After a 10-1 start, the Alouettes were sailing towards hosting the East Final on November 9. Two weeks later, Montreal has lost some of its magic after a 19-19 tie with the Calgary Stampeders — their second sloppy performance in a row.
Here are my thoughts on the game.
Not learning from mistakes
All week during practice, Alouettes players mentioned how angry they were about their start against B.C. and how they wanted to play Montreal football for 60 minutes. They didn’t accomplish that mission with a nightmare start at McMahon Stadium. In the first minutes of the first quarter, the Als had more turnovers than offensive plays by a two-to-one margin.
It started with Walter Fletcher, who fumbled the ball during the first offensive play for Montreal. He gave the Stamps a great opportunity to score the game’s first points. James Letcher Jr. followed that up with a fumble while trying to jump over an opponent on the ensuing kickoff. In less than five minutes, it was 10-0 for the home team.
It is hard to win after a rough start like this one. The Als made comebacks look easy for many weeks, but the magic has run out for them — at least temporarily.
A struggling offence
After trailing early once again, a lot of pressure was applied on Cody Fajardo’s offence, which mustered an initial response but couldn’t keep the momentum going afterwards. The Als scored their only touchdown of the game following a 55-yard run by Fletcher that helped cut the Stamps lead to three.
The rest wasn’t pretty. The offence couldn’t sustain long drives, which didn’t help in the time-of-possession battle, which they lost by more than 15 minutes.
Fajardo, who finished 19-of-26 for 204 yards, also didn’t distribute the ball well enough. He targeted Kaion Julien-Grant and Tyler Snead a combined 15 times, while the rest of the receivers only got six targets. Snead and Julien-Grant were both coming off the six-game injured list so it makes sense he would want to get them involved, but what about the players who have kept the chains moving in their absence?
On the bright side, Fajardo was able to lead the team down the field when they needed to tie the game. He completed a third-down pass to Julien-Grant along the way. It just wasn’t enough.
An overtime opportunity wasted
The Als had a perfect opportunity to take a commanding lead in overtime with a touchdown. Although starting with the ball is not ideal, with a touchdown and the way the defence was playing, it would have been extremely difficult for Jake Maier to tie the game.
Cody Fajardo missed an open Charleston Rambo with a late, underthrown ball for the receiver in the end zone. Demerio Houston, beaten initially on the play, had the time to come back to the ball and break up the pass.
The Als had a second chance to score a touchdown and win the game after Calgary settled for yet another Rene Paredes field goal, but the offence couldn’t even get a first down. A tie was all they could muster.
A solid defensive performance
The Alouettes’ defence was put in multiple uncomfortable situations during this game but answered well under the circumstances.
With the two turnovers in the game’s first few minutes, they limited the Stamps to 10 points. From there on, although they spent more than 15 minutes more than the offence on the field, they held Calgary to just nine points while creating two turnovers.
Even more impressive, the Stamps started two of their field goal drives at the Als’ 35-yard line by virtue of the overtime rules. They still couldn’t get a sniff.
Jose, Jose, Jose
When your kicker is the game’s biggest star, it usually isn’t a good sign. That was the case for the Als and they left Calgary with a tie because of him.
Since replacing David Côte, Global kicker Jose Maltos has been solid for the Als and Saturday night wasn’t any different. He went four-for-four on field goals, including a personal-best 53-yarder.
It will be interesting to see what the team will do once David Cote is healthy again.
Losing the aura
The Als are showing that they are human after all. A down period is normal in a long 18-game season. The team doesn’t have the same energy and will right now as they did at the end of the 2023 season or the beginning of this one.
The championship team of last year wouldn’t have allowed two turnovers in the first five minutes, wouldn’t have only scored 13 points through regulation, would have created some fireworks on the return game, and most importantly, would have found a way to win a football game that was up for grabs.
There is still time to find that groove again, but the team better have its best performances of the year in store for the upcoming two weeks. Should they beat the Redblacks and the Argonauts, the Als would be assured of hosting an East Final for the first time in 12 years.
What’s next?
The Montreal Alouettes (10-2-1) will travel to Ottawa next Saturday to take on the Redblacks (8-4-1). The kickoff is scheduled for 3:00 p.m. EDT.
