CFL Awards Season: Finalists, Fancies & Fearless Predictions

By Chris Lawton

Awards season in Britain usually means a man in a dinner jacket, a gold envelope and a winner who has been told to look surprised. The CFL, to its credit, has decided to do things differently. For 2026, the traditional awards ceremony has been replaced with what the league calls special surprise presentations, filmed and shared online as the regular season closes and through the postseason. In football terms, that is a bit like the PFA turning up on your doorstep with a trophy and a camera crew while you aren’t expecting it. I rather like it.

The finalists are in, all six player-based awards’ worth of them, and with the playoffs kicking off on Saturday it seemed the right moment to go through who is up for what, and to stick my neck out on who will win. Predictions made in public are the only honest kind, even if they do tend to age like a Tuesday night curry.

How It Works This Year

The other changes are more bureaucratic, which suits anyone who enjoys a good spreadsheet. (I have to put my hand up here; I do love a good spreadsheet. Don’t judge me, I know how boring I am!).  Every player who received a vote in the team awards advanced to the final ballot for the matching league award, and the voting was done by the same 36 local members of the Football Reporters of Canada who picked the team winners, joined by 20 national members, for 56 votes in all. There are now three finalists for each award regardless of division, whereas in the past there were two, one from the East and one from the West. And in a welcome bit of transparency, all 56 ballots will be published, so every voter’s homework gets marked in public.

The awards were announced in two batches, on Tuesday and Wednesday, so I will take them in ascending order of glory, finishing with the big one.

Most Outstanding Rookie

Three very different rookies, and the one thing they have in common is that none of them looked like a rookie for long.

Tyler Kahmann’s road to a CFL regular season was a long one. The Toronto receiver joined the Argonauts’ practice roster in 2025, did not play a regular-season game until this year, and then caught 77 passes for 1,092 yards and eight touchdowns in 18 games, with four 100-yard performances along the way. He was one of four Argos to pass 1,000 yards, which tells you that he earned it in a crowded room. In BC, linebacker Parker McKenna played all 18 games, made 75 defensive tackles plus six on special teams, and added four tackles for a loss and two forced fumbles, with 15 starts at weak-side linebacker. And in Winnipeg’s secondary, Major Williams started all 18 games, made 77 defensive tackles and nine more on special teams, and finished with 12 pass knockdowns and three interceptions.

My pick: Kahmann. Receivers with 1,000 yards catch the eye, and a story about a man who did not play a down last year and then ran riot is hard for any voter to resist. The danger is Williams, whose blend of tackles, knockdowns and interceptions is the more complete line, and Winnipeg has recent form here, as Trey Vaval won this award a year ago.

Most Outstanding Offensive Lineman

Offensive linemen are the people nobody notices until something goes wrong, which makes this the one award where the best candidate is the one whose name you never had to shout. The finalists are Winnipeg’s Jarell Broxton and Montreal’s Nick Callender and Pier-Olivier Lestage.

Broxton, 33, joined the Blue Bombers as a free agent in February after five years in BC, made 17 starts at right tackle, and helped clear the way for Brady Oliveira’s league-leading 1,493 rushing yards, with a Pro Football Focus grade of 75.2 that ranked second among tackles. Callender led the CFL in pass-blocking grade (84.2) at left tackle, but he made only 12 starts before injury cost him the last six games. Lestage started 17 times at left guard, appeared in all 18 games, and was part of an Alouettes line that allowed a league-low 19 sacks and led the league in both yards per game (420.9) and yards per play (7.5).

My pick: Lestage. He was there every week for the best offensive line in the league. The danger is Broxton, simply because Montreal now has two men splitting the vote.

Most Outstanding Special Teams Player

This is the one I have been looking forward to, and the one that has caused me the most grief. Vincent Blanchard (Edmonton), Tyreik McAllister (Calgary) and Trey Vaval (Winnipeg) are the three left standing.

Blanchard was 55-of-59 on field goals, a league-best 93.2 per cent, including 16-of-19 from 40 yards or more and six-of-seven from 50 or more. He set a CFL record with nine field goals in a single game on 26th September, and his 211 points led the league in scoring. Vaval led the CFL in total return yards (2,868), averaged 13.8 yards a punt return and 24.2 per kickoff return, and scored twice, on an 88-yard kickoff return and a 120-yard missed-field-goal return. He is also the reigning winner and is bidding to become the first back-to-back Most Outstanding Special Teams Player in CFL history. McAllister, in his first season in Calgary, was second in return yards (2,691), tied for the league lead with three return touchdowns, and had nine big kickoff returns.

Before anyone writes in, – yes, I noticed too. Kalil Pimpleton is not on the list. The Ottawa returner finished the season with the CFL record for kickoff return yards (1,834) and an Ottawa record of 3,404 all-purpose yards and led the league at 24.5 yards per kickoff return. A team that finished 1-17 is a poor campaign manager, but I would have found room for him, and probably for Hamilton’s Marc Liegghio and BC’s Sean Whyte too.

My pick: Blanchard. The two returners are likely to split the returner vote between them, and a record-breaking kicker with the league’s best percentage and the scoring title is a tidy case to put on a ballot. The danger is Vaval, who would make history with a repeat, though he did muff a punt in Week 21, and nobody wants to be remembered for that.

Most Outstanding Defensive Player

The finalists are Calgary defensive lineman Clarence Hicks, Toronto linebacker Adarius Pickett and BC linebacker Darnell Sankey, which gives us the classic debate: do you vote for the man who gets to the quarterback, or the man who is everywhere?

