{"id":866271,"date":"2026-08-21T14:16:10","date_gmt":"2026-08-21T14:16:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/866271\/"},"modified":"2026-08-21T14:16:10","modified_gmt":"2026-08-21T14:16:10","slug":"jermarcus-hardricks-road-to-the-cfl-began-in-b-c","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/866271\/","title":{"rendered":"Jermarcus Hardrick\u2019s road to the CFL began in B.C."},"content":{"rendered":"

When Jermarcus Hardrick<\/a> was selling high-end automobiles for a living, he never suspected that the wheels were in motion for the resumption of his athletic career.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought I was done with football,\u201d Hardrick, who has long been one of the CFL\u2019s premier offensive linemen, reflected after practising with the Saskatchewan Roughriders on Thursday.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was over. I wasn\u2019t even working out or anything. Then I got that call.\u201d<\/p>\n

That call was regarding interest from the B.C. Lions, who will provide the opposition when the Roughriders return to action on Sunday in Vancouver.<\/p>\n

\u201cI showed up there on a Tuesday and I was on the practice squad,\u201d Hardrick said. \u201cOn the Friday, they told me I was playing.\u201d<\/p>\n

His games-played total has since swelled to 168 \u2014 something he could not have imagined at one point in 2014.<\/p>\n

At the time, the Roughriders were the defending Grey Cup champions, as they are now. In addition to helping Saskatchewan win a championship in 2025, Hardrick was named the CFL\u2019s Most Outstanding Offensive Lineman<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t do it alone,\u201d he said. \u201cI got a lot of help along the way, so I appreciate everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n

That is the perspective of someone who spent time with two NFL teams (the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and New Orleans Saints) and one Arena Football League club (the Utah Blaze) after graduating from the renowned University of Nebraska Cornhuskers program.<\/p>\n

After his one AFL season, he had pretty much written off football.<\/p>\n

\u201c(Arena football) wasn\u2019t working out for me and my young family, so I started selling cars,\u201d Hardrick said. \u201cI was doing that for about a year.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen I got a call, telling me that I was on B.C.\u2019s negotiation list. I asked my agent, \u2018What is that?\u2019 I got a passport and away we went.\u201d<\/p>\n

During the hiatus from football, Hardrick was selling luxury automobiles at Markel BMW in Omaha, Nebraska.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was selling some Jaguars, some BMWs, some Range Rovers, some MINI Coopers,\u201d he said. \u201cIt was all in one place.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy college teammate\u2019s dad owned the dealership. The first couple of months, I was selling \u2019Husker football. I was like, \u2018Hey, do you like Nebraska football?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cIt went from there. Then I got into it and I started learning the cars and I got a lot better.\u201d<\/p>\n

As much as he appreciated the opportunity presented by the dealership, he jumped at an unexpected chance to play professional football.<\/p>\n

He ended up appearing in 12 games \u2014 starting 10 of them \u2014 with the 2014 Lions, only to be released on April 29 of the following year.<\/p>\n

Undaunted, Hardrick returned to the AFL and spent two games with the Tampa Bay Storm before signing with Saskatchewan on June 18, 2015.<\/p>\n

He was soon released, but resurfaced on the practice roster on Aug. 20 \u2014 11 years to the day before the interview was conducted for this feature.<\/p>\n

Hardrick started eight games for the 2015 Roughriders. In the team\u2019s regular-season finale, he demonstrated his versatility by catching a pass from Brett Smith for a 10-yard gain. Two plays after Hardrick was tackled on the nine-yard line, Smith threw a TD pass to Weston Dressler in what turned out to be the popular pass-catcher\u2019s final game in green and white.<\/p>\n

Dressler was released by the Roughriders on Jan. 15, 2016. He signed with Winnipeg 11 days later and spent three seasons with the Blue Bombers.<\/p>\n

Hardrick and Dressler were reunited on Feb. 17, 2016, when the towering tackle also joined the Blue Bombers.<\/p>\n

He quickly became a mainstay at right tackle, earning All-CFL recognition as a Blue Bomber in 2021 and 2023. Also in 2023, he was named the West Division\u2019s top offensive lineman.<\/p>\n

A series of banner seasons made Hardrick a top-tier free agent. Upon the expiration of his final contract with Winnipeg, he signed with Saskatchewan on Feb. 13, 2024.<\/p>\n

Since then, the Roughriders have a 24-10 record with Hardrick in the lineup.<\/p>\n

At 36 \u2014 more than a decade removed from his introduction to the CFL \u2014 he is still among the very best \u2026 and among the most grateful.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll never take anything for granted,\u201d Hardrick said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter being cut from the NFL, being cut in the CFL, and not playing football for a year, this is everything.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Jermarcus Hardrick was selling high-end automobiles for a living, he never suspected that the wheels were in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":866272,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[437],"tags":[49,48,521,522,520,82],"class_list":["post-866271","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\/866271","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=866271"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/866271\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/866272"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=866271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=866271"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=866271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}