{"id":43458,"date":"2026-05-13T13:59:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-13T13:59:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/43458\/"},"modified":"2026-05-13T13:59:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-13T13:59:08","slug":"cody-fajardo-edmonton-elks-have-grey-cup-winning-cfl-roster","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/43458\/","title":{"rendered":"Cody Fajardo: Edmonton Elks have Grey Cup-winning CFL roster"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPhoto courtesy: Edmonton Elks.<\/p>\n

The Edmonton Elks have not produced a winning record since 2017 when the Michael Reilly-led recorded a 12-6 mark.<\/p>\n

One major reason for the Green and Gold\u2019s struggle to climb back over .500 and reach the playoffs: terrible starts over and over again in the regular season. Last year for example, Edmonton began the campaign 1-4 and were fighting an uphill battle from there.<\/p>\n

Mark Kilam addressed the issue in his first training camp meeting with the 2026 Elks, according to franchise quarterback Cody Fajardo.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese early games are really four-point games\u00a0because they set you up later on and you don\u2019t want to be in that chase pack mentality when everybody\u2019s\u00a0jockeying for position at the end of the year,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Fajardo did not start until Week 8 last season when Edmonton was already in a hole. However, he able to muster a 6-7 win-loss record and at least put the Elks in the playoff conversation for the stretch run. Having No. 7 as the starter from day one at training camp could help the Green and Gold out the gate.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou want to put yourself in the driver\u2019s seat of the\u00a0bus and the only way you can do that is by winning early,\u201d Fajardo said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t have to overhaul this whole\u00a0system. We don\u2019t have a bunch of new guys coming in. We don\u2019t have new systems that we have to learn. We\u2019re able to have that continuity and gel a little bit quicker.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 34-year-old led the Montreal Alouettes to a CFL championship in 2023, earning 110th Grey Cup MVP honours. He knows what it takes to become a legitimate contender and compete for a title. Entering his 10th season in the three-down league, the six-foot-one, 215-pound QB sees encouraging traits in Edmonton.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou talk about Grey Cup day one and then\u00a0you stop talking about it because then you want your focus to be right in front of you,\u00a0but you have to let the guys know what the end goal is and the end goal is a Grey Cup. You talk about it day one and then after that you focus on how do we get better to get to that end goal,\u201d\u00a0Fajardo said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis isn\u2019t a team that we just want to make the playoffs, we just want to make a run. We want to win a Grey Cup and this roster is good enough to win a Grey Cup. For me,\u00a0you only have so many years left, so I\u2019m in the business of winning games and I\u2019m in the business of winning Grey Cups.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kilam called the Elks Fajardo\u2019s team and their messaging to the team has been in lockstep with his starting quarterback. That includes the message to double E supporters. Kilam an Fajardo believe the team has to put a winning and exciting product on the field to give fans a reason to come to the Alberta capital and attend games at Commonwealth Stadium.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought we pieced that together last year\u00a0a couple games here and there, but the only way we can get fans back in the stadium is if we are\u00a0energetic and we are winning football games. We know that as players, so that\u2019s our goal,\u201d Fajardo said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want this city to be excited about the Edmonton Elks. We have a Grey Cup-winning roster, come out and see it for yourself. This is going to be a great year for the Elks and we\u2019re excited to see all of our fans pushing us forward when it starts in the home opener.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Elks have taken aim at making the CFL playoffs for the first time since 2019 and re-energize a fanbase that\u2019s seen a notable downturn since the pandemic.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Football insider, reporter and analyst.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Photo courtesy: Edmonton Elks. The Edmonton Elks have not produced a winning record since 2017 when the Michael…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":43459,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[349,350,164,17,351,5827,352,17825,19114,1045,52,4594,1046,13956,1048,18470],"class_list":{"0":"post-43458","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-edmonton","8":"tag-3down","9":"tag-3downnation","10":"tag-alberta","11":"tag-canada","12":"tag-canadian","13":"tag-canadian-football-league","14":"tag-cfl","15":"tag-cody-fajardo","16":"tag-commonwealth-stadium","17":"tag-ed-hervey","18":"tag-edmonton","19":"tag-edmonton-elks","20":"tag-elks","21":"tag-grey-cup","22":"tag-mark-kilam","23":"tag-yeg"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43458","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43458"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43458\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43459"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43458"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43458"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43458"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}