After being cut by the B.C. Lions following training camp this year, Sayles is set to go against his former team on Saturday in the West Division semifinal
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Marcus Sayles entered 2024 trying to help the B.C. Lions to get to the Grey Cup.
Now the defensive back is trying to prevent that from happening.
After signing an extension this off-season to remain with the Lions for a fourth consecutive year, the 30-year-old was released following training camp.
However, it didn’t take him long to find a new home as he was signed by the Saskatchewan Roughriders just two days later on June 4.
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“I wound up signing in the off-season and I went all through camp and unfortunately they just didn’t want me part of the season going forward,” Sayles said this week. “But at the end of the day, the way I think about it, is I’m blessed to be here.
“I’m just happy that I was able to get picked up as soon as I did and I’m going to give my best wherever I’m going to be at.”
After sitting out the opening game of the season while getting up to speed with a new playbook on a new team, Sayles was interested into the starting lineup in Week 2 and hasn’t looked back.
“It was a little bit of a learning curve,” said Sayles. “But I was confident in my ability and I knew the coaches were going to get me right.”
“Going back to the first time we had a conversation on FaceTime, he was excited to get here,” said Rider head coach Corey Mace. “He kind of had to jump in and catch up with everybody.
“Once he was able to do that, he was able to play ball.
“We’re happy that it worked out for us and hopefully he’s happy that he’s here, which I would hope that he is.”
In 17 games, the 5-foot-9, 176-pound New York native recorded a career-high four interceptions to go along with 12 pass knockdowns, which ranked second in the league.
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On Wednesday, he was named a CFL West Division all-star for the third time in his career, which is quite the accomplishment considering he was let go by the Lions five months ago.
“It means a lot to me,” said Sayles, a Grey Cup champion in 2019 with the Winnipeg Blue Bombers. “My all-star is a product of everybody else doing their job.
“I knew this team was going to be a winning team. We’ve got a winning culture.
“We have winning coaches who’ve won Grey Cups already and they have experience.”
According to Roughriders’ historian Rob Vanstone, Sayles is the first Roughrider to be named an all-star during the same season in which he attended training camp with another team before being released.
In the past, three players have been named all-stars as first-year Riders after being released during the off-season by their former clubs. Those players include linebackers Willie Pless (1999), Barrin Simpson (2010) and Solomon Elimimian (2019).
This week, Sayles gets the perfect opportunity to show his former team what they are missing as the Roughriders host the Lions on Saturday (4:30 p.m., TSN) in the West Division semifinal with the winner advancing to the West Final against the Winnipeg Blue Bombers.
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“This game is going to be electric,” said Sayles, who will be playing in his fifth career semifinal in his sixth CFL season. “It’s going to feel good being able to beat them and honestly just being able to show them what they lost.
“I can’t ask for anything more. And I’m excited just to be able to keep going and be able to even beat the team that let me go.”
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