The Ottawa Redblacks have hired the CFL's top quarterback guru to serve as the team's head coach, offensive coordinator and general manager.. Now he has to decide whether the franchise's current QB meets his standards.
Ryan Dinwiddie has 71 days to make a decision from his hiring announcement on Wednesday until Jan. 15. That's when Drew Brown, the Redblacks' current starter, is set to receive a $150,000 offseason bonus, creating a deadline if the team wants to move forward.
“Well, he’s (our starter) now,” Dinwiddie said. 3DownNation when asked about Brown's status. “He's got a bonus coming up and free agency is coming. Are we going to get another quarterback that he can compete with? I like the competition, but the salary cap is an issue.”
“What can we afford to bring in another guy to compete with him? You can also look at different things including trades, but I'm comfortable with where he is. We made a commitment to him as an organization and now we need to evaluate this decision and make sure it's the right one for us moving forward.”
In 2025, Brown appeared in 11 regular-season games but started only nine times while battling hip, neck and knee problems. He posted a 2-7 record at the helm and completed 71.5 percent of his passes for 2,389 yards, 14 touchdowns and 10 interceptions and ranked eighth in the league in passer rating (minimum 100 attempts).
Former general manager Sean Burke, who moved to vice president of football operations with Dinwiddie's arrival, acknowledged his franchise quarterback after the season. wasn't on the field enough to fully meet this definition. However, he blamed the organization, not Brown, for his injuries and said the Redblacks would undergo a complete re-evaluation in an attempt to keep him healthy going forward.
However, the decision on how to handle the quarterback position will be within Dinwiddie's purview and everything remains open to evaluation.
“At the end of the year, I talked about Drew, who I thought he was, and he didn't show up on the football field much for us. I think a lot of the evaluations were unfair to him when he wasn't healthy, so we need to look at the full collection of not only the two years here, but the film that made us evaluate to get Drew here,” Burke said.
“Drew is an incredible guy who works in the building every day. No one works harder, but ultimately Ryan will have full control over the roster. He will begin to dissect the film with me. We will do this hand in hand and make decisions.”
Brown was acquired by the Redblacks at the start of the 2024 season and started 15 games, posting an 8-6-1 record, helping Ottawa return to the postseason. He completed 67.2 percent of his passes for 3,959 yards, 18 touchdowns and 10 interceptions.
Palo Alto, California. Native spent the first three seasons of his CFL career as a backup for the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, starting three games when Zach Collaros was sidelined with injury. He threw for 1,484 yards, 14 touchdowns and two interceptions while appearing in five majors.
Before joining the CFL, Brown made a name for himself at the University of Hawaii, throwing for 5,273 yards, 37 touchdowns and 15 interceptions in two seasons as a starter. However, after transferring to Oklahoma State, he failed to beat former Edmonton quarterback Taylor Cornelius in 2018 or freshman Spencer Sanders in 2019, starting just three games in his last two years in the NCAA.
Dinwiddie will have to evaluate whether the 28-year-old deserves the starting title he earned in 2024, or whether his future in the CFL will mirror his past in the NCAA. This decision will depend on both the quarterback's character and his arm talent.
“I think I need to sit down with him, get to know him as a person first. See what his mental makeup is, then talk about football, see what he was taught and what they asked him to do in the scheme. Watch a few games with him,” Dinwiddie said, indicating he would like to send Brown back to Ottawa to face him in the coming weeks.
“I think he's a good player. I think there are some things we can improve on. We've got to make sure we keep him healthy, but I think he's definitely one of the top nine defenders in this league. But I want to sit down with him and watch some more film and evaluate him. I have a good feeling about where he's at right now. I think we can get more out of him and get him to play cleaner football, but we've got to protect him first.”
Dinwiddie has an impressive track record of getting the most out of quarterbacks of varying talent levels. During his time as a CFL coach, he helped Bo Levi Mitchell and Chad Kelly win Most Outstanding Player awards, won Gray Cups with Nick Arbuckle and McLeod Bethel-Thompson in the starting lineup, and squeezed productive campaigns out of Cameron Dukes and Jonathan Crompton.
44-year-old bench coach leaves behind Kelly and Arbuckle in Torontowhere the latter was able to throw for 4,370 yards in 2025, and the former continued to recover from a broken leg suffered in the 2024 Eastern Finals.. Both players are under contract with the Argonauts through 2026, but either could be an attractive trade target if Dinwiddie decides there is no future for Brown.
“I think you have to look at a lot of different things and go through a lot of different scenarios. Evaluate some of the other defenders in the league and do what's best for the football club, which is the most important thing,” he admitted. “That's what this business is all about: tough decisions are made. You can't run away from them, you have to make them and you have to do whatever it takes to make sure it's the right decision. We're going to look at all avenues, figure out what's best for the Ottawa Redblacks and this organization going forward.”
Where that takes Brown is yet to be determined, but the organization that has hired the most CFL hires in a decade won't be shy about change if it's needed.
“We test everything, stop at nothing,” Dinwiddie insisted. “But right now Drew is our quarterback and we’re happy with that.”
