Fajardo finding success with the deep pass early this season

Cody Fajardo arrived in Montreal before the start of last season as an experienced quarterback with a few knocks on him.

Most notable was his struggle to complete deep passes, which can be a pretty significant liability in the Canadian Football League.

So seeing Fajardo as the CFL’s leader in passing plays of 30 yards or more this young season stands out more than his other impressive stats, which include a 73.1 per cent completion percentage to go with seven touchdowns and just one interception.

Fajardo is averaging more than 300 passing yards per game for the 3-0 Alouettes, and a lot of it has come in big chunks, including completed passes of 40, 49 and 51 yards in a win over Ottawa last week.

Three games into the season, Fajardo leads the CFL with eight passing plays of 30-plus yards, including three that have gone for touchdowns. He’s also completed the second-most throws of 20-plus yards, with eight.

Some of that has to do with the two outstanding young Canadian targets the Alouettes have in Kaion Julien-Grant and Tyson Philpot, whose abilities to stretch the field rank with the league’s very best.

But it’s also no coincidence that Fajardo set out to improve his deep-ball passing this past off-season.

“I was watching on tape, and I was like ‘Gosh, guys are open downfield,’ Fajardo said. “But if I threw it, there’s no way I can make it down the field. It’s going to be underthrown or picked … it’s just not going to be a good situation.

“So, it was a huge off-season study for me because I felt like I left a lot of throws out on the field. That was something I really wanted to get into because we have receivers with speed. We have the guys who can threaten downfield. And so I did a lot of off-season study work, and I changed my workouts to allow myself just a little bit more on the football and just a little bit more air that I can put on the ball so that guys can run underneath it.”

That off-field work involved watching tape of NFL quarterback Russell Wilson in his prime, when he was among the best deep-throw quarterbacks in football despite not having a huge arm.

“He threw the ball with air, and he threw the ball early,” said Fajardo. “You always think of Russell Wilson as one of the great deep throwers, but he doesn’t have a cannon for an arm either. But what he does is get the ball out early and a lot of receivers are able to run underneath it. So, I had to find ways to tweak it for myself, find ways to make it manageable to be able to hit the throws down the field.

“I worked really hard really hard at trying to figure out how early can I throw the ball to allow our guys to get underneath it to beat DBs.”

As Alouettes general manager Danny Maciocia noted, some of the best deep-ball throwers in CFL history were better known for their sense of timing and arc they put on the ball than having a big arm.

Most notably Ricky Ray, who will be at Friday’s game between Montreal and Toronto to be honoured as an all-time Argo and the franchise’s all-time passing leader. Maciocia coached Ray in Edmonton.

“We would laugh at practice that Ricky struggled to get it 50 yards down field,” said Maciocia. “But he had touch, knew where to throw it, and the ball came out on time.

“[Fajardo] can throw it down field. There’s something to be said for completing passes with precision, with touch and anticipation rather than launching it down field to prove a big arm.”

Fajardo getting rid of the ball earlier has apparently paid some dividends when it comes to another area of his game that has often come under criticism – taking sacks.

The Roughriders surrendered a league-leading 77 sacks during Fajardo’s last season in Saskatchewan in 2022, 24 more than any other team. That pace followed Fajardo to his early days in Montreal, where he was sacked 14 times during the first three weeks of last season.

By comparison, he’s taken just four sacks in three games so far this season, second fewest of any team in the CFL.

“There’s a lot of moving pieces that go into sacks,” said Fajardo. “So, I think it’s tough to judge quarterback on sacks.”

That said, Fajardo and head coach Jason Maas, who had been his offensive coordinator in Saskatchewan, went to work trying to correct the problem.

“There’s been a change in the way we’re attacking second down, especially second and long where sometimes we’re throwing deep, sometimes we’re throwing a screen, sometimes we’re going to throw a hitch,” Fajardo said. “Now we have such good yards-after-catch receivers that you can throw the ball to the line of scrimmage, and they can go make a first down.”

Fajardo may be poised for more opportunities to make some big throws Friday night against an Argonauts defence that is giving up an average of 352.5 passing yards per game, most in the CFL.

“He’s playing relaxed, with no shortage of confidence,” said Maciocia, “When we first got him here he had to try to just retain as many names as possible … it was all new. Now, his decision making is on point. He’s got a good understanding off the offence … there’s a comfort level there’s never been.”