Alexander vs Fajardo: The On-Field Generals of the 113th Grey Cup
By Chris Lawton
The 113th Grey Cup comes with a quarterback family tree attached: Cody Fajardo, who won the 2023 title in Montreal, against Davis Alexander, the man who carried the clipboard that day and has since been crowned the league’s Most Outstanding Player.
On Sunday at McMahon Stadium in Calgary, the Montreal Alouettes (14-4) meet the Edmonton Elks (13-5) for the 12th time in the championship game. Kick-off is 5 pm local, which is midnight for us, so get the kettle on, raid the biscuit tin and write off Monday morning now. It’s the Grey Cup too so you can open the good biscuits. I’ll be on the chocolate hobnobs. The Als opened as 3.5-point favourites, and with the pivots as the main story, they seem the right place to start.
What makes this pairing special is how tightly the two careers have been bound together since Alexander arrived in Montreal in 2022. One man’s injury made the other’s career. One was traded so that the other could stay. Every significant step either has taken since 2023 has been shaped by the other, and on Sunday that story gets its biggest chapter yet.
Two undrafted Americans, six years apart in age, who each went from afterthought to the centre of their team’s season. I’ll look at what each has done this year, how they have fared against one another, who is throwing to and protecting them, and finish with a look at who is favoured, along with the usual disclaimer that I wouldn’t be at all surprised to be wrong.
Tale of the tape
Davis Alexander (Montreal) | Cody Fajardo (Edmonton) | |
Age | 28 | 34 |
Route | Undrafted (Portland State); Als third string until 2024 | Undrafted (Nevada); Raiders camp, Argos, Lions, Riders, Als, Elks |
2026 passing | 5,257 yds, 35 TD | 4,788 yds, 25 TD |
2026 rushing | 140 yds, 1 TD | 517 yds, 8 TD |
2026 honours | Most Outstanding Player | MOP finalist |
Grey Cup as a starter | 0-1 (112th Grey Cup, 3 INT) | 1-0 (2023 MVP); also, a 2017 ring with Toronto |
Playoffs as a starter | 2-1, 2 TD, 5 INT | 4-3, 11 TD, 10 INT |
The Pupil? Davis Alexander, Montreal
Alexander has just produced one of the most efficient passing seasons in CFL history, and the Most Outstanding Player award merely confirmed it. In 16 games (15 starts) he threw for 5,257 yards at a 72.1% completion rate, with 35 touchdowns and four interceptions, a passer rating of 122.7 that is the third best single season mark the league has seen. His touchdown-to-interception ratio of 8.75 is the second best, and his interception rate of 0.76% is the second lowest. Somewhere in there he also took Darian Durant‘s record for consecutive pass attempts without an interception and finished with it standing at 356, which is a lot of throws with nothing for the defence to show for it.
None of this was in the original plan. Alexander went undrafted out of Portland State in 2022, spent two seasons as a backup and a third-stringer, and shared in the 2023 Grey Cup win as Fajardo’s understudy without recording a single statistic. His chance came when Fajardo was hurt in 2024; he won all four starts that year, Montreal gave him a three-year extension in November, and Fajardo was traded to Edmonton within weeks. He then began his career with 13 straight regular season wins, a CFL record, before Edmonton ended it in overtime in Week 3 of this season. He is not a runner by trade (18 carries for 140 yards and a touchdown this year), but the CFL season preview praised his improvisation, and the way he escapes trouble and makes things happen is very much the Montreal style.
Then there is the postseason, where the evidence is thin and, so far, not flattering. Last year Alexander started three playoff games, went 2-1, and finished with two touchdowns and five interceptions. He played the 112th Grey Cup on a hamstring that had already cost him ten regular-season games, completing 22 of 34 for 284 yards but throwing three picks in a 25-17 loss to Saskatchewan. The Canadian Press reports that he is finally healthy this time around, and the East Final suggested as much: 373 yards and two touchdowns in a 33-23 win over Winnipeg, with a late, composed drive to set up the clinching Tyler Snead touchdown. One good game does not wash away last November, but it is a start.
