With the CFL 2022 season gearing to start its preseason matches in May, many are highly anticipating the start to the CFL festivities for sure. Perhaps no one is more excited than Roughriders QB, Cody Fajardo, but the Saskatchewan QB has another reason to be excited and essentially, it has nothing really to do with football, or does it?

Fajardo and his wife are expecting a child and as the Saskatchewan QB recently told the press, it certainly puts things in perspective for the 30 year old.

“It’s very exciting…I think it’s going to put a lot of things in perspective. My ‘why’ is definitely different this year because now it’s going from being the best husband to being the best husband and father now.”

via Global News

The baby is due on September 12^th.

But it is this news that has seemed to have lit quite the fire under the Brea, California native. He’s looking to the season with a new sense of determination as his comments would certainly suggest.

“If there’s ever a season for pressure-packed, it’s this year…We’ve lost in the West final back-to-back years to Winnipeg, I’m in a contract year, we’re having a baby mid-season, the Grey Cup is in Saskatchewan, so throw everything at me and we’ll see what happens at the end of the year…

Having this continuity in our roster and myself and Maas and our relationship, I think the sky is the limit for our offence…I think it will be very exciting times and it’s better to have all the pressure in one season than no pressure at all because I always tell people pressure and nerves means that you care…

And I care a lot about bringing this province a Grey Cup because they deserve it. We have such great fans here who care a lot about football so I take a lot of pride in going out there and hopefully hoisting that Grey Cup over our head at the end of this year at home in front of our incredible fans.”

via Global News (link above)

The team is quite obviously behind the star QB as well, especially when we take a look at statements released by the team after Fajardo and the team reached an agreement on a restructured deal moving forward. This is what the team (Jeremy O’Day, vice-president of football operations) had to say officially:

“Cody has always been the definition of a team player, and this is just another example of that…His leadership both on and off the field has been a large part of our success, and we appreciate his team-first mentality as we head into the 2022 season.”

via Global News

Fajardo played his college ball in Nevada and signed with the Oakland Raiders of the NFL in 2015. Just a year later he was signed with the Toronto Argonauts in the CFL and played with that team until 2017, which led him to a brief stint with the BC Lions.

It would be in 2019 that he would sign with Saskatchewan and that would symbolize the start to quite the relationship, as we’ve come to see over the last few years.

We here at the CFL News Hub congratulate Fajardo and his wife on news of the new baby, and as football fans, we can’t speculate enough at having yet a third member of the Fajardo family hit the gridiron at some point in the future. After all, his father did play for the Texas Tech Red Raiders, but perhaps we’re getting a tad ahead of ourselves here.

As for Saskatchewan and the 2022 CFL season, Fajardo and company are set to take on the Tiger-Cats at the start of the season…that game is set to go down on June 11^th at 7 PM EST.

NEXT: Roughriders Complete Coaching Staff Going Into 2022 Season—Other Key Signings Made