The Edmonton Elks may be down but franchise quarterback Cody Fajardo doesn't believe they're out after last week's heartbreaking loss to the Toronto Argonauts.
"Our season's not over just because we lost a gut-wrenching game," Fajardo told the media in Edmonton. "Did we make things harder on ourselves? Absolutely, but our season is by no means over. We have everything we want in front of us, but we're going to have to earn our opportunity to be in the playoffs and the way we earn it is by playing the best teams in the league moving forward."
Edmonton led for almost the entire game against the Boatman at BMO Field until Fajardo was stripped of the ball deep in Elks territory with three minutes left to play. Defensive lineman Andrew Chatfield Jr. returned the fumble for a touchdown to give the Argonauts a one-point lead, though Edmonton responded with a 31-yard field goal from Vincent Blanchard with a little over a minute left.
Toronto won the game with a 48-yard walk-off field goal from Lirim Hajrullahu, who also hit a 53-yarder on the final play of the first half. The final score was 31-30 in favour of the Double Blue, knocking Edmonton down to 5-8 on the season.
Had the Elks won this past weekend, they'd be in a three-way tie with the Winnipeg Blue Bombers and B.C. Lions for third place in the West Division at 6-7. Edmonton has one meeting remaining with both teams and can earn the season series against the Blue Bombers with a win of 14 points or more. The season series against B.C. is already lost, though the Elks can get a game back when they visit the Lions on October 17.
Based on the current standings, it seems likely that four West Division teams will make the playoffs by virtue of the crossover rule. As such, the Elks only need to move up one spot in the standings to earn a postseason berth for the first time since 2019.
The first step to catching Winnipeg or B.C. would be a win against the first-place Hamilton Tiger-Cats on Saturday in Steeltown.
Edmonton faced the Tiger-Cats during the first week of August, which resulted in a 28-24 loss at Commonwealth Stadium. The Elks led multiple times in the second half but Hamilton scored the game-winning touchdown on a 27-yard pass from Bo Levi Mitchell to Tim White with a little over two minutes to play.
"We felt like we gifted them one last time we played here, so let's go on the road and try and steal one," said Fajardo. "We know they're a great football team but we know we match up well against them and we know that we're playing good football against them. I think this team has come lightyears better since the first time we played Hamilton."
The Edmonton Elks (5-8) will visit the Hamilton Tiger-Cats (8-5) at Hamilton Stadium on Saturday, September 20 with kickoff slated for 7:00 p.m. EDT. The Elks are coming off a 31-30 last-second loss to Toronto, while the Tiger-Cats beat Winnipeg at Hamilton Stadium by a score of 32-21.