The Master? Cody Fajardo, Edmonton
Fajardo, 34, has just had the best season of a long and well-travelled career, and the Elks’ revival is built on it. He set career highs in passing yards (4,788, fourth in the league) and touchdown passes (25), and added 517 rushing yards at 5.7 a carry and eight rushing touchdowns, which put him alongside Alexander and Tyson Philpot as a finalist for Most Outstanding Player. Edmonton went from 7-11 and fifth in the West to 13-5 and first, claiming their first division title and first home playoff game since 2015.
He is also the second most accurate passer the CFL has ever seen, with a 70.99% career completion rate among qualified quarterbacks, and a man who has made a career out of being moved on from. Undrafted out of Nevada, where he spent his first year as a redshirt behind Colin Kaepernick, he was cut by the Raiders in 2015, then went through Toronto (a 2017 ring as the short-yardage specialist, scoring the winning touchdown in that year’s East Final), BC, Saskatchewan (a 4,302-yard league-leading year in 2019) and Montreal before Edmonton got him in a trade for McLeod Bethel-Thompson. Then came the 2023 Grey Cup, where he was named MVP after going 21 of 26 for 290 yards and three touchdowns, the last a 19-yard winner to Philpot with 13 seconds left. Edmonton, for their part, released Tre Ford in January to commit to him for 2026, and the club has been repaid.
He plays with his legs as well as his arm, and he is not immune to a rough afternoon: three interceptions in a July loss to the Lions, four in a 2021 playoff game that Saskatchewan somehow won anyway, and 11 touchdowns against 10 interceptions across seven career playoff starts. But the West Final was Fajardo at his calmest. He went 25 of 30 for 274 yards and a touchdown, added 84 yards and a score on 10 carries, and two of those runs ended with BC taking rough-play penalties that fed 10 Edmonton points in a 28-16 win in front of 40,182 at Commonwealth Stadium. Apparently, he celebrated the Grey Cup berth by watching the Oilers on TV, which is about as Edmonton as it gets.
Two Careers, One Storyline
Alexander and Fajardo have never been rivals for the same job in the usual way, and yet every major turn in either career since 2023 has run through the other.
2022-23: the apprentice. Alexander signed with Montreal as an undrafted free agent in February 2022 and spent that season on the practice roster and then third on the depth chart, behind Trevor Harris and Dominique Davis. Fajardo arrived a year later, started 16 games, and the Als went on to win the Grey Cup. Alexander dressed for all three playoff games, watched from the sideline, and saw Fajardo throw the winning touchdown to Philpot with 13 seconds left. Philpot is now Alexander’s favourite target.
2024: the injury. Fajardo tore a hamstring in a Week 6 loss to Toronto, and Alexander came off the bench against Saskatchewan at half-time, went 15 of 18 for 178 yards and two touchdowns and rescued a 20-16 comeback. Across the weeks Fajardo was out he won all four games he played, throwing for 972 yards, six touchdowns and one interception. Fajardo came back and the pair shared the year, Alexander starting the Thanksgiving Day Classic against Ottawa, but it was Fajardo who played the East Final, a 30-28 loss to Toronto in which he threw for 330 yards and three touchdowns but also two interceptions and a lost fumble. Alexander did not record a stat.
Winter 2024-25: the decision. Montreal could not keep both. On the 26th of November Alexander signed a three-year extension, and on the 17th of December Fajardo was traded to Edmonton for McLeod Bethel-Thompson, who was brought in as insurance. General manager Danny Maciocia was open about the logic: you cannot pay starting-quarterback money to two quarterbacks.
2025: the mirror year. The two seasons ran in parallel. Alexander won his first seven starts but was hurt twice, and Bethel-Thompson struggled in relief. Fajardo began the year as Tre Ford’s backup, took over after Edmonton started 1-4, and went 6-7. In August he went back to Molson Stadium, where the Elks won late with Alexander sidelined by that hamstring. Alexander returned in Week 17, broke the record for consecutive wins to start a career, and took Montreal to the 112th Grey Cup, where the injury and three interceptions caught up with him. Fajardo’s Elks fought for a playoff place until the final week and missed out.
