'It's too late to buy stock in this football team': Alouettes' QB Cody ...

Sorry bandwagon jumpers, Cody Fajardo doesn’t want your support.

Sitting down with TSN ahead of Saturday’s Eastern Semi-Final, the Montreal Alouettes’ starting quarterback was adamant that his team does not need any extra fanfare after being dismissed by the masses prior to the season.

“We don’t want the attention. There hasn’t been that attention all year for us, so why change now?” Fajardo said. “We’re just gonna put our heads down and we’re gonna work.”

Many pundits projected the Alouettes to finish last in the East Division following a tumultuous offseason that was rocked by an ownership transition. Pierre-Karl Peladeau took over a team in financial strife from the estate of the late Sid Spiegel but the sale did not occur fast enough to avoid an exodus in free agency. With no certainty in who would be writing the cheques, established stars like Trevor Harris and Eugene Lewis went elsewhere.

Fajardo was seen as the last man on the quarterback carousel, joining new head coach Jason Maas in Montreal after the pair were run out of town by the Saskatchewan Roughriders following a disappointing 2022 season. Together, they have steered the Alouettes to an 11-7 record and the right to host a home playoff game.

“The thing that’s so unique about this team is I think we’re a band of misfit toys that all came together,” the quarterback said. “A lot of guys who were on ex-teams who came over here who weren’t wanted on their previous teams, some guys that were held over from the team from last year and wanted to come out and prove themselves, and we came together as a band of brothers. ”

“At this point, we just want to continue to prove the people who aren’t giving us the credit or the flowers [wrong], but we don’t want it at this point. It’s too late. It’s too late to buy stock in this football team and that’s our mindset. We’ll prove it when we get to the Grey Cup and we hoist that Grey Cup over our head.”

Fajardo completed a league-leading 71.6 percent of his passes for 3,847 yards, 14 touchdowns, and 12 interceptions while steering Montreal to their best finish since Anthony Calvillo was at the helm. Along the way, the Alouettes went undefeated against teams below them in the standings but failed to come up with a victory against the big three of Toronto, Winnipeg, and B.C.

That will have to change fast if the team has any hope of proving the doubters wrong.

“We have an incredibly hard journey ahead of us. We have a really talented Hamilton team that has come on really hot in the last five or six games, and then obviously you’ve got to go to Toronto and play a 16-win team, which has only ever happened once in the CFL, and then the Grey Cup is the Grey Cup,” Fajardo acknowledged.

“The challenge ahead of us is extremely difficult, but I believe that this locker room has the talent and the mindset to be in that Grey Cup game and win the Grey Cup. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t feel right being the starting quarterback for this team.”

The Alouettes (11-7) will host the Ticats (8-10) on Saturday, November 4 at 3:00 p.m. EDT.