Emmanuel Arceneaux (born September 17, 1987) is an American professional wide receiver for the

Edmonton Elks The Edmonton Elks are a professional Canadian football team based in Edmonton, Alberta. The club competes in the Canadian Football League (CFL) as a member of the league's West Division and plays their home games at the Brick Field at Commo ...

of the

Canadian Football League The Canadian Football League (CFL; french: Ligue canadienne de football—LCF) is a professional sports league in Canada. The CFL is the highest level of competition in Canadian football. The league consists of nine teams, each located in a ci ...

(CFL). He played

college football College football (french: Football universitaire) refers to gridiron football played by teams of student athletes. It was through college football play that American football rules first gained popularity in the United States. Unlike most ...

Alcorn State University Alcorn State University (Alcorn State, ASU or Alcorn) is a public historically black land-grant university adjacent to Lorman, Mississippi. It was founded in 1871 and was the first black land grant college established in the United States. O ...

. Arceneaux signed as an

undrafted free agent In professional sports, a free agent is a player who is eligible to sign with other clubs or franchises; i.e., not under contract to any specific team. The term is also used in reference to a player who is under contract at present but who is a ...

with the

BC Lions The BC Lions are a professional Canadian football team based in Vancouver, British Columbia. The Lions compete in the West Division of the Canadian Football League (CFL), and play their home games at BC Place. The Lions played their first season ...

of the CFL in 2009. He has also been a member of the

Minnesota Vikings The Minnesota Vikings are a professional American football team based in Minneapolis. They compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the National Football Conference (NFC) North division. Founded in 1960 as an expansion ...

Washington Redskins The Washington Commanders are a professional American football team based in the Washington metropolitan area. The Commanders compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) N ...

New York Jets The New York Jets are a professional American football team based in the New York metropolitan area. The Jets compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's American Football Conference (AFC) East division. The J ...

Saskatchewan Roughriders The Saskatchewan Roughriders are a professional Canadian football team based in Regina, Saskatchewan. The Roughriders compete in the Canadian Football League (CFL) as a member club of the league's West Division. The Roughriders were founded in 1 ...

, and

Frisco Fighters The Frisco Fighters are a professional indoor football team based in Frisco, Texas. A member of the Indoor Football League, the Fighters play their home games at the Comerica Center. The team was set to participate in the 2020 season, but wer ...

College career

Arceneaux played

for the

Alcorn State Braves The Alcorn State Braves and Lady Braves represent Alcorn State University in Lorman, Mississippi in intercollegiate athletics. They field 15 teams including men's and women's basketball, cross country, golf, tennis, and track and field; women's- ...

. While at Alcorn State, he maintained a 3.0

GPA Grading in education is the process of applying standardized measurements for varying levels of achievements in a course. Grades can be assigned as letters (usually A through F), as a range (for example, 1 to 6), as a percentage, or as a numbe ...

and was president of the student-athlete advisory committee, while recording 99 career catches for 1,618 and 12 TDs on the football field. He is a member of

Alpha Phi Alpha Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. () is the oldest intercollegiate historically African American fraternity. It was initially a literary and social studies club organized in the 1905–1906 school year at Cornell University but later evolved int ...

fraternity.

Professional career

BC Lions

Arceneaux was signed to the

, on May 19, 2009 and made the Lions' active roster after training camp. Arceneaux had an outstanding debut season, starting at the wide receiver position for all 18 games and recording 63 catches for 858 yards and seven

touchdown A touchdown (abbreviated as TD) is a scoring play in gridiron football. Whether running, passing, returning a kickoff or punt, or recovering a turnover, a team scores a touchdown by advancing the ball into the opponent's end zone. In Ameri ...

s. He caught a touchdown pass in each of his first three games and had two 100-yard receiving games during the

season A season is a division of the year based on changes in weather, ecology, and the number of daylight hours in a given region. On Earth, seasons are the result of the axial parallelism of Earth's tilted orbit around the Sun. In temperate and pol ...

. He led all receivers in the 2009 playoffs, recording 12 catches for 189 yards. He continued his strong play in

2010 File:2010 Events Collage New.png, From top left, clockwise: The 2010 Chile earthquake was one of the strongest recorded in history; The Eruption of Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland disrupts air travel in Europe; A scene from the opening ceremony of ...

by registering his first 1000-yard season while finishing second on the team in receiving yards and touchdowns.

Minnesota Vikings

On January 22, 2011, Arceneaux agreed to the terms on a three-year contract with the

. During the 2011 season, he played in three regular season games, catching one pass for 10 yards. On August 31, 2012, as the Vikings reduced their roster down to league maximum of 53 players, he was released.

Washington Redskins

On September 1, 2012, the

claimed Arceneaux off waivers and signed him to the practice squad.

New York Jets

Arceneaux was signed by the

to a reserve/future contract on January 2, 2013. He was waived on May 7, 2013.

