By The Canadian Press

Dinwiddie says Dru Brown to remain as Ottawa Redblacks starter

Jan 12, 2026 | 5:06 PM

He’s tasked with leading the Ottawa Redblacks back to the CFL playoffs but head coach/GM Ryan Dinwiddie has already settled on his starting quarterback.

Dinwiddie told reporters Monday that Dru Brown will remain Ottawa’s starting quarterback. Injuries limited Brown to just nine starts last season.

“He’s our starter we’ve never wavered off that,” said Dinwiddie, who was hired by Ottawa in November following five seasons as the Toronto Argonauts head coach. “We feel good about Dru and we’re going to build the future to make sure it’s advantageous for him to win football games.”

The five-foot-11, 200-pound Brown completed 71.5 per cent of his passes in 2025 for 2,389 yards with 14 TDs and 10 interceptions. But he was just 2-7 as the starter, which didn’t deter Dinwiddie.

“He has played good football,” Dinwiddie said “Obviously last year was a tough year for him with injuries and how the season laid itself out. There are things we have to work on, absolutely, but I think he can give us a chance to win football games.”

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Ottawa (4-14) finished fourth in the East Division and missed the CFL playoffs last year. Then again, so did Toronto (5-13) after winning two Grey Cups the four previous seasons under Dinwiddie.

Backup Dustin Crum, who made six starts last year and completed 70.9 per cent of his passes while rushing for 429 yards and 11 TDs, is slated to become a free agent next month. Dinwiddie would like to keep Crum in the Canadian capital.

“I haven’t had a chance to coach him but I think he has the skill set you need to be successful in this league,” he said. “If the price is right and he wants to come back and have an opportunity to compete, I’d love that.”

—

NUMBERS GAME: The decision to release American defensive lineman Casey Sayles still isn’t sitting well with Orlondo Steinauer.

Hamilton let Sayles go last week after three seasons, a decision Steinauer, the Ticats president of football operations, says wasn’t football-related.

“It sucks, that’s what it does,” Steinauer said frankly. “Casey has a lot of good ball ahead of him.

“We have to make everything fit, that’s the bottom line and so I’d say this erred more on financial than anything else.”

Sayles, 30, appeared in 51 regular-season games with Hamilton, recording 122 tackles, 18 sacks, and one forced fumble.

Ticats defensive lineman Julian Howsare was the East Division’s top defensive player last year with 43 tackles, a career-best 13 sacks, one interception, and two forced fumbles in his seventh CFL season. Steinauer said Howsare is one of many players Hamilton wants back in 2026.

“We’ve got offers out there to a lot of different people right now,” he said. “Sometimes it happens quick, sometimes they don’t.

“Julian is definitely somebody we’d like to have back.”

Ditto for backup quarterback Taylor Powell, another of Hamilton’s pending free agents. Powell made nine starts as a rookie in 2023 but hasn’t seen much action the last two seasons behind veteran Bo Levi Mitchell.

“Taylor has proven he can start games in this league and be extremely effective,” Steinauer said. “The fact we want Taylor back speaks volumes and we’d expect if anything happened to Bo that he’d step in … and there’s not a lot of drop-off.”

—

FORD STILL AN ELK: Quarterback Tre Ford is still with the Edmonton Elks and GM Ed Hervey isn’t discounting the possibility the former Waterloo Warrior remains with the CFL club in 2026.

Edmonton signed Ford, of Niagara Falls, Ont., to a three-year extension last season to be the club’s starter. But the ’21 Hec Crighton Trophy winner was just 1-4 in five starts before being replaced by veteran Cody Fajardo.

Edmonton signed Fajardo through 2026, creating questions regarding Ford’s future with the CFL club. Hervey said Monday he’s yet to receive trade offers for Ford because the Elks haven’t formally placed the 27-year-old quarterback on the open market.

And Hervey made it clear no decision on Ford’s future in Edmonton has been made yet.

“I think the best thing would be to talk with him first,” Hervey told reporters Monday during a CFL Zoom call. “I think he’s owed that level of respect to at least talk about it and see what his thoughts are on his career.

“The conversation I had with him before he left was to talk in general about the situation, the changes, and things to improve on, but we never really got into 2026. I’d like to have a chance to talk with him and his representative about that to make certain that whatever decision is made he’s involved.”

Edmonton selected the six-foot-one, 195-pound Ford in the first round, eighth overall, in the 2022 CFL draft. His best season was 2023 when he threw for 2,069 yards with 12 TDs and six interceptions, while rushing 66 times for 622 yards (9.4-yard average) with three touchdowns.

“We all like Tre,” Hervey said. “Tre is a good individual, he’s a good person, and he didn’t do anything wrong.

“It’ll be unfair to speculate as to what we want to do with him because we haven’t had a chance to talk. We’ve given him some time during the holidays to absorb everything. I’d like to have that conversation with him before determining what we’re going to do beyond that.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 12, 2026.

Dan Ralph, The Canadian Press