The Redblacks have restructured a number of player contracts as teams tighten their belts in the Covid era. Ottawa has also signed six new players.

With several of their top players still potential free agents, the Ottawa Redblacks took a step ahead this week, announcing the signing of six American players.

On top of that, the Redblacks have re-signed veterans Marco Dubois, Anthony Gosselin and Justin Howell to one-year deals and restructured the contracts of J.P. Bolduc, Brendan Gillanders and Nigel Romick, keeping all of them through the 2021 Canadian Football League season. Kene Onyeka and Mickael Cote have also agreed to terms on one-year contracts. ...

The Redblacks have announced they are bringing in quarterback Caleb Evans, defensive back Jonathan Alston, wide receiver Amba Etta-Tawo, linebackers Dimitri Holloway and Jawuan Johnson and running back Detrez Newsome. Here’s a look at each of the newcomers, with comments from Redblacks general manager Marcel Desjardins.

CALEB EVANS: The Texas native had 9,520 passing yards, 58 TDs and 34 interceptions in 42 games at the University of Louisiana-Monroe. He also ran for 2,162 yards and 36 TDs. His brother, Lance, was with the Redblacks in training camp in 2018. “He’s a very athletic quarterback. He can do a lot of things,” Desjardins said. “He throws the ball pretty well, his decision-making is pretty good. He’s got decent size — he’s 6-foot-2, about 210 pounds. He’s a dual-threat kind of guy, which a nice plus in our league. He fits what the CFL game is about; the additional space plays to his strength. We’ve had him on our neg list going back to last year.”

JOHNATHAN ALSTON: From North Carolina, Alston switched to defensive back in 2017, his final year in college, and made an instant impact. After his college career, the now-26-year-old signed with the National Football League’s Miami Dolphins in 2018 and joined the Detroit Lions in 2019. “He’s a guy with length, which is a good starting point,” Desjardins said. “He’s shown he can be a physical presence as a defensive player and
he’s a very good athlete.”

AMBA ETTA-TAWO: A receiver, he played college football from 2012 to 2015 at Maryland and in 2016 at Syracuse, where he was named First-Team All ACC. In his final season, he had 1,482 yards and 14 TDs. He was invited to the 2017 Senior Bowl and attended the NFL draft combine. He spent the last three seasons with four NFL organizations: Jacksonville, Kansas City, New York Giants (twice) and Houston. “Our tracking of him goes back probably three or four years,” Desjardins said. “You keep tabs on those guys. You never know how it’s going to play out. He’s a bigger guy, he runs pretty well. The bottom line with him is stay healthy, come in and show what you can do, and he’s got a very good chance of being a difference-maker for us. Based on what we’ve seen, we feel pretty good he will have a great opportunity to be part of our roster moving forward. He still has to go out and prove it, but that’s how we envision his initial foray into the CFL.”

JAWUAN JOHNSON: He spent the 2019 season in the Seattle Seahawks’ organization. Johnson started his college career at Northern Illinois from 2014 to 2017 before transferring in 2018 to Texas Christian University. He had 214 tackles, 31.5 tackles for loss, five sacks, seven interceptions, three defensive touchdowns, four pass deflections, five fumbles recovered and five forced fumbles. “He’s another player we’ve been tracking,” Desjardins said. “He’s a guy who’s got some length. In terms of body type, I’d put him in a bit of the same mold as Kevin Brown. He’ll be able to compete at both WILL and the MIKE linebacker positions, like Kevin could. He plays with urgency. He plays with some physicality and we need more of that on our team. We need physical football players.”

DIMITRI HOLLOWAY: The 6-2, 220-pound linebacker comes to Ottawa after a dominant college career at James Madison from 2015 to 2019. He had 329 tackles, 27 tackles for a loss, four sacks, eight pass deflections, four forced fumbles and three fumbles recovered in 54 games. “He’s another guy we find intriguing,” Desjardins said. “He’s like David Hinds in terms of size. He’s a smart football player. He can tackle, he has good play speed. His 40 (yard dash) time isn’t great, but he plays faster than that. He can compete at WILL, maybe in the middle. He’s a tough guy who plays around the line of scrimmage and between the tackles very well.”

DETREZ NEWSOME: At Western Carolina, he had 3,728 career rushing yards and 37 rushing TDs. He also ran for 100 yards or more 16 times. He finished as WCU’s all-time leader in touchdowns scored with 46, adding seven receiving TDs and two kickoff returns for scores. In 2018, Newsome played in nine regular-season games with the NFL’s Los Angeles Chargers, producing 49 yards on 11 carries and two catches for 19 yards along with 2.5 special-teams tackles. “He’s a dynamic back, the type of guy who has success in this league,” Desjardins said. “He’s not the tallest, he’s not the heaviest, but he’s a powerful runner, he’ll run through tackles. After contact, he’ll get those additional yards. He’s going 100 miles an hour all the time, he’s like a bull in a china shop. Considering he’s not the biggest guy, that says a lot. He’s got decent instincts, he does a pretty good job with protection, which in our league is very big.”
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