Toronto Argonauts Reunite with All-Star Kicker Lirim Hajrullahu
Twenty-four hours after Boris Bede announced on social media that the Argos were going in a different direction at kicker, the team has announced the return of All-Star specialist Lirim Hajrullahu to Toronto.
The Argonauts football club also officially announced the release of Boris Bede. The pending free agent was set to hit the open market on February 13 but now gets an early jump on things.
Hajrullahu, 33, is back in Toronto for a second stint after last kicking for the Argonauts from 2016-2017.
The Kosovo-born Albanian kicker's last hurrah in Double Blue saw him kick the game-winning field goal in the 105th Grey Cup to defeat the Stampeders.
The two-time All-Star CFL veteran has spent the last several seasons in the United States on NFL and spring league rosters with Los Angeles, Carolina, Washington, Philadelphia and Dallas.
The specialist-for-hire kicked in four NFL games from 2020-2022, going four-for-five on field goal attempts and eight-for-eight on extra points with 17 kickoffs for 1,100 yards.
Hajrullahu entered the CFL in 2014 with Winnipeg, where he was nominated as the West Division Most Outstanding Special Teams Player. He was also Winnipeg's nominee for Most Outstanding Canadian and Most Outstanding Rookie after going 37-for-42 on field goal attempts (88.1%) and punting for nearly 5,000 yards (43.9 average).
The Western University alum became an Argonaut in 2016, winning his first Division All-Star nomination that season and the Grey Cup in 2017.
Hajrullahu joined rival Hamilton the following season, where he remained for two seasons, earning his second East Division All-Star nod before making the jump to the NFL.
For his CFL career, Lirim Hajrullahu is 239-for-287 on field goal attempts (83.3%), 135-for-144 (93.8%) on converts, and he has punted 414 times for an average of 44 yards per punt in 72 career regular-season games. He has kicked the second-most 50-yard field goals in a single CFL season (seven in 2018) and sits seventh all-time in field goal percentage (83.3%).
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