There’s a lot riding on the Grey Cup for every member of the Edmonton Elks and Montreal Alouettes, but the person with the most at stake might be Cody Fajardo.
The former Saskatchewan Roughriders quarterback has one Grey Cup on his resume as the main signal caller, winning the ultimate prize with Montreal in 2023. He was also the backup to Ricky Ray when the Toronto Argonauts won the championship in 2017.
Could leading a second franchise to a Grey Cup punch his ticket to the Canadian Football Hall of Fame when his career is over?
“If he wins, that’s going to be a very legitimate conversation because then he’s going to have two Grey Cup victories as a starter with two different franchises,” 3DownNation’s Justin Dunk said Monday on the SportsCage. “He’s been in a much similar role before, but that was when he was with Montreal in 2023, going against Winnipeg, who were favourites going into the football game.
“Now he’s going against not only his former team but his former protege in Davis Alexander. You could make an argument for Cody Fajardo – no matter how he potentially gets it done – if Edmonton wins the Grey Cup, he’s probably in the conversation of being a Hall of Famer.
“His counting totals, as so many of the voters like to look at, they’re ticking up there pretty good as well. It seems like he could keep playing for a couple, few, potentially a number of years – he’s getting close to his 40s like we’ve seen from Trevor Harris – and that would help his Hall of Fame case.”
To Dunk’s point, Fajardo, 34, has 26,194 passing yards in his 159-game CFL career with Toronto, B.C., Saskatchewan, Montreal, and Edmonton.
Fajardo just capped off the best season with 4,788 yards through the air and 25 touchdown passes, leading the Elks to a West Division title. He was named a finalist for the league’s Most Outstanding Player, which was won by Alexander.
That’s all well and good, but Saturday’s contest in Calgary could be a legacy defining game for Fajardo.
Riders legendary quarterback Darian Durant also weighed in on the topic in his weekly appearance on the SportsCage.
“I would say he’s not a Hall of Famer yet,” Durant said. “I definitely think if you can get two Grey Cups under your belt, then you deserve that.
“I maybe would say he is (already) if he had a MOP under his belt. If come back with a Grey Cup championship and a Grey Cup MVP then you would probably have to give it to him. Winning one is just not enough. Not having a MOP, it doesn’t qualify you.
“If he can get two and get this one, especially with all the talk about him going against his old team and them being underdogs, then you definitely have to crown him this.”
Fajardo spent three seasons behind centre for the Roughriders and enjoyed some great success.
He led the Riders to the Western Final in 2019 and again in 2021 after the cancelled 2020 campaign. Both games ended in losses to the Winnipeg Blue Bombers.
His time in Saskatchewan fizzled out as the Riders finished 6-12 in 2022 and he left for Montreal as a free agent in the offseason.
“There are some Riders fans that feel like Cody Fajardo during his time in Saskatchewan, especially on the way out, didn’t do it in the way that they would have liked, which I think is understandable,” Dunk said. “Even Cody Fajardo has talked about that. Perhaps he wore his emotions on his sleeve too much in Saskatchewan.
“We’ve got to remember, it was essentially a Cinderella story, the way that he burst onto the scene and became a star in Saskatchewan. Zach Collaros, the now-Bombers quarterback, goes down early in that 2019 season and then, all of a sudden, Cody Fajardo becomes a West Division MOP. He has the Riders hosting the West final.
“There was a lot of pressure put on him early because of how well he did at the start of his time in Riderville.”
Check on Dunk’s full segment below.
