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Veteran return man Kendial Lawrence was among the 23 players cut by the Edmonton Eskimos as the final training camp casualties were made across the Canadian Football League on Saturday.

At the same time, the Eskimos brought back a couple of members of the 2015 Grey Cup championship roster in American offensive tackle D’Anthony Batiste and American receiver Kenny Stafford, who have both been placed on the practice roster.

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The Eskimos began notifying players of their release as early as Friday. Some players didn’t wait for the club to announce their release.

“It’s been real. My contract just got terminated and I’m a free agent,” fifth-year Canadian defensive lineman Elie Ngoyi posted to Twitter on Friday afternoon. “I want to thank the Esks organization and fans. God has another plan for me.”

For coaches and general managers, it’s one of the times of year they least look forward to.

“It’s professional sports, I think everyone understands it’s a business and that not everyone can be here,” Eskimos head coach Jason Maas said. “There’s 80-some guys here and we had to get it down to 44 plus two and then (a 10-man) practice roster. That was told to them at the beginning of the year.