Paycor Stadium, home of the Cincinnati Bengals - Source: Unsplash
Four CFL Players Currently Starring in the NFL Offseason
Brandon Aubrey was kicking soccer balls professionally in MLS before he ever kicked a football. Two years later, he was lining up field goals for the Toronto Argonauts, and two years after that, he was arguably the most accurate placekicker in NFL history, a Pro Bowler and All-Pro for Dallas. Nobody drafted him — the Cowboys signed him blind off a CFL tape in 2023, and the bet paid off almost immediately. That's the CFL pipeline working exactly the way it's supposed to.
Qwan'tez Stiggers is the other half of that story, and his version has more grit in it. He never played a down of college football — went straight from Fan Controlled Football, a startup indoor league nobody outside football diehards had heard of, to a CFL phone call from Toronto. He won Most Outstanding Rookie there in 2023 with five picks, first defensive back to win it in 25 years, and the Jets made him the first player drafted directly out of the CFL since 1999, taking him in the fifth round two years ago for a contract that dwarfed the $73,000 Canadian he'd made in Toronto.
The talent conveyor belt is there. It's always been there. And if the NFL's monstrous scouting departments look in the right places, they could well unearth a diamond or two in time for the 2026 season's Kickoff Game in a few weeks' time. So, which four CFL stars are already making waves in their respective training camps south of the border? And crucially, do any of them have any hope of making the cut? Let's take a look.
Kevin Cline, OL, Miami Dolphins
Here's the twist with Kevin Cline: he's never actually played in the CFL, and he wasn't trying to. The Boca Raton native qualified for Canadian football only because his mother holds citizenship there, and he used that loophole to sign with Miami as an undrafted free agent this spring — not to chase a CFL career, but to dodge one. Winnipeg drafted him anyway, two days later, second round, 20th overall, and the Blue Bombers still hold his rights whether he ever blocks for them or not. Boston College is what actually shaped him: a redshirt year, mostly special teams, a torn ACL that wiped out 2022, then finally, 11 starts at right tackle last season.
Now he's third on Miami's tackle depth chart, but that number is deceiving. Austin Jackson has real injury history. Charlie Heck got torched for back-to-back sacks the moment he stepped in for Jackson at a padded practice, and a Dolphins beat writer didn't soften it — called the room "concerning" in print. Truth be told, that isn't the sole concern in Miami in 2026.
The Dolphins front office has effectively burnt down everything that had been built at Hard Rock Stadium this summer. Head coach Mike McDaniel is gone, Tyreek Hill too. Jaylen Waddle has been traded away to the Denver Broncos while franchise quarterback Tua Tagovailoa has been released to a monstrous dead cap hit that will financially handicap the franchise for years to come. The result is that online betting sites make them one of the worst teams in the NFL in 2026.
The latest NFL betting lines ahead of the new campaign make Miami a rank +1200 outsider to reach the playoffs next season, the second-longest odds of anybody behind the Arizona Cardinals. But their current plight has presented an opportunity, especially to Cline. He doesn't necessarily need to win a job this summer; he just needs Miami's alternatives to keep failing the audition.
Dohnte Meyers, WR, Cincinnati Bengals
Dohnte Meyers paid $100 out of his own pocket for a Saskatchewan open tryout in 2023, the same year he was driving for DoorDash and Uber Eats to fund training sessions nobody was paying him to attend. He'd already bounced from Presbyterian to Division II Delta State without hearing his name called in the draft. Two CFL seasons later — the second a 65-catch, Grey Cup-winning breakout — Cincinnati signed him in January, mostly as a camp body.
Then Joe Burrow brought him up, unprompted, in a press conference nobody expected to be about Dohnte Meyers. The week before camp, Burrow texted asking if Meyers could throw with him the next morning. Meyers was in Atlanta. He didn't say no — he drove through the night to be there by 11 a.m. "That's the kind of guy that he is," Burrow told reporters after Meyers led the box score in Cincinnati's preseason opener.
A franchise quarterback doesn't tell that story about a camp body. He's still fighting for a WR5 or WR6 job behind Ja'Marr Chase and Tee Higgins. What's changed is the quarterback is rooting for him out loud.
Robert Carter Jr., DB, Indianapolis Colts
Nobody drafted Robert Carter out of Robert Morris, an FCS program that doesn't flood NFL draft boards, even after a one-handed, spinning end-zone interception against Utah State went viral and pulled Odell Beckham comparisons. He went to the BC Lions instead, started all 18 games, picked off five passes, and still nobody drafted him a second time. Indianapolis signed him after a January workout — a depth flier, nothing more.
Then, in a padded practice period, Carter undercut a route meant for Deion Burks and picked off Anthony Richardson clean in the end zone. Beat reporters noticed. He's fourth on Indy's cornerback chart behind Sauce Gardner and Charvarius Ward now, fighting for whatever's left behind two established starters.
Jacob Roberts, LB, Minnesota Vikings
Jacob Roberts doesn't have a viral catch or a quarterback shoutout. What he has is production nobody in Minnesota can quite ignore — 97 tackles for Calgary last season, third-most in the entire league at his position, after transferring from North Carolina A&T to Wake Forest and going undrafted anyway. He signed a futures deal with the Vikings in January and has spent camp buried in the third tier of the linebacker chart, behind Blake Cashman, Eric Wilson, and a Pace-Golday pairing eating into his margin.
His real problem isn't talent. It's math. One recent roster outlook flagged him by name as the guy likeliest to get squeezed out if Minnesota decides Ivan Pace Jr.'s special-teams value is worth a fifth linebacker spot. Nobody's questioning whether Roberts can play. They're questioning whether Minnesota needs him to.