BC Lions (II)

On May 16, 2013, Arceneaux's agent announced that Emmanuel Arceneaux would be returning to

CFL The Canadian Football League (CFL; french: Ligue canadienne de football—LCF) is a professional sports league in Canada. The CFL is the highest level of competition in Canadian football. The league consists of nine teams, each located in a ci ...

within a week. The

Toronto Argonauts The Toronto Argonauts (officially the Toronto Argonaut Football Club and colloquially known as the Argos) are a professional Canadian football team competing in the East Division of the Canadian Football League (CFL), based in Toronto, Ontario ...

and

Edmonton Eskimos The Edmonton Elks are a professional Canadian football team based in Edmonton, Alberta. The club competes in the Canadian Football League (CFL) as a member of the league's West Division and plays their home games at the Brick Field at Commo ...

were all believed to have interest in the

free-agent In professional sports, a free agent is a player who is eligible to sign with other clubs or franchises; i.e., not under contract to any specific team. The term is also used in reference to a player who is under contract at present but who is a ...

. On May 21, 2013, it was officially announced that Arceneaux had signed with the Lions, with whom he had played two seasons with before going south to the NFL. The contract was reportedly a two-year, $280,000 deal. Arceneaux was fined an undisclosed amount by the CFL following a Week 4 touchdown celebration involving props. Arceneaux used the end-zone corner post and the football to mimic

putting The golf swing is the action by which players hit the ball in the sport of golf. The golf swing is a complex motion involving the whole body; the technicalities of the swing are known as golf stroke mechanics. There are differing opinions on what ...

in golf. Arceneaux gained an increasingly prominent role in the Lions offense over the next three seasons, culminating in being named a CFL All-Star in

2015 File:2015 Events Collage new.png, From top left, clockwise: Civil service in remembrance of November 2015 Paris attacks; Germanwings Flight 9525 was purposely crashed into the French Alps; the rubble of residences in Kathmandu following the Apri ...

after setting (then) career highs in receptions, yards and touchdowns. Following the 2015 CFL season Arceneaux was re-signed by the Lions through the 2017 CFL season. Arceneaux continued his stellar play in

2016 File:2016 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Bombed-out buildings in Ankara following the 2016 Turkish coup d'état attempt; the impeachment trial of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff; Damaged houses during the 2016 Nagorno-Karabakh ...

and

2017 File:2017 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: The War Against ISIS at the Battle of Mosul (2016-2017); aftermath of the Manchester Arena bombing; The Solar eclipse of August 21, 2017 ("Great American Eclipse"); North Korea tests a ser ...

, catching at least 100 receptions in both seasons. On December 12, 2017 the Lions announced they had re-signed Arceneaux to a one-year deal through the 2018 season. Arceneaux suffered a

torn ACL An anterior cruciate ligament injury occurs when the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) is either stretched, partially torn, or completely torn. The most common injury is a complete tear. Symptoms include pain, an audible cracking sound during inju ...

halfway through the season, at the time of the injury he was the Lions leading receiver in catches and yards. Manny Show 2021 Playoffs Frisco at Massachusetts

Manny Show 2021 Playoffs Frisco at Massachusetts

Saskatchewan Roughriders

Arceneaux was signed to a one-year contract by the

on February 15, 2019. He played in 11 games and recorded 22 receptions for 249 yards and two touchdowns. He also played in the Roughriders' West Final loss where he had one catch for five yards. He became a free agent on February 11, 2020.

Frisco Fighters

Arceneaux hoped to play one final season in 2020 before retiring, but the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...

caused the

2020 CFL season The 2020 CFL season would have been the 67th season of modern-day Canadian football. Officially, it would have been the 63rd season of the Canadian Football League. It was originally scheduled to begin on June 11; on April 7, the start of the s ...

to be cancelled. In April 2021, Arceneaux signed with the

of the

Indoor Football League The Indoor Football League (IFL) is a professional indoor American football league created in 2008 out of the merger between the Intense Football League and United Indoor Football. It has one of the largest number of currently active teams amon ...

, after being persuaded by Frisco quarterback

Jonathan Bane Jonathan Bane (born September 4, 1991) is an American football quarterback for the Orlando Predators of the National Arena League (NAL). He played college football at Dakota Wesleyan. Early years Bane first played high school football for the ...

to join the team. The 33-year old receiver reflected on his "rookie season" in indoor football as potentially his last, which he considers the opposite of many indoor football players' careers, as the sport is more often used by younger players seeking a stepping stone to NFL or CFL play. Arceneaux caught 36 passes for 320 yards and 6 touchdowns, along with scoring 3 rushing touchdowns over 11 regular season games. In the 2 playoff games Frisco played prior to elimination, Arceneaux added 67 more yards on 4 catches, plus two more rushing touchdowns.

Edmonton Elks

On January 26, 2022, it was announced that Arceneaux had signed with the

Career Statistics

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Arceneaux, Emmanuel 1987 births Living people Alcorn State Braves football players American football wide receivers American players of Canadian football BC Lions players Saskatchewan Roughriders players Edmonton Elks players Canadian football wide receivers Minnesota Vikings players New York Jets players Peabody Magnet High School alumni Players of American football from Louisiana Sportspeople from Alexandria, Louisiana Washington Redskins players Players of Canadian football from Louisiana