Be the Very Best! Who Will Be The 2025 CFL MOP?

By Chris Lawton

As we hit the home stretch on the 2025 CFL season and await the Grey Cup playoffs we have entered awards season as the clubs have named their team award winners for the year. Whilst the teams are either preparing for the playoffs or conversely planning for next year, fans are really thinking about who has had the biggest impact on the 2025 CFL season right now.

During ‘awards season’ the CFL hands out a number of awards such as Most Outstanding Player, Most Outstanding Canadian, Most Outstanding Defensive Player, Most Outstanding Offensive Lineman, Most Outstanding Special Teams Player and Most Outstanding Rookie. Which means the nine teams have nominated six players each for these categories. Sometimes you see an overlap, like this year where BC have nominated Nathan Rourke for MOP and MOC, whilst Ottawa have nominated Kalil Pimpleton for MOP and Most Outstanding Special Teams player.

But let’s keep it simple here and look just at the team’s MOP nominees and see who we think could walk away with the overall award.

BC Lions: Nathan Rourke, QB

Rourke is a double nominee for the Lions having been nominated for MOP and Most Outstanding Canadian.

Even the BC Lions own website leads with, ‘It’s pretty much a given that Rourke will be the Western nominee while Hamilton’s Bo Levi Mitchell will be the Eastern rep.’  Rourke is just 110 yards and six touchdowns behind Mitchell atop the league’s passing yardage charts despite missing two games earlier in the season due to injury.

He really separates himself when it comes to the addition of rushing though. Mitchell has 124 yards on the ground whereas Rourke has 559 yards and 10 touchdowns on the ground.

329 of 472 for 4,922 yards with 28 touchdowns and 15 interceptions. 60 carries for 559 yards and 10 touchdowns.

Edmonton Elks: Justin Rankin, RB

Rankin is the Elks latest 1000 yard back but has added being a dual-threat into that mix with 1,679 combined yards from scrimmage. He leads the league with 12 rushes of 20+ yards (his closest competitor Brady Oliveira has seven). Rankin also has the second most yards-after-catch in the league with 540. He has 13 combined touchdowns, second most in the league. He is also only the second Edmonton player to record over 200 yards rushing in a single game. (16 carries for 204 yards on Labour Day). In that same game he scored a 90-yard rushing touchdown, marking the longest rush in the CFL since 2000 and the longest by a member of the Double E since Jim Germany’s 94-yard sprint in 1977.

182 carries for 1,012 yards (5.6 yards per carry), 9 touchdowns. 53 receptions for 667 yards and 4 touchdowns.

Calgary Stampeders: Dedrick Mills, RB

Mills is currently the league leading rusher. His 1,340 yards have him 155 yards ahead of BC Lions James Butler in second place. He leads the CFL with 44 carries of 10+ yards. He is tied for most rushing touchdowns (11) and has had four 100+ yard rushing games this season.   

233 carries for 1,340 yards (5.8 yards per carry), 11 touchdowns. 32 receptions for 289 yards.

Saskatchewan Roughriders: Trevor Harris, QB

I can’t put the arguments for Harris any better than the Roughriders did on their own site:

“Harris sports a league-high quarterback-efficiency rating (110.5) heading into Saturday’s regular-season finale against the visiting B.C. Lions. With Harris behind centre for most of the season, Saskatchewan leads the league in average time of possession (31:29). He is also second in completions of 30-plus yards (30) and completion percentage (73.2), third in passing yards (4,437) and fourth in touchdown passes (24). His yardage total is sixth-best in Roughriders history and the team’s highest since 2010. Harris is on pace to break his own team record for completion percentage in a season. He set the standard of 72.4 last year”. 

338 of 462 for 4,437 yards with 24 touchdowns and 11 interceptions. 7 carries for 40 yards.

Winnipeg Blue Bombers: Brady Oliveira, RB

The Blue Bombers have named Oliveira the team’s Most Outstanding Player and Most Outstanding Canadian for a third consecutive season. He has set career highs for receptions, (61), and receiving yards, (546), this season to go alongside his fourth straight 1000-yard season on the ground.  He leads the CFL in yards from scrimmage this season with 1,709. Like Dedrick Mills he also has 4 games with a 100+ yards rushing.

201 carries for 1,163 yards (5.8 yards per carry) and 3 touchdowns. 61 receptions for 546 yards.

Hamilton Tiger-Cats: Bo Levi Mitchell, QB

This is Mitchell’s second consecutive MOP nomination with the Ticats. He was also nominated three times before when with the Stampeders, (2015-16 & 2018), winning twice.

The veteran pivot is the only QB in the league this year to pass for over 5000 yards after 17 games of the season. He leads the league in passing yards and touchdowns and looks highly unlikely to be caught for the latter.

He will almost certainly be the East Division MOP for the second year running and be in the final for league MOP against Rourke.

407 of 595 for 5,032 yards with 34 touchdowns and 11 interceptions. 21 carries for 124 yards and 1 touchdown.

Toronto Argonauts: Nick Arbuckle, QB

Arbuckle, the reigning Grey Cup MVP has had the most productive season of his CFL career leading the Argos this season. He has appeared in 15 games and set new personal bests for yards (4,370) and touchdowns (26). He also set a career-high in rushing yards with 161, while adding two more touchdowns there too.

365 of 504 for 4,370 yards and 6 touchdowns. 45 carries for 161 yards and 2 touchdowns.

Ottawa RedBlacks: Kalil Pimpleton, KR/WR

Pimpleton has been a multi-faceted threat for the RedBlacks this season playing on offence and special teams. He has amassed 1,286 kick return yards and 662 yards receiving for the team as well as throwing in three carries on the ground for good measure.

65 catches for 662 yards and 1 touchdown. Three carries for 12 yards. 47 punt returns for 589 yards and 1 touchdown. 32 kick returns for 697 yards.

Montreal Alouettes: Davis Alexander, QB

The impact of Alexander on the Als can be demonstrated in the fact that he has started just seven games (all wins) this season and yet he is the team’s MOP nominee despite other payers having been in 17 games. The Als are 7-0 in 2025 with Alexander at the controls and 3-7 otherwise. He is in the midst of a CFL record for the most consecutive wins to start a career. Now standing at 11 and counting!

158 of 218 for 2,024 yards with 10 touchdowns and 3 interceptions. 121 carries for 110 yards and 1 touchdown.

Who be the MOP for 2025?

Last year the final pairing was Bo Levi Mitchell (East) and Brady Oliveira (West), and it was the latter who went on to take both the MOP and MOC awards. He was the first running back to win it since Jon Cornish in 2013.

Like with NFL MVP awards this has historically favoured quarterbacks however. For example, a QB has won the award seven times in the last nine years. Which is certainly reflected here too as five of the nine nominees are their teams’ starting pivots. The award has only ever been won once by a defensive player ever, when Solomon Elimimian won it in 2014. He will remain the singular defensive winner too as zero defensive players have been nominated for the overall award this year.

This year will likley come down to a contest between Rourke and Mithcell. The Canadian media are already deciding which of those two it should be. For me, because of the rushing alongside the passing I think it will be Rourke. He could also very well emulate Oliveira from last year and take home both the MOP and the MOC awards.

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

5/5