CFL’s free agent pool nearly emptied

On the eve of Canadian Football League free agency, the Toronto Argonauts and Ottawa Redblacks stood at opposite ends of the signing spectrum.

The Redblacks had reupped a whopping 39 of their own pending free agents, easily the most in the CFL, while the Argonauts had extended just 11 of theirs, the lowest number in the league.

The CFL’s nine teams averaged 24 extensions apiece, and that makes sense. General managers and player personnel directors went into free agency a year ago thinking there would be a 2020 season, so they washed their hands of some players, filled roster needs with free agents from other teams and emerged from the annual frenzy telling themselves they were in good enough shape to contend.

In the crazy year since then, the CFL cancelled the 2020 season, about 100 players opted out of contracts to pursue opportunities in the National Football League or elsewhere, about 25 opted back in when those opportunities fizzled, more than a handful of CFLers retired, some were released to free agency in January and earlier this month because teams didn’t want to pay off-season bonuses, a few others were released and signed immediately elsewhere in the league, and another handful have been traded.

That said, give or take all that and the quarterback switcheroo performed by the Argos and Redblacks, teams look a fair bit like they did a year ago, for good reason.

“We will try to retain as much of this team as we can because we thought we had a lot of really good pieces,” B.C. head coach and co-GM Rick Campbell said back in early December, once the CFL’s roster freeze had been lifted and teams were able to resign their own pending free agents.

In the two months that followed, there was in fact a steady parade to the dotted line, as player after player resigned with his previous employer. Many came back for a reduction in salary, a sure sign of the devastating financial effect of COVID-19 and the lost season it provoked. The Lions and Montreal re-upped 24 of their own players, right on the CFL average. Winnipeg, Saskatchewan and Calgary resigned 22 apiece, Hamilton 25 and Edmonton 30.

The CFL head office was incredibly busy, charting almost 400 transactions in January, up from 160 in January of 2020.

The effect of that flurry on this year’s free agency pool has been profound. The league released a list of 328 pending free agents on Dec. 4 of last year. As of Monday night, just 110 remained, and they hit the market Tuesday afternoon.