What happened to the Als?

The Montreal Alouettes went into McMahon Stadium in Calgary on Friday night very confident but left with their tails between their legs. Don’t get me wrong, I am definitely not jumping off the bandwagon just yet. In my opinion, this is the first time all season that the Alouettes deserved to lose a game. I know many of you will say that to win in the CFL you need to play 60 minutes, which is completely true but let’s be honest here…The Als lost to Saskatchewan with less than 2 minutes left in the game in REGINA! And the following week lost on a last second field goal in BC.

 

What went wrong Friday?

Well Henry Burris was simply on his game. Henry usually has those games against the Alouettes. The reason is simple, les oiseaux allow him to run all over the field. Then again the turning point of the game was not a run by Burris but the Hail Mary pass made with the 1^st half winding down. I was speechless when the play occurred, how 3 Alouette defenders could not knock down that pass was incredible even though Johnson is 6’5 and about 250 lbs. Rookie DB, Rayshaun Kizer didn’t look particularly good on the play and had an off night covering former Alouette Jermaine Copeland. I would expect to see former Argo Khalil Carter take his place but Coach Trestman has the final word on that.

 

What’s next?

The Als will come back home to face the Edmonton Eskimos, who always put up a tough fight. In the past, Alouettes coaches have never been able to figure out how to stop the always dangerous Ricky Ray. If the Als Blitz Ricky gets the ball away quicker and finds open targets, if they don’t Blitz he has too much time and picks apart the secondary. It will be interesting to see how Trestman and his coaching staff try to stop Ray. Kickoff is at 1 pm ET on Sunday.

 

The Als have also added several players to their practise roster. Wide Receiver David Ball, Running Backs Quentin Griffin and Brandon Whitaker along with Defensive End Rodney Hardaway have all been added to the 12 man practise roster. The CFL allows teams to jump from 7 to 12 practise roster spots when NFL training camps come to an end. This allows teams to pick up more players who were cut lose by their NFL teams.

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Last post (s) by Joey Alfieri

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