Winnipeg Blue Bombers’ quarterback Zach Collaros personally enjoys playing against his former teams and recalls one game in particular against Saskatchewan.<\/p>\n
“If I were to tell you the truth, in 2019\u00a0when I was traded, it was really sweet winning that game in the West Final,\u00a0personally for me,” Collaros said on\u00a0the SportsCage. “If I had a lie detector on and tried to lie to you about that, that would be tough. But outside of that, I really love coming back to the city.”<\/p>\n
Collaros and the Bombers defeated the Riders in the 2019 West Final 20-13. Winnipeg\u00a0went\u00a0on to beat\u00a0the Hamilton Tiger-Cats\u00a033-12 in the 107th Grey Cup. The Blue Bombers\u00a0repeated and beat the Ticats again,\u00a0this time in overtime\u00a033-25 in 2021. After that game, Collaros won\u00a0the Grey Cup Most Valuable Player award.\u00a0Following\u00a0the 2021 and 2022 seasons, Collaros won\u00a0the CFL’s Most Outstanding Player award.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Before Collaros came to the CFL, he had a brief NFL stint with the\u00a0Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 2012. That was\u00a0followed by a two-year tenure with the Toronto Argonauts from 2012 to 2013. He won a Grey Cup with the Argos in his rookie CFL season. Following his time with the Argonauts, he\u00a0spent\u00a0time with the Hamilton Tiger-Cats from 2014 to 2017. The Ticats\u00a0traded\u00a0Collaros to the Riders for a second-round pick in the 2018 CFL Draft in January that year and he stay with the team until 2019. He had\u00a0a second stint with the Argonauts in 2019 then\u00a0went\u00a0to the Bombers at\u00a0the 2019 CFL trade deadline.<\/p>\n
Around the Queen City,\u00a0Green and White fans still appreciate Collaros’ time with the Riders.<\/p>\n
“Even the Grey Cup that we played here,\u00a0unfortunately\u00a0we lost that game.\u00a0I wasn’t even practicing with my ankle situation, but the team would be at practice and then I would be in the pool or walking around\u00a0the downtown area and seeing all the people because I lived downtown too.\u00a0Seeing old familiar faces, going to the Italian Star Deli, going into the Diplomat, going to Memories, Golfs, poking my head in\u00a0saying ‘Hello’ to people was awesome,” Collaros said. “It’s always really cool for me\u00a0because I have a history there. I was there not that long, but I liked being out and about in the city,\u00a0saying hello, and people are so friendly there.”<\/p>\n
In 2025, the six-foot-one, 218-pound quarterback has started eight games for the Bombers,\u00a0he has completed 75 percent of his passes for 1,806 yards with 10\u00a0touchdowns\u00a0and\u00a010\u00a0interceptions. Besides still having\u00a0motivation to win, the 37-year-old Collaros is\u00a0happy to lend a helping hand to his teammates.<\/p>\n
“Doing this for as long as I’ve been able to do —\u00a0which I’m really fortunate for the relationships, whether it’s with old friends in the locker room or new guys that we bring in —\u00a0making sure that I can be that person to help bring them along and understanding the offence, understanding what we want the culture to be in the locker room,” Collaros said. “Try to be the best teammate I can be, a leader, however you want to coin that term. To be that person who guys can learn from\u00a0because this is a great game. I owe a lot of what my life is right now because of the CFL and\u00a0this\u00a0game.\u00a0I\u00a0want everybody to know how special it is to continue to help bring guys along.”<\/p>\n
The Bombers\u00a0travel\u00a0to the Queen City to take on the Riders in\u00a0the 60th Labour Day Classic on Sunday. Teagan Witko, Justin Dunk, and Wes Cates\u00a0bring you the pre-game show at 2 p.m. Dave Thomas and Luc Mullinder\u00a0have the game call at\u00a05 p.m. Listen or watch our thorough coverage at the 620 CKRM Co-operators Rider Broadcast Network.<\/a><\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Winnipeg Blue Bombers’ quarterback Zach Collaros personally enjoys playing against his former teams and recalls one game in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":109955,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[437],"tags":[49,48,521,522,520,62252,82],"class_list":["post-109954","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cfl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-canadian-football-league","tag-canadianfootballleague","tag-cfl","tag-saskatchewan-roughriderszach-collaroslabour-day-classicwinnipeg-blue-bombercfl-2025","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109954","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=109954"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109954\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/109955"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=109954"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=109954"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=109954"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}