Speculation around the future of Toronto Argonauts quarterback Chad Kelly will officially end Tuesday when the club announces he’s signed a multi-year contract extension.
Kelly is expected to reset the CFL quarterback market with TSN reporting he’d been seeking a deal worth in excess of just over $1 million per season.
The 32-year-old threw for 5,067 yards this season with 33 touchdown passes and a completion percentage of 70.9 per cent, all career highs, in his first full season since 2023 when he was named the league’s Most Outstanding Player.
He missed half of 2024 due to a suspension and all of 2025 recovering from an injury suffered in a playoff game the previous November.
There had plenty of speculation this season that Kelly could play out his contract and move on from the Argos to rejoin his former head coach Ryan Dinwiddie in Ottawa. That grew when Kelly’s agent said during September that he was pausing negotiations with the Argonauts until that end of the season.
Part of the challenge in negotiating Kelly’s deal has been the future of the CFL’s salary cap, currently at $6.33 million but expected to jump substantially in 2028, one year after the league’s new broadcast deals kick in.
Kelly is the second-highest paid CFL quarterback at $624,000 this season, behind only BC’s Nathan Rourke at $684,000.
The Kelly contract will undoubtedly have a ripple effect on the QB market, which was already pointing upward before this news.
Hamilton quarterback Bo Levi Mitchell signed a two-year extension last week that’s expected to pay him $600,000 in 2027 and $700,000 in 2028.