CFL

BR Video

It wasn't too long ago that Trent Richardson was a lead back in the NFL. The former Heisman finalist was once projected to have a promising professional career.

Richardson is now making a comeback in the Canadian Football League. Watch above to see the former "Crimson Tide" back in action.

Looking for the best NFL coverage around? Bleacher Report is the go-to destination for armchair quarterbacks everywhere. Connect to the NFL stories, teams, athletes and highlights that make the game more than a game. You've never been so ready for some football.

Download the free Bleacher Report app to catch all the moments that matter in one place. Get the app to get the game.

The CFL's Montreal Alouettes do not appear to be making a hard play to sign free-agent quarterback Colin Kaepernick.

Speaking to the Canadian Press (via CFL.ca), Alouettes interim head coach and general manager Kavis Reed said the team has had "no conversation" about signing Kaepernick.

Reed did note the Alouettes called Kaepernick's camp "to let them know we had his rights and if there was anything they were interested in to get back to us."

Reed said they have not received a call back from Kaepernick's agent.

On Tuesday, Reed told reporters following a team practice that Montreal was doing its homework on Kaepernick.

"He's in the midst of some very important things," Reed said. "We understand there's a movement going on around him. We're doing our due diligence and making certain they know we want to see where he's at. It's a matter of kicking the tires at this stage."

Montreal is struggling through a poor 2017 season with a 3-10 record, worst in the CFL with five games left to play.

Kaepernick has been a free agent since opting out of his contract with the San Francisco 49ers in March. The 29-year-old has generated little interest from NFL teams over the past six months. He had a meeting with the Seattle Seahawks in May but did not receive a contract offer.

Trent Richardson's NFL journey has morphed into somewhat of a nightmare over the past few seasons, but he'll hope to shed recent woes and transform into a steady contributor in a different league altogether after reportedly signing with the Saskatchewan Roughriders, according to SportsCentre. 

Richardson was signed by the Baltimore Ravens on a trial basis last April, but his short stint with the club was marred by a slew of injuries. 

Namely, Richardson was forced to sit out OTAs with a hamstring injury before it was revealed that he needed arthroscopic surgery on his knee to treat a pre-existing condition, according to the Baltimore Sun's Jeff Zrebiec. 

The former No. 3 overall pick was promptly placed on the physically unable to perform list, and the Ravens cut ties with the enigmatic rusher less than two weeks later. 

Prior to his brief time with the Ravens, Richardson mustered a single solid season with the Cleveland Browns before he was dealt to the Indianapolis Colts in September 2013. Over the course of 15 appearances during his rookie campaign, the former Alabama Crimson Tide star rushed for 950 yards and 11 touchdowns. 

However, Richardson's yard-per-carry-average hovered at a meager 3.6 throughout his inaugural NFL campaign, and he hasn't topped that mediocre mark since.

After spending the 2014 season with the Colts, Richardson did not make a single regular-season appearance during the 2015 campaign after getting cut by the Oakland Raiders after preseason action concluded. 

Since then, Richardson has been on a quest to right his early-career wrongs and capture redemption in some form as his name has become synonymous with the term bust. 

"I didn't hit rock bottom, but I was right there to where it's like, OK, I get it," Richardson said of his time with the Raiders, per AL.com's Matt Zenitz. "To look my kids in the face after getting cut by Oakland and tell them I didn't have a job and to not know what was going to be my next turn, that really bit me in the butt."

Nothing has come easy for Richardson since he failed to live up to the hype with the Browns and, as his experiences with the Colts, Raiders and Ravens illustrated, opportunities are dwindling for the former collegiate darling. 

So if he can't make the most of his next stop, Richardson's ability to latch on with another club in more than an emergency capacity could be in peril. 

The Canadian Football League extended quarterback Johnny Manziel's 10-day negotiation window Friday in an effort to allow the league to evaluate Manziel and decide whether it will allow him to play this season.

According to TSN (h/t ESPN.com's Kevin Seifert), the Hamilton Tiger-Cats own Manziel's exclusive negotiating rights, and his agent recently notified the organization that he intended to open the 10-day window.

Prior to the CFL's extension announcement, Manziel and the Tiger-Cats would have had 10 days to agree to a contract before he became a free agent.

Jason La Canfora of CBS Sports reported the league expects Hamilton to be given permission to sign Manziel, saying he would "be surprised" if it doesn't happen.