2026: the collision. Fajardo’s overtime touchdown in June ended Alexander’s perfect start, Alexander’s four touchdown passes in August answered, and in October the league named the two of them and Philpot as the three finalists for Most Outstanding Player. Alexander took the award. Now each has taken a team to the final, and for each it is the other man standing in the way.
Head To Head: Fajardo v Alexander
The pair split the regular-season series this year, with the home side winning each time. In Week 3, on a rainy Saturday in Edmonton, the Elks won 32-29 in overtime. Justin Rankin ran for 179 yards and two touchdowns, and Fajardo carried the winning score in himself, which ended Alexander’s unbeaten start to his career. Alexander admitted afterwards that he was relieved to stop answering questions about the streak, and the Canadian Press called it Fajardo showing his former apprentice he can still do the job.
In Week 10 in Montreal, the Als won 48-30. Alexander threw for 352 yards and four touchdowns, ran in another, and was intercepted once, while Philpot caught 10 passes for 131 yards and three touchdowns and Snead added five catches for 146 yards and a score. Even Fajardo tipped his cap afterwards, and a man who has just lost by 18 does not do that lightly.
The history is thick enough to need its own subplot. The ties run well beyond the quarterbacks. Austin Mack and Kaion Julien-Grant, both Edmonton receivers now, won the 2023 title with Montreal. Als head coach Jason Maas played for Edmonton and coached them from 2016 to 2019 before being fired, and Maciocia was the Elks’ head coach when they won the 2005 Grey Cup.
And then there is the wider rivalry. This is the 12th Grey Cup meeting between the two franchises, the most frequent pairing in the game’s history, with Edmonton ahead 8-3 across the first 11. The Als’ wins came in 1974, 1977 and 2002; the Elks won the last two, in 2003 and 2005. The 1977 game was dubbed the Ice Bowl, and the Alouettes were said to have gained their edge by affixing staples to their shoes, so I’d like to assure everyone that nobody has asked for the equipment room to be inspected. Yet.
The Verdict: Whose Story Is It?
Neither man would be standing in Calgary without the other, and on Sunday one of them gets to prove it. Fajardo’s hamstring gave Alexander his first real chance. Fajardo’s departure gave him the job. And the one thing missing from Alexander’s story is a Grey Cup win to put right the 2025 loss, where he threw three interceptions on a bad leg. Beating Fajardo’s Elks would finish that story in the neatest possible way. For Fajardo it is the mirror image: Montreal decided he was surplus, he has spent two years showing otherwise, and a third ring would come against the man who replaced him, in the game that makes the original decision a matter of record.
On the football, I lean Alexander, narrowly. He has the best numbers in the league, the best receivers, a line that allowed 19 sacks to Edmonton’s 34, a healthy hamstring this time, and a 48-30 win over these same Elks in August. The bookmakers agree with the Als opening as 3.5-point favourites. But I hold it loosely. Fajardo has been here before and won, he has run the ball well all year, and the Elks have the league’s best defence, a kicker who wins games from 57 yards and a win over Montreal already in the bank. Alexander’s postseason record so far, two touchdowns against five interceptions, is the one hole in an otherwise perfect resume. If the Elks can force him into the fourth-quarter scrambles that went so wrong last year, the story could flip.
My head says Alexander and the Als by a score or so, and my heart quietly wants the 34-year-old who has been moved on from by more than one club to take his third ring. I wouldn’t be at all surprised to be wrong on either count. That’s the great thing about the Grey Cup.
Kettles on and the good biccies out, CFL friends, and see you after midnight on Sunday to see which man hoists the trophy.
CHRIS LAWTON
CFL ANALYST
Chris originally started following the NFL with the ‘first wave’ of fans when it was shown on Channel 4 in the 1980’s. He has been a keen supporter of the Miami Dolphins since 1983. Chris first encountered the CFL in 2016 and instantly fell in love with the Canadian game. He has been writing about the CFL 2017. Chris has a degree in history, postgraduate degree in librarianship and can be found on twitter as @CFLfanUK
