Two young quarterbacks played the first meaningful minutes of their careers this past week in the Canadian Football League.
And while B.C.’s Kaidon Salter and Hamilton’s Harrison Frost didn’t look ready for regular duty, there were flashes from both – Salter with his legs, rushing 10 times for 160 yards to compliment 96 passing yards on 15 attempts, and Frost completing nine of 20 passes for 165 yards, a touchdown and an interception in a game where the Tiger-Cats’ offence seemed to pick up with him at the controls.
It may be far too early to determine whether either of these players has a future in the CFL, but there should be close attention paid every time a new quarterback enters a game this season.
The CFL is at a point where there will soon be a great need for fresh arms at the position, with the league’s veteran passers moving closer to the end of their careers.
In fact, the CFL will likely need five new starting quarterbacks over the next two-and-a-half seasons. That’s right, more than half of the teams in the league are going to need a new face at the game’s most high-profile position, based on a realistic evaluation of the current crop.
The number could be six if the league is able to complete efforts to establish a 10th team in Quebec City.
The state of quarterbacks constantly goes through cycles, with the start of the 2026 season marking a particularly high arc when it comes to overall quality across the league.
But Bo Levi Mitchell is 36, Zach Collaros is 37, and Trevor Harris is 40, putting all three on the clock.
Mitchell, the youngest of the three, seriously pondered retirement all of last season, so odds are none of them will still be playing when the 2029 season opens.
The same is true for Cody Fajardo, 34, who has started determining his playing future on a year-by-year basis, making it unlikely he plays more than two seasons beyond the current one.
And unless Jake Maeier finds a way to hold down the Ottawa job long term, which seems unlikely after starting his career with the Redblacks at 0-7, that team is going to be in need as well.
So, how challenging will it be to meet the coming demand? Consider that over the past three years the league has added just one bona fide starting quarterback to its mix – Montreal’s Davis Alexander – who took over the Als’ No. 1 job from Fajardo before the 2025 season.
Are there players currently in the league who will move be ready to move into starting roles over the next couple of seasons? It’s not easy to project at this stage.
Among the league’s backups, six have meaningful starting experience in competitive situations on their resumes, including Toronto’s Nick Arbuckle, Hamilton’s Tre Ford, Ottawa’s McLeod Bethel-Thompson, Montreal’s Dustin Crum, Winnipeg’s Dru Brown and Edmonton’s Taylor Powell.
Of those six, only Brown and Powell have shown enough thus far to suggest they could be starters in the league, as Brown was for Ottawa during both the 2024 and 2025 seasons before losing his job to Maier this spring.
Brown is 29 and Powell is 27, and each could be heirs to the starting jobs in Winnipeg and Edmonton, respectively.
Toronto’s Arbuckle played last season in place of Chad Kelly and did well enough to deserve consideration as a starter. But his overall record aside from 2025 has been spotty and, as a soon-to-be-33-year-old, he’s not the kind of player teams will project as their future.
Both Crum, 27, and Ford, 28, have had opportunities to start during their young careers, demonstrating thus far that they aren’t been ready for the No. 1 job. Bethel-Thompson, 38, is in the emergency-backup phase of his career.
All of this speaks the importance of developing future quarterbacks during the final seasons for many of the greatest quarterbacks of this era.
Salter has as much arm and athletic talent as anyone who’s entered the league in recent memory, but his destiny will be determined by learning to be pro and refining his skill set as he learns the Canadian game. But in terms of raw potential, he’s hard to beat.
Frost is more of a rhythm passer, accurate with the football as suggested by his 50 touchdowns thrown over two college seasons at West Georgia. He started games in the UFL this season and the Tiger-Cats were impressed enough with his time on the roster in 2025 to bring him back this season.
Will either of them be ready to lead a franchise at some point over the next three seasons?
It’s too early to tell but it’s by no means too early be looking for answers at the game’s most important position.
