CALGARY – Cody Fajardo looks back at his time with the Saskatchewan Roughriders with a mixture of regret and gratitude.
The regret comes from how, despite some things he felt were beyond his control, he couldn’t adjust quickly enough to his elevated status and get the Riders over the hump. And then there was how he acted when things went belly up before his exit.
But the gratitude comes from how that time made him who he is today – a quarterback who’s already led one team to a Grey Cup championship and is now trying to do the same for another.
“What I’ll say about my time with the Riders is they helped me grow up,” Fajardo said after the Elks took to the field at McMahon Stadium. “There’s a lot of things I did immaturely. I didn’t know how to handle myself in certain situations. There’s some things I said in the media; I portraited myself in a way I didn’t like.
“I took a 180 flip after that.”
That flip has led Fajardo to facing the most recent of his former teams in Sunday’s CFL championship game.
It was with the Montreal Alouettes where the lessons learned from his days with the Roughriders were put into practice, and his career took a steep upward trajectory. He guided the Alouettes to the 2023 Grey Cup immediately after leaving Saskatchewan.
“The flak on me in Sask. was, ‘He couldn’t win the big game,’ Fajardo said. “Being able to get that monkey off your back, it’s real thing. You almost make it a bigger thing because people are saying that. You’re trying so hard.”
The thing is Fajardo was never supposed to be the guy when he signed with the Riders in 2019. He filled in after starter Zach Collaros got hurt early in the opening game of the season and everyone rolled with it.
He became football’s version of Edmonton Oilers goalie Stuart Skinner, who was once thought of as a 25-game backup to Jack Campbell but excelled upon being handed the reigns in a time of need.
But like Skinner, Fajardo never got his team the ultimate prize.
The Riders lost the Western Final in 2019 and 2021 to the Winnipeg Blue Bombers after the cancelled 2020 campaign. The Riders then faltered in 2022. They went 6-12, and Fajardo lost his starting job down the stretch.
Like Skinner, the writing was on the wall when the time came for Fajardo to move on to a new team.
“To the Riders fans who were really hard on me, I was just trying to figure out how to be a starting quarterback in this league,” Fajardo said. “Yes, I was in the league for (three) years. That was my (fourth) year going in. But I’d never been a starter.
“We have a great year in 2019, and I feel like I’m in rhythm. Then COVID happens. We miss a whole year. All these other quarterbacks in the league had five, six, seven years of starting experience. … When I got to the Alouettes, I figured out how to be a starter from those tough times in Saskatchewan.”
Fajardo was forced out of Montreal the season after the Grey Cup win once his then-understudy Davis Alexander was ready to assume the No. 1 job.
It was difficult to leave, especially since his new team, the Elks, had been a laughingstock for a few seasons. He said watching last year’s Grey Cup between the Riders and Als with his wife, Laura, wasn’t a pleasant experience.
“It was almost like you wanted both teams to lose,” Fajardo said. “That wasn’t going to be possible, but that’s what you wanted.
“I remember my wife looking at me after the game and she said, ‘You can get back there.’ That’s all I needed to hear.”
Laura was onto something, evidently, because Fajardo left little doubt that he’d be playing in the big game this season.
At 34 years old, he just completed the best regular season of his career with 4,788 yards passing and 25 touchdowns. He led the Elks to a wire-to-wire West Division title and was named a finalist for the league’s Most Outstanding Player, which was won by Alexander.
“When you see this guy go out there and compete the way he does, it gets everybody going,” Elks linebacker Joel Dublanko said. “He puts it all on the line every game. He plays it like it’s his last.”
“He’s our leader,” Elks kicker Vincent Blanchard said. “He knows the words to motivate us. Everybody wants to go to war with him.
“He’s there for everybody in the locker room.”
Fajardo was gone from a CFL starting quarterback neophyte with the Riders to one of the most established players at his position.
A win on Sunday would give him two Grey Cup titles as a starter, plus one as a backup to Ricky Ray with the Toronto Argonauts in 2017.
That could be the type of resume that lands him in the Canadian Football Hall of Fame when his career is over.
“He’s a Hall of Famer in my eyes,” Elks coach Mark Kilam said. “I see what Cody does on a day-to-day basis. I see the way that he elevates the franchise, elevates his teammates. I see what it means to him. I see the sacrifices that he puts in. I see him leave his heart on the football field every time he plays. That’s the stuff that I respect.
“I know what Cody means to this football team.”
“I’m not going to think about Cody winning a second (title),” said a joking Jason Maas, Fajardo’s coach in Montreal and his offensive co-ordinator in Saskatchewan. “But I agree with Mark. I think the world of Cody.”
Fajardo, naturally, has more important pressing concerns than to worry about his legacy.
Still, his good name has crossed his mind.
“I just want for when my kids get older and they google my name – at some point they’re going to do that – and they watch film of Dad, whether I’m a Hall of Famer or not, I just want them to feel proud of the product I put on the field and way I represented my last name and the organizations that I played for,” he said.
By his own admission, that might not have always been the case when he was with the Riders.
He’s changed his ways, though, and there’s no doubt about it now.
