The countdown to the Canadian Football League’s free-agent communication window is on. Starting Sunday, February 2, teams across the CFL will have seven days to make formal offers to any pending free agent. Until then, teams have the exclusive opportunity to negotiate contract extensions with players on their roster who are on expiring deals.
Since the conclusion of the season, Saskatchewan Roughriders’ general manager Jeremy O’Day has been constructing his game plan to approach pending free agents, beginning with a look at his roster.
“We decide on the kind of players we want to offer contracts back to. You try to figure out the value or cost to retain the player and it always changes," he said.
O’Day has been active this off-season negotiating contract extensions with LB Jameer Thurman, DL Malik Carney, QB Jake Maier, LB A.J. Allen, DL Benoit Marion, DB Jayden Dalke, OL Noah Zerr, DL Charbel Dabire, and QB Trevor Harris.
O’Day, who celebrates 25 years with the Roughriders organization as a player and executive in 2025, has been the team’s general manager since 2019. He believes the salary negotiation process isn’t an exact science.
“It's never what you think. You try to make your best guess from the information you have of where the player would sit, but you don't actually know until you get into it with the agents," the 50-year-old explained.
What O’Day, a native of Lockport, New York, does know is that evaluating a player's value is a two-way process.
“Agents are always communicating with every team. They have an idea of what the players' value is. Then sometimes you've got to pivot, make changes, and this amount is going to be much higher than that," O'Day said. “Then you may pivot and say: 'Okay, maybe we need to shift where we're allocating our salary cap money too.'"
Following the communication window, pending free agents can evaluate the registered offers submitted to them so that they can decide to accept or test free agency. While the players evaluate those offers, O’Day explains his football operations team also undergoes an evaluation.
“As you go through the process you ultimately develop a plan in the beginning. Then, as you gather information, which is a big part of it, from players and agents, you decide how your team will be set up.”
Signing free agents is not always about paying top price, according to O'Day.
“Sometimes there's more availability of certain positions, so eventually someone's going to fall, and you can get some value out of those players, but it's fluid when you're dealing with a salary cap.”
The CFL’s free agent signing window officially opens on Tuesday, February 11.
