McEwen told the media in Ottawa on Monday<\/a>. \u201cI\u2019m going to do everything possible to make that happen.\u201d<\/p>\nThe 32-year-old suffered a torn ACL early in training camp with the Saskatchewan Roughriders last year. It marked not only the end of his season but the first major injury of his 10-year professional career.<\/p>\n
The six-foot-one, 295-pound blocker signed with the Redblacks earlier this month after fearing he would go unsigned in 2026.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was a lot of career uncertainty for me. It was a tough offseason,\u201d he said. \u201cI don\u2019t think I\u2019ve ever, since I\u2019ve been in the CFL, gone longer than a day without a contract and trying to do this rehab while also not knowing if there was going to be an opportunity on the other end of it, that was the hardest part.\u201d<\/p>\n
Head coach and general manager Ryan Dinwiddie isn\u2019t sure if McEwen will be available for Week 1, though he isn\u2019t ruling anything out. If the veteran is unable to play, it sounds like second-round 2025 CFL Draft pick Sam Carson will start at centre.<\/p>\n
\u201c(McEwen playing Week 1) might be a little bit of a stretch, we\u2019ll see,\u201d said Dinwiddie. \u201cI want to keep hope out for that but I think Sam Carson\u2019s had a great camp and he\u2019s took the next step at centre. They have a great relationship, too, so Sean\u2019s making Sam better. I\u2019m hoping for the best. We\u2019ll see.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not been long since McEwen was considered the league\u2019s best centre. After being named All-CFL in just his second season with Toronto in 2017, he was named All-CFL in back-to-back years with his hometown Stampeders following the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n
In total, the former first-round CFL draft pick has played 132 career regular-season CFL games. Though it\u2019s been 17 months since his last live action, McEwen feels he\u2019s getting back up to game speed relatively quickly.<\/p>\n
\u201cPart of it\u2019s kinda like riding a bike, but usually it\u2019s like, \u2018OK, there\u2019s things that I just need to do better.\u2019 It might feel OK but then I\u2019ll go back and watch it on tape \u2026 and think, \u2018OK, I should probably do this a little differently, step a little bit more this way,\u2019 but it\u2019ll come quick. I\u2019m not too worried about it.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Ottawa Redblacks opened training camp on May 10. The team won 27-12 in its first preseason game against the Montreal Alouettes. Ottawa will finish the preseason against Montreal on Friday, May 29. Final roster cuts are due on Saturday, May 30, after which the team will play its first regular-season game against the Edmonton Elks on Saturday, June 6.<\/p>\n
Ottawa recently selected Purdue offensive lineman Giordano Vaccaro with their first-round pick in the 2026 CFL Draft and it appears he could be a day-one starter. The team\u2019s other major offseason additions include quarterback Jake Maier, running back Greg Bell, linebacker A.J. Allen, and strong-side linebacker C.J. Reavis.<\/p>\n
In 2025, the Redblacks finished fourth in the East Division standings with a 4-14 record, missing the playoffs for the fifth time in the last six seasons. Ryan Dinwiddie was hired as the team\u2019s head coach and general manager after the firing of Bob Dyce.<\/p>\n
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John Hodge is a longtime Canadian football reporter, insider, and podcaster for 3DownNation. Based in Winnipeg, Hodge is also a freelance television and radio broadcaster and curling reporter for Rock Channel.<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Photo: Ottawa Redblacks. Photo edit: 3DownNation. If Sean McEwen has his way, he\u2019ll be on the field when…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":61737,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[349,350,351,352,354,61,1593,26624,14452],"class_list":["post-61736","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ottawa","tag-3down","tag-3downnation","tag-canadian","tag-cfl","tag-football","tag-ottawa","tag-redblacks","tag-sam-carson","tag-sean-mcewen"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61736","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61736"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61736\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61737"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61736"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61736"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61736"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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