The first-ever Grey Cup featuring the Winnipeg Blue Bombers and Montreal Alouettes has a significant Regina connection as both teams are led by quarterbacks who were ditched by the Saskatchewan Roughriders.
Cody Fajardo, currently in his first year with Montreal, spent three seasons in Saskatchewan. He put up 13 wins in 2019, the Roughriders’ highest regular season win total of the past 53 years, en route to a first-place finish in the West Division.
Fajardo even received the West Division’s nomination for Most Outstanding Player, losing out on the league-wide award to Hamilton receiver and kick returner Brandon Banks.
The 31-year-old journeyman had such a meaningful impact with the Riders that first-year head coach Craig Dickenson and general manager Jeremy O’Day chose to dump another franchise quarterback who will play in the 110th Grey Cup to make room for Cody as the Riders’ resident rockstar.
Zach Collaros battled head injuries during his one season-and-change in Riderville. Brought in to be Chris Jones’ final piece to a championship puzzle, Zach missed five games in 2018 and then another five contests in early 2019.
The emergence of Fajardo created a dilemma for Roughriders management, who had to decide where to put Collaros after coming off the injured list early. Something had to give and ultimately that something was a trade to the Toronto Argonauts for a conditional fourth-round pick in the 2020 CFL Draft.
It doesn’t sound like much of a haul for a franchise quarterback but that’s easy to say with Collaros being about to make his CFL-record fourth straight Grey Cup start. What’s clear today wasn’t so clear back in the summer of 2019, when his value was at an all-time low.
It’s hard to fault the Roughriders for making the move at the time for a few reasons. For starters, whether it was because of the injuries he battled or the fishbowl of Regina, Zach Collaros never looked comfortable in green and white.
His demeanour was that of someone who’d just seen a ghost and his on-field performance of nine touchdown passes against 13 interceptions didn’t match his $500,000-plus salary for that first season, either.
It’s also worth pointing out that the fourth-round pick the Riders got from Toronto turned into something much more valuable than the Argos or Riders could’ve expected as it was used to select talented Canadian receiver Kian Schaffer-Baker.
In July 2019, there would have been plenty of fans in Riderville happy to drive Zach Collaros to the airport personally. Just over three years later, the same could be said for the man who replaced him.
By the time Fajardo departed Regina after the 2022 season, he too had worn out his welcome in Rider Nation.
Having replaced a franchise quarterback who was run out of town for not performing due to injuries, it’s ironic that Fajardo was run out of Regina for playing through injuries.
Sacked an astonishing 61 times as part of a league-record 77 quarterback sacks given up by the Riders in 2022, the Roughriders were doomed to a 6-12 finish, a major collapse after a 4-1 start.
Throughout a miserable backslide that included a season-ending seven-game losing skid, Fajardo pushed back against any thought of rest. This created speculation that insecurity over the loss of his starting job had as much to do with Fajardo wanting to play through pain as anything else.
Unlike Collaros, Fajardo loved the attention that accompanied being the starting quarterback of the Saskatchewan Roughriders. He was as active as any Roughriders’ quarterback has ever been with engaging fans through social media.
It also appeared to be part of his undoing when it generated a perception of him being thin-skinned, as Cody spent as much time on media Zoom sessions complaining about social media comments as he did answering questions about football.
The whole episode even brought up memories of Kent Austin refusing to talk to some members of the Regina media following his ugly exit from the team after the 1993 season. In a choice that was probably best for his own mental health, Cody blocked just about every media person covering the Riders on Twitter.
By the time the dust settled, just like Collaros before him, local fans were ready to see Fajardo leave, prompting the Roughriders to let him walk in free agency ahead of this year.
And now, as they prepare to do battle against each other in what will be a historic Grey Cup matchup, we’re left to wonder why these two quarterbacks, good enough to get to the CFL’s championship game, weren’t a fit for the Saskatchewan Roughriders.
The reasons for their departures from Riderville were very different and even today there’s plenty of evidence to suggest neither would have been the answer for Saskatchewan’s current problems.
However, it does put some onus on the team to do some self-reflection to figure out what they can do differently so that Trevor Harris, their current franchise quarterback, doesn’t have fans offering to drive him to the airport anytime soon.
Brendan McGuire has covered the CFL since 2006 in radio and print. Based in Regina, he has a front-row view of Rider Nation.
