The Montreal Alouettes will be able to enter the first-round playoff break with a much more peaceful mind following their performance against the Winnipeg Blue Bombers than if the season had ended after last week’s game against the BC Lions. Or any of the five games preceding that one.
For the first time in a long time, Jason Maas’s squad showed encouraging signs in this 28-27 setback, attributable more to the squall that came to hamper the work of kicker Joseph Zema in the final seconds of the match than to a poor performance by the Birds.
“Until the punt at the end of the game, I had pretty good feelings about it,” Maas admitted in the evening. “We played a big game against a team that had a lot at stake in this encounter. I know that in the locker room, the guys were disappointed, but I’m also excited about what we just accomplished.
“We stood up to a team like the Bombers who had everything to win and we played like we had everything to win.”
The Alouettes, who finished first in the East with a 12-5-1 record, first collected more than 300 yards of offense (375, to be precise) for the first time since August.
“I think playing well, especially offensively, we needed that,” said quarterback Cody Fajardo, who himself had a reassuring performance, completing 16 of 20 passes for 171 yards and a touchdown. Fajardo missed his first three passes of the day, meaning he finished his nearly three-quarter performance 16 for 17.
It continued with Davis Alexander (7 for 9, 100 yards).
“When Davis took over, everything went smoothly,” Fajardo said.
The defense, after giving up over 500 yards last week, also did well, allowing just 384 yards to the winners.
“I thought we did well. They have a devastating offense. They have the best, if not one of the best quarterbacks in the league,” defensive back Wesley Sutton said.
“They made a couple of big plays; we’re responsible for those. But overall, a good game,” he added of Zach Collaros’ completions of 54 and 72 yards.
Dispelled doubts?
But is this performance enough to dispel doubts about the Alouettes? It seems that only the media assigned to cover the team have had them in recent weeks.
“I know nobody has confidence in us because of the last six weeks and if I asked you who you would bet on, you probably wouldn’t bet on us,” Maas said, before a scribe reminded him that you couldn’t bet on CFL games, which drew a good laugh from the audience.
“We have a ‘1%’ logo on our uniform because only the people in our locker room believe in us,” added the coach. “Is this result encouraging? It’s always good when you meet your expectations. We want to win, but to come out the way we came out [Saturday] against that kind of team, I wouldn’t say it’s encouraging, but it’s good to see. We’re confident when we work hard. When November 9 comes, I know what it’s going to be like.”
“If people want to doubt us, let them do it,” Fajardo said. “We’re used to it. We’re comfortable that you [the media] doubt us. It adds to our motivation. It doesn’t change what we think of ourselves. We’re going to give it our all regardless.”
“The good news when you lose a game like that is it hurts,” he said later. “When we get another chance, we’re going to do everything we can to win.”
Important touches
The Alouettes’ three touchdowns scored from inside the Bombers’ 5-yard line obviously fueled post-game discussions, as they had been shut out on three occasions against the Lions. For Maas, such a performance was not to be repeated.
“On all our short games, we did very well. We didn’t like the way it went in Vancouver and we decided to change things up this week. We also rehearsed them earlier in the week and I thought the guys were better prepared. That’s an encouraging aspect.”
“It was important to score those touchdowns,” Fajardo said. “We wanted to stay on the field longer this week. I’m proud of how efficient our offense was. What I liked the most was how efficient we were on first down. We rarely got second-and-long. When you do that, you stay on the field a long time. We have a very talented offense. Our first downs were great tonight and our efficiency inside the 20 was great.”
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