01T04:31:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-01T04:31:11","slug":"riders-to-face-plenty-of-former-teammates-in-clash-with-the-redblacks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/772579\/","title":{"rendered":"Riders to face plenty of former teammates in clash with the Redblacks"},"content":{"rendered":"

There will be a number of former teammates facing off in this week\u2019s CFL showdown between the Ottawa Redblacks and Saskatchewan Roughriders.<\/a><\/p>\n

With the Riders winning the Grey Cup<\/a> last season, a number of teams came calling for Saskatchewan\u2019s pending free agents.<\/p>\n

Read more:<\/p>\n

None more so than the Redblacks, who signed a good number of former Riders such as linebackers A.J. Allen<\/a> and C.J. Reavis<\/a>, defensive end Habakkuk Baldonado<\/a>, quarterback Jake Maier<\/a> and kicker Brett Lauther.<\/a><\/p>\n

Defensive back Marcus Sayles<\/a> believes those additions to the defence will bring some energy to the Redblacks\u2019 attack.<\/p>\n

\u201cReav and A.J. are over there, so you know they are going to be going at it with our offence,\u201d Sayles said. \u201cEven with their offence, they have explosive players and we just have to keep dialled into what we have to do and just don\u2019t give up any explosive plays.<\/p>\n

\u201cReavis and A.J., they were balling all season (in 2025). Reavis was a two-time all-star back-to-back and with A.J., the way he was able to get back to the ball on all those pass plays and all the picks they were able to get. I\u2019m happy for them, and they were able to get their money.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the same time, they have to see us again and it\u2019s going to be an exciting game,\u201d Sayles said.<\/p>\n

Quarterbacks Trevor Harris and Maier got a chance to know each other as teammates last season. The two will duel it out in Friday\u2019s showdown at TD Place Stadium.<\/p>\n

The Riders come into the game with one of the top offences in the CFL, with Harris having logged 1,175 passing yards to go along with eight touchdowns and just one interception. The offence has helped push the Riders to a 2-1 record, with their first loss coming last week against the Toronto Argonauts.<\/a><\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Maier has thrown for 820 yards, five touchdowns and three interceptions as the Redblacks search for their first win of the 2026 campaign.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of times when you watch film, (Maier) is getting the ball to the right spot at the right time and is very accurate. He\u2019s a guy who has been slept on his whole career because things didn\u2019t go quite as well as you wanted to in Calgary. I thought he learned and grew a lot here last year,\u201d Harris said.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe has a bright future ahead but hopefully this Friday, it\u2019s pretty glum. That\u2019s what we are hoping.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Riders did get some good news when it comes to injuries on Tuesday. Sam Emilus (ankle) and Kian Schaffer-Baker (oblique) both were able to log limited practices after being non-participants on Monday<\/p>\n

Dhel Duncan-Busby (shoulder) also logged a full practice after missing last week\u2019s game and not practicing on Monday. Jaylen Johnson (shoulder) also resumed full duties at practice.<\/p>\n

There was some bad news coming out of practice on Tuesday, however, as Canadian defensive tackle Ali Saad<\/a> (calf) left early and did not return.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There will be a number of former teammates facing off in this week\u2019s CFL showdown between the Ottawa…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":772580,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[437],"tags":[49,48,521,522,520,82],"class_list":["post-772579","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\/772579","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=772579"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/772579\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/772580"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=772579"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=772579"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=772579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}