The Saskatchewan Roughriders are prepared to face a former face of the franchise.
Cody Fajardo, the team’s starting quarterback for most of the past three seasons, is now a member of the Montreal Alouettes.
The Alouettes are to play host to the Roughriders on Friday (5:30 p.m., TSN, CKRM) in a game that serves up an automatic storyline — providing, of course, that Fajardo is actually a participant. His status is listed as “game-time decision” due to a left shoulder injury.
Within the ranks of the Roughriders, discussion about Fajardo does not extend beyond what must be done to neutralize his talents.
There are friendships, yes, and there is some history. But the players, by and large, are far from fixated on facing Fajardo.
Over the past week, I have not heard as much as a syllable uttered about Fajardo unless the discussion has been initiated by a member of the media.
And let’s be clear: If I still worked at the Regina Leader-Post, where I was blessed to spend the first 36 years of my career, I would have been all over this angle, all week, until somebody gave me a needle.
However, it is evident to me in a new capacity that, within a team setting, there simply is not time for sentiment or sidebars.
That is especially true during a week such as this for the Roughriders, who have only five days and one full practice between games, home and away.
“It really doesn’t matter who we’re playing,” Head Coach Craig Dickenson said. “Coaches say that all the time and, most of the time, it really is true. You worry about your own team.”
That is simply the reality of life in the CFL.
At a time when one-year contracts are in vogue, today’s teammate can become tomorrow’s foe.
“Rosters change over so much in this league, so it’s not that big a deal,” Roughriders long-snapper Jorgen Hus said. “I don’t really think about it too much.
“At the end of the day, it’s just a football game and, when you go out there, you’re focused in and you’re not thinking about that kind of stuff, anyway.”
That is the perspective provided by someone who has shared dressing-room space at Mosaic Stadiums old and new with a few hundred comrades — including prominent passers such as Fajardo, Darian Durant and Zach Collaros — since becoming a Roughrider.
Durant was the Roughriders’ franchise quarterback when the team acquired the rights to Hus from Edmonton for receiver Cory Watson on May 11, 2015.
Watson had been obtained from the Winnipeg Blue Bombers only 3½ months before being dealt for the second time in the same off-season.
That is how quickly, how suddenly, everything can change in professional sports.
By 2019, when Fajardo signed with Saskatchewan as a free agent, Watson was again a Roughrider — and not just on paper.
Watson, who signed with Saskatchewan as a free agent on Feb. 13, 2019, caught the fourth of the 18 touchdown passes Fajardo threw en route to becoming a league All-Star and a finalist for the CFL’s Most Outstanding Player award.
Fajardo had actually begun the 2019 season as the Roughriders’ No. 2 quarterback, behind Collaros. After Collaros was concussed early in the regular-season opener, Fajardo took over and enjoyed a magical breakout year.
It eventually came to pass that the Roughriders opposed Collaros and the Blue Bombers in the 2019 West Division final. By then, he had been traded from Saskatchewan to Toronto to Winnipeg in the space of a few months.
Naturally, there was interest and intrigue stemming from the fact that Collaros was to meet one of his former teams with a Grey Cup berth at stake. Remember, though, that he had also been injured in Week 1 while playing against another one of his previous clubs (the Hamilton Tiger-Cats).
So the novelty of quarterback-faces-former-team does wear off after a while.
Collaros had been traded to Saskatchewan by Hamilton on Jan. 3, 2018, one day before the release of Kevin Glenn ended the veteran quarterback’s third stint with Saskatchewan.
Glenn is the only player in CFL history to be a member of all nine teams at one point in a career.
He is one affiliation ahead of Shawn Lemon, who is to line up at defensive end for Montreal on Friday. Lemon’s eight-team history includes two stints with Saskatchewan.
At the other end of the spectrum, there is Hus — the longest-serving current member of the Roughriders. He is now in his eighth season with the same team, the only one for which he has suited up in the CFL.
Friday’s game will be his 123rd as a Roughrider, whereas Fajardo is poised to make his 100th appearance in a CFL uniform, with his fourth team.
Season 3 for Hus began with a game in Montreal on June 22, 2017.
The rival quarterback happened to be Durant, who had been dealt to the Alouettes on Jan. 13 of that year.
Roughriders versus Durant was a monstrous story at the time.
The central figure was someone who had piloted Saskatchewan to three West Division titles and one home-field Grey Cup win over the course of a decade with the team.
Late in the life of historic Mosaic Stadium, a gigantic image of Durant was plastered all over the facility’s west-side facing. Such was his prominence and popularity in Riderville.
Even then, with a Roughriders legend cast in the new and once-unimaginable role of an opposing player, it was still a business trip when the Roughriders flew to Montreal to kick off their 2017 season.
A comparable mindset is discernible on the Roughriders’ current visit to this truly sensational city.
On the buses, on the plane and at the hotel, players and coaches have been preoccupied with X’s and O’s, roles and responsibilities, and the exacting attention to detail that is required of a successful team.
After the game, there will be handshakes, hellos and hugs.
Until then, nobody who entertains us during Friday Night Football will be caught up in past allegiances and all the buzz that, quite understandably, dominates the public dialogue about the looming matchup.
“It’s just storyline talk, and that’s OK, too,” Hus said. “It’s good to have chatter. I think any chatter about the league is a good thing.”
But when you get right down to it, some of the chatter doesn’t really matter.
