As the Saskatchewan Roughriders take on the Montreal Alouettes in CFL Grey Cupaction in Winnipeg, MB, November 16, 2025. Photo Electric Umbrella/Liam Richards
WINNIPEG — The Grey Cup’s defensive MVP award was last presented in 1990.
If such an honour still existed, two members of the Saskatchewan Roughriders — middle linebacker Jameer Thurman and cornerback Marcus Sayles — would have been prime candidates on Sunday.
Thurman recorded a career-high 11 defensive tackles (including one for a loss) to help the Roughriders defeat the Montreal Alouettes 25-17 in the CFL’s championship game.
The 11 tackles put Thurman in a four-way tie for the fourth-most in a Grey Cup Game.
The Alouettes’ Juan Sheridan had 16 against Edmonton in 1955.
In the same game, Edmonton’s Jackie Parker felled an Alouettes ball-carrier 13 times.
Vince Scott had 12 tackles for the Hamilton Tiger-Cats against the Winnipeg Blue Bombers in 1957.
With 11 tackles, Thurman moved into a tie with two former Roughriders — Cleveland Vann (1976 versus Ottawa Rough Riders) and Renauld Williams (2009 against Montreal) — and the B.C. Lions’ Tom Brown (1964 versus Hamilton).
“They always say defence wins championships,” Thurman told reporters on the field after the game. “We showed that today with the takeaways that we got. We were always making plays when they came to us. Coach leans on us all the time and we delivered today.”
Sayles, for example, made three huge plays on Sunday.
For starters, he intercepted the first pass thrown by Montreal’s Davis Alexander.
With 2:40 remaining in the game, Sayles made one of the biggest defensive plays in Roughriders history — recovering a fumble on Saskatchewan’s one-yard line after the ball was jarred loose by fellow cornerback Tevaughn Campbell.
“That’s how you win a Grey Cup,” Sayles said. “You stop somebody on a goal-line play on the one-yard line, man, that’s meant for us.”
Sayles also extinguished the Alouettes’ last gasp by knocking down a Hail Mary pass thrown by Alexander on the final play.
“For the first three, four, five drives, it looked like we were on top of our stuff,” said Sayles, who had one of the Roughriders’ three interceptions.
“For us to have four turnovers in the game, that’s just a credit to our coaching staff and what we were doing in practice. And then it eventually it turned into skelly and we were going to go get to that ball.”
That philosophy was instilled by Head Coach Corey Mace, who doubles as the Defensive Co-ordinator.
“Man, he’s everything,” Sayles said. “He’s such a great guy. He’s such a great coach. He’s such a great leader.
“You can just see how we play. We play for him. We play for the province of Saskatchewan. We play for each other. We’re all brothers.
“This is probably one of the closest locker rooms I’ve had in my life and you can see how we’re partying right now.”
