When it comes to CFL drama, it doesn’t get much richer than the evolving story between the Ottawa Redblacks, the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, and quarterback Dru Brown.
Especially with the possibility that Brown – the former Ottawa starter – could be under centre for Winnipeg this weekend when the Blue Bombers visit the nation’s capital to face the winless Redblacks on Sunday night.
A Winnipeg win with Brown at the helm would compound what has been a painful start to the season for Ottawa and new head coach Ryan Dinwiddie, who chose Jake Maier as the Redblacks starter after Brown arrived at training camp thinking the job was his.
With Ottawa at 0-5 and with Brown coming off his first start of the year in Winnipeg, where he completed 25 of 31 passes for 339 yards and was named one of the CFL’s players of the week, the potential implications for Ottawa are damning.
Before coming to Ottawa for the 2024 season, Brown spent three seasons as a backup in Winnipeg, where he developed a reputation as a steady insurance policy behind Zach Collaros and, by all accounts, fell in love with the Bombers, the city of Winnipeg, and its fans.
But with Brown seeking a chance to start, Winnipeg traded his rights to Ottawa in January of 2024. He signed a contract to become the Redblacks’ new starting quarterback.
Brown performed admirably when healthy during his first season in Ottawa, and not so well when banged up. But he got Ottawa to the playoffs for the first time since 2018 and provided optimism that better times may lay ahead.
Things took a step back in 2025 when he was injured in the Redblacks’ season-opening game and he never got on track as Ottawa fell to the bottom of the standings.
Brown played in nine games for Ottawa last season but didn’t improve as the season went along, throwing five interceptions in his final two starts amid whispers that he was discontented with his overall Redblacks experience and longed to be back in Winnipeg.
Things came to a head early in training camp this season when Dinwiddie announced that Maier, a former Calgary starter signed in the off-season, would be the Redblacks starter over Brown.
The fact the decision was made before he had played a snap of preseason football was apparently too much for Brown, so he immediately asked for his release. When the Redblacks refused, he asked for a trade back to Winnipeg.
Ottawa acquiesced less than three weeks into the regular season, sending Brown to Winnipeg in a deal for draft picks, and going all in on Maier despite an 0-2 start during which the Redblacks offence had struggled.
Trading away your former starting quarterback while your newly appointed starter is struggling badly seems like an odd move on the surface, but Brown was so frustrated in Ottawa that the Redblacks determined they had no other choice.
So, instead of Brown being present to take over at quarterback as the Redblacks have run their record to 0-5 while sitting near the bottom of the league most offensive categories, he’s back where he wanted to be, making the Blue Bomber offence look as good as it has all season during his only start.
Brown’s first game back as a Bomber occurred just 24 hours after Maier threw four interceptions during a 40-17 loss at Edmonton in his fifth start as a Redblack. And as painful a 48 hours as that may have been for the Redblacks and their fans, the lookahead to this Sunday could be even worse.
While it’s certainly possible that the injured Collaros could get the green light by Sunday, it was Brown taking first-team reps at Bomber practice on Tuesday, setting up the possibility of facing the team that demoted him at a time that team is in desperate need of a victory before the season becomes lost.
Of course, the success of any quarterback is significantly dependent on the players and coaches around them, so there’s no assurance that Brown would be able to run Ottawa’s offence as efficiently as he did Winnipeg’s during his season debut.
But if he gets the chance and drops a performance on the Redblacks like the one he had against Toronto, producing another Ottawa loss, it’s going to make an excruciating Redblacks season even worse.
And it will leave the people in charge – most notably Dinwiddie and general manager Shawn Burke – with more explaining to do.
