Cody Fajardo’s confidence appears to be shaken and his knee injury is still lingering, but that is still not enough to send the Riders quarterback to the bench this week.
On Monday, Riders Head Coach Craig Dickenson confirmed that Fajardo will receive the start for the green and white when they travel to Vancouver to meet the BC Lions.
Dickenson admitted that Fajardo’s confidence is down as he noted that it looks like the QB is having trouble seeing the field along with trusting the blockers in front of him.
But despite all of that, the Riders Head Coach believes Fajardo gives Saskatchewan their best opportunity to win on Friday.
“We believe in him and we want to give him every opportunity to get out there and back rolling, trying to get his confidence back this week, we’re going to work really hard as a staff and we talked about that the last few days about designing a plan take advantage of what Cody does well, and don’t ask him things that make him uncomfortable with, we’re very hopeful he can have a bounce back game.”
Fajardo admitted that he was disappointed that he got pulled from last week’s contest and was forced to watch the second half from the sidelines.
“When you got out there and you don’t play well and you don’t have an opportunity to right your wrongs, it hurts to stand on the sidelines knowing you can’t go out there and make anything feel better.”
A couple of adjustments to the offensive plan that Dickenson noted could be changed to help out Fajardo includes more runs from the QB and moving the pocket around. The Riders Head Coach pointed out, the success of the offence is dictated by Fajardo.
“If Cody has success, our offence has successful, if our offence is successful we got a pretty good chance to win the game.”
Fajardo also believes he can benefit from a more simplified offence.
“Getting back to things that I feel comfortable with in terms of running the football, personally myself, and just doing a little bit of different things in terms of getting more basic. I think when I first got into the league, I was very basic in terms of what we were doing offensively and I want to kind get back to that where I don’t have to think and I just to do things I’ve repped a thousand times.”
There will be plenty of changes on offence this week due to injuries. The Riders will be without receiver Duke Williams due to hip and ankle injuries, while Jamal Morrow will be out 6-8 weeks following surgery to a broken hand.
The good news for the green and white offence is that receivers Kyran “Swerve” Moore and Shaq Evans are both set to return this week. Fajardo says it’s exciting to get the two receivers back in the lineup.
“It’s always exciting to inflict some positivity especially when your coming off a game like that.”
After the game on Friday night, Fajardo admitted he wasn’t sure whether he would be making the start in Vancouver, but was happy to hear that he would be getting another opportunity as the team’s starting quarterback.
“When he (Dickenson) gave me the vote of confidence it’s one of those things that makes you feel like you got a second chance at life and that’s what I feel like, a second chance of life here going out there and playing QB for this team.”
Fajardo and the Riders will head to Vancouver to meet the BC Lions in the third and final matchup between the two squads this season, you can catch the game on 620 CKRM with an opening kickoff at 8:30.
