{"id":338073,"date":"2025-12-11T02:20:10","date_gmt":"2025-12-11T02:20:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/338073\/"},"modified":"2025-12-11T02:20:10","modified_gmt":"2025-12-11T02:20:10","slug":"watching-two-exes-in-112th-grey-cup-helped-motivate-cody-fajardo-to-continue-playing-cfl-football","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/338073\/","title":{"rendered":"Watching two exes in 112th Grey Cup helped motivate Cody Fajardo to continue playing CFL football"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Courtesy: Edmonton Elks<\/p>\n

After the 2025 Edmonton Elks season ended, Cody Fajardo estimated his chances of retiring were 75 percent, versus only 25 percent coming back.<\/p>\n

The 33-year-old was offered an offensive analyst job with his alma mater, the University of Nevada, which would have provided a smooth transition from playing professional football. The opportunity would also have given him the chance to be at home with his family more as he called it one of his \u201cdreams jobs.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was more of a prove-it kind of deal, but\u00a0these coaches now in college football they get paid pretty good money. It was nothing near starting quarterback money in the CFL, but it was something that\u00a0definitely intrigued me,\u201d Fajardo said.<\/p>\n

The last couple weeks of the CFL schedule were hard on his Fajardo\u2019s wife, Laura, as she was in Reno, Nevada working as a physical therapist and taking care of the couple\u2019s two sons, three-year-old Luca and one-year-old Cian. Following locker clean out day, the proud father wondered what he was doing missing the \u201cgolden years\u201d in his children\u2019s lives while failing to quality for the CFL playoffs. Those thoughts led to a two-week vacation for the Fajardos in late November.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe took some time away and spent some time with the family. We\u00a0wanted to see what life would look like with football and without football. You only have so many years to play football and I can coach for\u00a050 years until I\u2019m 60, 70, 80 years old, but you can only play for so\u00a0long. That was something we talked about. Another year for my kids to see me play\u00a0football now that they\u2019re a little older, a little more in tune to things and can remember some things,\u201d Fajardo said.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou watch two of basically your exes in\u00a0the Grey Cup with Sask and Montreal, that\u2019ll light a fire under you. Saskatchewan, a team that in my opinion we could have beat twice in a year, but we beat \u2019em once at home. You beat a Grey Cup-winning\u00a0team, it goes to show that you\u2019re not as far off as you think you are, even though we missed the playoffs. That gave me hope about the team.\u201d<\/p>\n

The six-foot-one, 215-pound pivot considered retirement as he did following his 2022 season with the Roughriders. At that time, he was still young and wanted to prove he could be a championship quarterback in the CFL.<\/p>\n

Fajardo accomplished his goal in 2023 with the Alouettes, giving an impassioned speech leading into the 110th Grey Cup in Hamilton. The result was a game-winning touchdown pass to Canadian receiver Tyson Philpot<\/a> with Fajardo winning MVP honours.<\/p>\n

One of the deciding factors for Fajardo in his return was the goal of becoming the QB to lead Edmonton back to the postseason for the first time since 2019. He signed what he termed a \u201cteam-friendly\u201d contract with the Elks for 2026 and wants to be playing meaningful football in late October and November.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat would make any money that I missed out on contract-wise well worth it, making the playoffs. That\u2019s the goal and competing for a Grey cup. That was our vision when we talked\u00a0and we went through negotiations,\u201d Fajardo said.<\/p>\n

The Brea, California native negotiated his own contract with Edmonton general manager Ed Hervey, as he also did last year when working out restructured financial details after being acquired via trade from Montreal. He used his old agreement from the 2023 season with the Alouettes<\/a> and the Roughriders\u2019 compensation with Trevor Harris from 2025<\/a> as his main comparables. Those contracts stuck out to Fajardo, even though he knows the salary cap has increased, because Grey Cups were able to be won.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to gain the experience of going into the negotiation room with the GM. My goal\u00a0when I\u2019m done playing football, I would love to be a GM one day, whether it\u2019s for\u00a0a college team or in the CFL or somehow, some way be a general manager. The only way you can get\u00a0that experience is by doing it yourself. For me, it was if I feel valued with this contract, why not say yes,\u201d Fajardo said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you see the numbers come out, it\u2019ll be in the lower end of the starting quarterbacks. But like I said, a playoff team is going to be way more important than any dollar\u00a0figure for me personally because that\u2019s where I\u2019m at in my career. If I was 26 years old,\u00a0I\u2019d tell you straight up, it\u2019s all about the money. I\u2019m established in my life. I know exactly\u00a0what our expenses are monthly, I figured out what we needed to be comfortable and we got that deal\u00a0done, so I wasn\u2019t trying to be greedy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fajardo admitted contract conversations with Hervey were \u201ctough\u201d to have as a player while also being frustrated and stressed at times. He believes both parties stayed professional and he respected the way Hervey handled his business. There were no face-to-face negotiations, however, the two had a three-hour exit meeting at the team\u2019s facility prior to No. 7 returning to his offseason home in Reno.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the team compromised, I compromised, and usually you get a good deal when nobody feels great about the deal. That means both parties\u00a0usually did a good deal. I felt like I left some money on the table without an agent,\u201d Fajardo said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe came up with numbers that felt good for me. Sometimes when you have an agent, the agent wants to push for more money because it gets more money\u00a0in their pocket. When you sign for a starting quarterback salary,\u00a0it\u2019s a little bit better than what I had last year as a backup.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hervey and Fajardo did discuss a possible two-year contract, but the franchise QB felt \u201cit made sense\u201d to focus on a one-year pact. That does not take 2027 off the table as it can be negotiated at anytime through the year or after the season.<\/p>\n

The Edmonton Elks finished fifth in the West Division standings in 2025 with a 7-11 record, missing the playoffs for the fifth straight season. Cody Fajardo started the team\u2019s final 13 regular-season games and went 6-7, throwing for 3,408 yards, 14 touchdowns, and seven interceptions. Tre Ford started the first five, going 1-4, and threw for 984 yards, five touchdowns, and three interceptions.<\/p>\n

The Elks ranked ninth in net offence, ninth in net defence, and fifth with a turnover differential of plus-four. The club\u2019s leading rusher was Justin Rankin with 1,013 yards, leading receiver was Kaion Julien-Grant with 820 yards, and leading tackler was Joel Dublanko with 80 tackles. Edmonton finished seventh in attendance with average crowds of 19,050, which was a 7.1 percent decrease from the previous year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Courtesy: Edmonton Elks After the 2025 Edmonton Elks season ended, Cody Fajardo estimated his chances of retiring were…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":338074,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[437],"tags":[49,48,521,522,520,82],"class_list":["post-338073","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-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/338073","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=338073"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/338073\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/338074"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=338073"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=338073"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=338073"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}