Isaiah Guzylak-Messam (born March 10, 1995) is a Canadian professional

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

defensive back In gridiron football, defensive backs (DBs), also called the secondary, are the players on the defensive side of the ball who play farthest back from the line of scrimmage. They are distinguished from the other two sets of defensive players, the ...

for the BC Lions 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).

University career

Guzylak-Messam played

U Sports football U Sports football is the highest level of amateur play of Canadian football and operates under the auspices of U Sports (formerly Canadian Interuniversity Sport). Twenty-seven teams from Canadian universities are divided into four athletic confer ...

with the Wilfrid Laurier Golden Hawks from 2014 to 2017. He played in 24 games where he had 82 total tackles and two interceptions.

Professional career

Guzylak-Messam was drafted in the fourth round, 34th overall, in the

2018 CFL Draft The 2018 CFL Draft took place on May 3, 2018, at 8:00 pm ET and was broadcast on TSN and RDS... Sixty-nine players were chosen from among eligible players from Canadian Universities across the country, as well as Canadian players playing in ...

by the BC Lions. He signed with the team on May 14, 2018, and initially began the season on the practice roster before making his professional debut on August 25, 2018. He played in ten regular season games in his rookie year where he had eight special teams tackles. In

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, he became a starting linebacker midway through the year where he played in all 18 regular season games and made 11 starts where he had 37 defensive tackles, 14 special teams tackles, and one sack. Guzylak-Messam did not play in 2020 due to the cancellation of 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 ...

. He then signed a contract extension with the Lions on February 1, 2021. He returned to a reserve role in

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where he played in 12 out of 14 regular season games and had two special teams tackles. In

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, Guzylak-Messam played in 17 regular season games where he had 16 special teams tackles. In the following season, he played in 11 regular season games and had one defensive tackle and seven special teams tackles.

References

External links

BC Lions bio
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Guzylak-Messam, Isaiah 1995 births Living people BC Lions players Canadian football defensive backs Wilfrid Laurier Golden Hawks football players Canadian football people from Hamilton, Ontario Players of Canadian football from Ontario