WINNIPEG \u2014 The Edmonton Elks let a 17-point lead slip away before responding with a late touchdown drive to defeat the Winnipeg Blue Bombers 23-18 on Thursday night at Princess Auto Stadium.<\/p>\n
After Winnipeg rallied from a 17-0 deficit to take its first lead of the game early in the fourth quarter, Cody Fajardo<\/a> marched the Elks down the field in the closing minutes. Fajardo connected with Austin Mack on a pair of key completions before finding TJ Luther<\/a> in the end zone with under a minute remaining to put Edmonton back in front for good.<\/p>\n The Elks dominated the opening half.<\/p>\n Edmonton opened the scoring with a touchdown drive capped by another rushing major from Justin Rankin, who continued his impressive start to the season.<\/p>\n The visitors nearly extended the lead on Winnipeg\u2019s next possession when Tyrell Ford<\/a> intercepted Zach Collaros<\/a> and appeared headed for a touchdown after taking a lateral from Brock Mogensen. Collaros, however, chased Ford down to prevent the score, allowing the Blue Bombers\u2019 defence to hold Edmonton to a field goal.<\/p>\n The Elks made it 17-0 later in the second quarter when short-yardage quarterback Cole Snyder punched in a touchdown following another efficient drive led by Fajardo.<\/p>\n Winnipeg finally found some momentum before halftime, as Collaros engineered a 10-play, 80-yard drive that ended with a touchdown pass to Tim White<\/a>, cutting Edmonton\u2019s lead to 17-7.<\/p>\n The third quarter belonged to the defences.<\/p>\n Sergio Castillo<\/a> connected on a field goal after a single on the opening kickoff trimmed the deficit to six, while both teams forced key turnovers. Michael Griffin<\/a> jarred the ball loose from Rankin for Winnipeg before Noah Taylor forced a Collaros fumble that was recovered by Malik Carney<\/a> for Edmonton.<\/p>\n Trailing 17-11 entering the fourth quarter, the Blue Bombers completed their comeback on a five-play, 65-yard drive. Collaros completed all five of his pass attempts on the possession, including a 14-yard touchdown strike to Brady Oliveira<\/a>, while Bryce Perkins added a crucial 20-yard run on second-and-one to help Winnipeg take an 18-17 lead.<\/p>\n But the Elks had one final answer.<\/p>\n With time winding down, Fajardo calmly moved Edmonton into scoring position before finding Luther for the game-winning touchdown, helping the Elks secure their third win of the season, their first 3-0 start since 2017.<\/p>\n Overall, Fajardo completed 25 of 35 passes for 267 yards and a major. Rankin added 106 rushing yards and a touchdown on the ground.<\/p>\n For the visitors, Collaros completed 24 of 33 passes for 290 yards and two touchdowns.<\/p>\n RELATED SCORING PLAYS<\/p>\n Justin Rankin five-yard touchdown run (Q1, 09:33) | EDM 7, WPG 0 \u00a0<\/p>\n NEXT UP<\/p>\n The Elks have another tough road challenge ahead as they travel to Kelowna to face the BC Lions in Week 5. The last time these two teams met was Week 20 of the 2025 season, when the Lions came away with a 37-24 win over Edmonton that officially eliminated the Green and Gold from playoff contention.<\/p>\n The Bombers meanwhile travel to Hamilton to face the Tiger-Cats for the second time in 2025 after dropping a 37-27 contest against the Tabbies in Week 2.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WINNIPEG \u2014 The Edmonton Elks let a 17-point lead slip away before responding with a late touchdown drive…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":762057,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[437],"tags":[49,48,521,522,520,82],"class_list":["post-762056","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\/762056","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=762056"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/762056\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/762057"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=762056"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=762056"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=762056"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\u00bb Depth Charts:\u00a0EDM<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0WPG<\/a>
\u00bb\u00a0Game Notes: Elks at Blue Bombers<\/a>
\u00bb\u00a0Sign up and watch CFL games on CFL+ in the U.S. and Internationally<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\nVincent Blanchard 15-yard field goal (Q1, 04:04) | EDM 10, WPG 0
\nCole Snyder one-yard touchdown run (Q2, 06:44) | EDM 17, WPG 0
\nZach Collaros<\/a> 26-yard touchdown pass to Tim White<\/a> (Q2, 00:04) | EDM 17, WPG 7
\nSergio Castillo<\/a> 90-yard kickoff single (Q3, 14:58) | EDM 17, WPG 8
\nSergio Castillo<\/a> 53-yard field goal (Q3, 00:15) | EDM 17, WPG 11
\nZach Collaros<\/a> 14-yard touchdown pass to Brady Oliveira<\/a> (Q4, 08:45) | WPG 18, EDM 17
\nCody Fajardo<\/a> eight-yard touchdown pass to TJ Luther<\/a>, two-point attempt failed (Q4, 00:53) | EDM 23, WPG 18<\/p>\n