The Cleveland Browns selected Manziel with the No. 22 overall pick in the first round of the 2014 NFL draft after a standout collegiate career at Texas A&M that included a Heisman Trophy.

Due to a mixture of poor play and off-field issues, however, he was released by the team following the 2015 season.

In two seasons with the Browns, Manziel went 2-6 as a starter, threw for 1,675 yards, seven touchdowns and seven interceptions, and rushed for 259 yards and one score.

Manziel hasn't appeared in a professional football game since his release, but he worked out for the Tiger-Cats in August.

Hamilton is currently a CFL-worst 2-8, but it is 2-0 since former Hawaii, SMU, Atlanta Falcons and San Diego Chargers head coach June Jones took over as the head man.

The Canadian Football League will no longer feature full pads during regular-season practices.

Commissioner Randy Ambrosie and the CFL Players Association made the announcement Wednesday, per Kevin Seifert of ESPN.com. Seifert noted the new policy will go into effect immediately in an effort to limit non-game contact after preseason training camp.     

Helmets are the only padded equipment players can wear under the new policy.

According to Dave Naylor of TSN, CFL teams were previously allowed 17 days of full-contact practice during the season in addition to full-contact practices at training camp. Naylor also noted this wasn't the only change because the league will extend its regular season from 20 to 21 weeks and give teams—which will still play 18 games a season—three byes instead of two.

Seifert compared the new policy to the collective bargaining agreement in the NFL. It allows 14 padded practices during the regular season, with 11 coming in the first 11 weeks.

NFLPA assistant executive director George Atallah called the CFL's move an "interesting development" in a tweet Wednesday.

Ambrosie specifically highlighted the decreased physical pounding for offensive and defensive linemen with the new change.

"Those guys are literally hitting each other on every play," he said, per Seifert. "In one game's worth of hitting, you're probably getting hit or being hit more times than most people would be in a lifetime. It [sounds] crazy, but it's true. It does take a toll on the body."

Ambrosie said the change wasn't just to address concussions, although Seifert pointed out "it did come two months after a Boston-based study found chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) in nearly all of the 202 brains sampled from former football players."

Scott Mitchell, CEO of the Hamilton Tiger-Cats, acknowledged public outcry led to the CFL team's reversal of the decision to hire former Baylor Bears head coach Art Briles.

"We underestimated the tsunami of negativity that was going to happen, and we made a mistake in trying to contemplate a second chance versus the impact of what had happened at Baylor," Mitchell said in an interview with SN590 The Fan in Toronto on Tuesday (h/t ESPN.com). "... I think as the day went on, it just became very clear that despite the fact that most people in life believe in second chances, it just became very clear that this was just not acceptable to people."

Hamilton owner Bob Young wrote a statement Monday confirming Briles wouldn't be joining the team's coaching staff, saying the Tiger-Cats "made a large and serious mistake":

Hamilton had announced earlier that day in a since-deleted press release Briles was coming on board as an assistant to head coach June Jones.

The decision received immediate criticism on social media given the circumstances that led to Briles' departure from Baylor.

Baylor brought in law firm Pepper Hamilton to evaluate the university's handling of sexual assault allegations. Upon the conclusion of the firm's investigation, Baylor announced it had suspended Briles with the intent of firing him.

"Leadership challenges and communications issues hindered enforcement of rules and policies and created a cultural perception that football was above the rules," the Baylor Board of Regents wrote in a findings of fact. "In addition to the issues related to student misconduct, the University and Athletics Department failed to take effective action in response to allegations involving misconduct by football staff."

Briles' son, Kendal, who is the offensive coordinator at Florida Atlantic University, told Matthew DeFranks of the Sun Sentinel he had informally discussed the Owls offense with his father. Kendal also said he had sent Art film of FAU to gauge his opinion.

FAU head coach Lane Kiffin downplayed Art's role with the team, telling ESPN.com's Chris Low that Briles is "absolutely not a consultant and has never been to practice or spoken to our team."

Art Briles didn't even last a full day at his new job.

While the Hamilton Tiger-Cats announced Monday that the former Baylor coach would be an assistant on staff, the decision was apparently overruled by the league Monday night. The CFL provided a statement on its decision, via The Athletic:

Briles was set to work under former Hawaii and SMU head coach June Jones.

Briles was the head coach at Baylor University from 2008-15 but was fired due to his lack of oversight during a sexual assault scandal throughout the football team. Athletic director Ian McCaw and school president Ken Starr also ended up resigning.

