Roughriders ship veteran Collaros to Argos
GAME DAY: HAMILTON AT SASKATCHEWAN, 6:30 P.M.
REGINA — With Saskatchewan trading veteran quarterback Zach Collaros to the Toronto Argonauts on Wednesday, the usual football parlance would now call the Roughriders Cody Fajardo’s team.
General manager Jeremy O’Day and head coach Craig Dickenson, however, prefer a more collective concept.
“This is no one player’s team. This is not my team, it’s not Jeremy O’Day’s team. The whole idea of team is a group of men coming together with a common purpose,” Dickenson said.
“Is Cody a leader on this team? That has yet to be determined, but this will never be one person’s team for as long as I’m the coach. That defeats the purpose of team. He might be the leader on offence, we’ll let the players figure that out. This is a collective group of men and they feel like playing hard for each other and that’s the whole idea.
“Yes, he is the starting quarterback. He’s got one of 24 starting positions.”
The 27-year-old Fajardo was thrust into the starter’s role when Collaros suffered a concussion early in the June 13 season opener against the Hamilton Tiger-Cats, a 23-13 loss. Since then, Fajardo has gone 3-2 as the starter, completing 107 of 146 passes for 1,392 yards and seven touchdowns. He’s also thrown four interceptions.
Fajardo found out about the Collaros trade during a meeting prior to Wednesday’s walkthrough for today’s home game against the Ticats. He described his promotion to undisputed starter as bittersweet and said Collaros served as a valuable mentor over the past six weeks.
While Fajardo is looking forward to the challenge of being the fulltime starting quarterback, he isn’t about to make any big adjustments.
“For me, nothing’s going to change,” Fajardo said. “I don’t think I’m going to be any more vocal than I’ve been. I’ve been able to start pretty much the whole year and use those experiences moving forward. But it’s professional football. At any given time they can bring in another guy if I’m not performing well.”