Hicks, in his third season, led the CFL with 12 sacks, one clear of Edmonton’s Malik Carney, and added 24 defensive tackles, four tackles for a loss, three pass knockdowns and two forced fumbles in 18 games. Pickett led the league in total tackles with 116, on the back of 103 defensive tackles and 13 on special teams, plus six tackles for a loss, five pass knockdowns, three sacks and two forced fumbles in 17 games. Sankey, in his first year with BC, led the CFL in both defensive tackles (114) and defensive plays (136), and added 12 pass knockdowns, three sacks, four tackles for a loss and an interception.

My pick: Sankey. Sacks are the football equivalent of a striker’s goals, easy to count and hard to argue with, which is why Hicks is the danger. But Calgary missed the playoffs despite scoring more points than anybody, and Hicks’s other numbers are modest next to a middle linebacker who led the league in tackles, defensive plays and swatted passes in his first season with a new team.

Most Outstanding Canadian

A pair of former winners and a rising star: BC’s Nathan Rourke (2022 winner and the reigning Canadian of the year), Winnipeg’s Brady Oliveira (the 2023 and 2024 winner) and Montreal’s Tyson Philpot.

Rourke passed for 4,614 yards at a 70.5 per cent clip with 24 touchdowns and 11 interceptions, went 9-6 as a starter, and added 356 rushing yards on just 31 carries, an eye-watering 11.5 yards a time. Oliveira rushed for a league-best 1,493 yards at 6.3 a carry, his fifth straight 1,000-yard season, which broke a 68-year-old Canadian record held by Norman Kwong, and he finished the regular season with a 63-yard touchdown run and a 149-yard afternoon in Vancouver. He also added 42 catches for 348 yards and eight total touchdowns.

But then there is Philpot. In 16 games, he caught 124 passes, the third-most in CFL history, for 1,809 yards and 13 touchdowns, leading the league in catches and yards and sharing the lead in touchdowns. That yardage total is a record for a Canadian, beating Terry Evanshen’s mark from 1967, and he reached 1,000 yards in just eight games, the fastest by a Canadian ever.

My pick: Philpot. I would call this a lock if I did not know better than to call anything a lock. Oliveira is the danger, and no one should write off a man who has won the award twice, but Philpot has spent the year rewriting the Canadian record book, and records win ballots.

George Reed Most Outstanding Player

Now to the big one, and it feels strange to say it, but a first-timer is going to win it. Davis Alexander and Tyson Philpot have never been finalists before, while Cody Fajardo was the runner-up in 2019.

Alexander, 28, became only the second Alouette after Anthony Calvillo to pass for 5,000 yards, finishing with 5,257, and he did it at a 72.1 per cent completion rate with 35 touchdowns against just four interceptions, going 13-3 as a starter. He led the CFL in passer rating, completion percentage, touchdown passes and completions of 30 yards or more (37) and set a league record by throwing 356 straight passes without an interception. Fajardo, 34, was the heart of an Edmonton team that won its first West Division title since 2015. He set career highs with 4,788 yards and 25 touchdowns, went 13-4 as a starter, and ran for 517 yards and eight scores at 5.7 yards a carry; in July he threw for 510 yards in a game, the first 500-yard day in the CFL since 2017. Philpot, as above, put up one of the great receiving seasons in the league’s history.

My pick: Alexander. Montreal won 14 games, had the league’s most efficient passer, and finished top of the East, and the quarterback is the trigger for all of it. The danger is the obvious one: Philpot and Alexander share a dressing room, and a few voters will surely think that the man catching 124 passes is the more valuable of the pair. Fajardo’s dual-threat numbers, and the first West Division title in Edmonton since 2015, will also pick up support. It could be closer than it looks.

The Predictions at a Glance

Award

My pick

Main threat

Most Outstanding Rookie

Tyler Kahmann (TOR)

Major Williams (WPG)

Most Outstanding Offensive Lineman

Pier-Olivier Lestage (MTL)

Jarell Broxton (WPG)

Most Outstanding Special Teams Player

Vincent Blanchard (EDM)

Trey Vaval (WPG)

Most Outstanding Defensive Player

Darnell Sankey (BC)

Clarence Hicks (CGY)

Most Outstanding Canadian

Tyson Philpot (MTL)

Brady Oliveira (WPG)

George Reed Most Outstanding Player

Davis Alexander (MTL)

Tyson Philpot (MTL)

What Happens Next

There is no gala night to wait for, so the winners will be revealed through those surprise presentations over the coming weeks, which means we may find out in the middle of a postseason and not at a podium. Meanwhile, there is the small matter of the playoffs. The East Semi-Final between Winnipeg and Toronto kicks off on Saturday at 5 PM UK time, with Saskatchewan at BC to follow at 8:30 PM, and then it is on to the Division Finals on 7th November and the 113th  Grey Cup at McMahon Stadium in Calgary on Sunday 15th November.

If I am right, Montreal will collect three of the big awards, which would be a handy dress rehearsal for the Grey Cup. If I am wrong, I will blame the voters and do my best to have my ballot failure hidden from future scrutiny!

Until next time, CFL friends!

CHRIS LAWTON

CFL ANALYST

Chris originally started following the NFL with the ‘first wave’ of fans when it was shown on Channel 4 in the 1980’s. He has been a keen supporter of the Miami Dolphins since 1983. Chris first encountered the CFL in 2016 and instantly fell in love with the Canadian game. He has been writing about the CFL 2017. Chris has a degree in history, postgraduate degree in librarianship and can be found on twitter as @CFLfanUK

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