The league was apparently aware of Hamilton's decision to hire the coach, according to Tiger-Cats CEO Scott Mitchell.

"I spoke to the league about it as a potential concept and had a good discussion about it, a good deliberation about it," Mitchell said Monday, per Drew Edwards of 3DownNation. "At the end of the day, it comes down to whether a person deserves a second chance."

As Arash Madani of Sportsnet noted, however, there was enough blowback for the league to make an executive decision:

Dan Wolken of USA Today looked forward to the impact this will have on future hirings:

Based on the latest setback, it will be difficult for the 61-year-old coach to land any public position going forward.

Former Baylor head coach Art Briles had seemingly joined the staff of the Canadian Football League's Hamilton Tiger-Cats as the assistant head coach on offense for a few hours Monday before the offer was taken off the table.

The CFL said in a news release that Briles would not join the Tiger-Cats, via The Athletic:

"Art Briles will no longer be joining the Hamilton Tiger-Cats as a coach. We came to this decision this evening following a lengthy discussion between the league and the Hamilton organization. We wish Mr. Briles all the best in his future endeavors."

Head coach June Jones had previously announced in a statement Monday that Briles would join the team.

Briles, 61, was fired by Baylor in May 2016 amid a university-wide sexual assault scandal that involved multiple former football players.

Tiger-Cats CEO Scott Mitchell said earlier Monday the CFL was aware the team had hired Briles and discussed why it did so, via 3DownNation.com:

"We were very well aware of [the issues surrounding Briles' tenure at Baylor], and it's been a long deliberation internally, collecting information, talking to as many people as possible, quite frankly getting the facts about things straightened away. The history is that June Jones and Art Briles have known each other for decades, and June was very forthright about what the situation was and the more we contemplated it, deliberated over it—and obviously I spoke to Bob Young about it as well—we just thought it was a very serious situation, but we also felt that after talking to dozens of people, people we trust, people we admire, that Art Briles is a good man that was caught in a very bad situation. Clearly, some serious mistakes were made along the way, but we feel strongly that people deserve second chances, and that's what we've decided to do with Art Briles."

A lawsuit filed in January alleged 52 acts of rape were committed by 31 different football players over a four-year period from 2011 to 2014. Baylor's football program allegedly used sex to show recruits a "good time," and the school is accused of committing multiple Title IX violations during Briles' tenure.

Briles, school president Ken Starr and athletic director Ian McCaw lost their jobs as a result of the scandal. The coach has denied all allegations of wrongdoing and filed a lawsuit against Baylor, which has since been dropped.

Jasmin Hernandez, a rape victim of a former Baylor football player, removed Briles and McCaw from her Title IX lawsuit earlier this month.

"There's no question this is one step toward him getting back into coaching," Briles' attorney Mark Lanier told Phillip Ericksen of the Waco Tribune-Herald. "He did not want to get back into coaching until he finished through the legal system."

Lanier said Briles hopes to get back into collegiate coaching for the 2018 season. He went 99-65 across 13 seasons as the head coach at Baylor and Houston.

Canadian Football League wide receiver Vidal Hazelton scored a touchdown for his Edmonton Eskimos on Friday in a 33-28 win over the Hamilton Tiger-Cats, only to have a pesky advertisement spoil his celebration.

After catching a pass from quarterback Mike Reilly in the back of the end zone, Hazelton went to jump over a sign. He fell short, but later laughed off the blunder on Instagram.

"I'm doing squats and box jumps all week," Hazelton wrote. "I thought i was gone clear the jump."

He didn't look fazed in the moment either, returning to his feet and posing as if that was all part of the plan. Maybe it was, as he campaigned Booster Juice to sponsor him so he can clear the sign next time.

[Vidal Hazelton, h/t The Comeback]

Former NFL quarterback Vince Young suffered a torn hamstring that will force him to miss the start of the Saskatchewan Roughriders' CFL season, according to ESPN.com. 

Young is expected to be out four to six weeks. 

In March, the Roughriders signed the former Texas Longhorns standout to a two-year deal with a second-year option. 

"I wouldn't say a comeback. I'd just say an opportunity," Young said upon signing, according to the Associated Press (via ESPN.com). "I always wanted to play football again, but didn't know how it was going to happen. God always works in mysterious ways."

Now 34 years old and six years removed from his last NFL appearance, Young is likely to miss at least the first three games of the CFL season.

The Roughriders will open their 2017 campaign June 22 against the Montreal Alouettes.