A CFL team owns Shedeur Sanders' negotiation rights. Here's what that means – USA Today

Shedeur Sanders is preparing for his rookie season with the Cleveland Browns after being selected in the fifth round of the 2025 NFL Draft.
Sanders joined a crowded Browns quarterback room that already had 40-year-old veteran Joe Flacco, 2022 first-round pick Kenny Pickett and third-round rookie Dillon Gabriel. The four men are expected to battle both to be Cleveland’s starting quarterback while also jockeying for position on the depth chart as a whole.
While much of the focus surrounding Sanders is about his first season in Cleveland, the Browns aren’t the only professional football team that owns his rights. The Toronto Argonauts – a longtime member of the Canadian Football League – have Sanders on their negotiation list, meaning they are the only team that can sign the former Colorado quarterback should he ever want to play in the league.
Here’s what to know about the CFL’s negotiation list and why Sanders is one of many young NFL quarterbacks on it.
The Toronto Argonauts currently own the exclusive CFL negotiation rights to Sanders. Should the current Browns quarterback ever want to play in Canada, he would have to negotiate a contract with Toronto to make that happen.
The Argonauts added Sanders to their negotiation list on April 28, per TSN’s Dave Naylor, amid Sanders’ slide during the 2025 NFL Draft. CFL teams are allowed to add both professional and college-level players to their negotiation lists at any time.
The CFL made the full negotiation lists public for the first time on Wednesday, July 2.
Each of the CFL’s nine teams maintains a negotiation list of “up to 45 players who are currently either unsigned or are playing in the NFL, in another professional league, or in college,” according to the CFL’s official website.
Teams hold the exclusive CFL negotiating rights to the players included on their lists. Players can be added or removed from the list at any time, and teams are also allowed to trade the rights to players on their negotiation lists to other clubs within the league.
Just because Sanders is included on one of the CFL’s negotiation lists does not mean he is going to play in the league. It simply means the Argonauts will retain his CFL rights if he ever does decide to play north of the border.
But if Sanders accomplishes his goal and carves out a long-term NFL career, he will not join the Canadian league.
Sanders is far from the only NFL quarterback on a CFL team’s negotiation list. Many of the league’s clubs stockpile the rights to high-end college quarterbacks and back-end NFL roster candidates in the hopes one will eventually decide to join their teams.
Sanders is among the most notable, with Saskatchewan Roughriders stash Trey Lance – the No. 3 overall pick in the 2021 NFL Draft – also being among the best-know candidates on the combined lists.
Below is a look at the quarterbacks on the CFL’s negotiation list for all nine teams, along with their alma maters or the most recent college program for which they played.
To see the full negotiation lists for every team, click here.
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