The Alouettes waited far too many weeks for this, but Jonathan Crompton’s return from injury has sparked an inconsistent Montreal team to return to the winning ways that we saw last fall. After a 35-14 win at home against the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, the team is set to get behind Crompton’s leadership in the final stretch of the season, as they did in the latter half of 2014.
After being knocked out of the first game of the season against the Ottawa Redblacks with a shoulder injury, Crompton had to watch his team ride a roller coaster season through the next nine games in which he sat out. Rakeem Cato and Tanner Marsh both started games in his place; he watched Cato make a few spectacular starts before things started to slide, and endured a five-interception game by Marsh two weeks ago.
When Crompton last played 12 weeks ago, Tom Higgins was still the head coach, Turk Schonert was still calling the offensive plays, and Anthony Calvillo had just started his post-playing career as the receivers coach. Nearly three months after being dragged off the Molson Stadium turf, Crompton returned to find a new (interim) head coach in Jim Popp and new offensive co-coordinators in former QBs Ryan Dinwiddie and Calvillo.
His supporting cast remained unchanged, though, and there was plenty of support from the rest of his teammates on Sunday afternoon. The energetic Crompton was the undisputed leader on the offence and led his troops to a big-time win in a game with major play-off crossover implications.
His stats, 14/27 for 181 yards with two touchdowns and two interceptions, doesn’t speak half the story of his impact on the field. Crompton was the best cheerleader out there, dancing and celebrating after big plays. His first touchdown of the game, a 41-yard toss to Sam Giguere, was followed by what seemed like a carefully choreographed, although terrible, touchdown dance where he walked like a robot jumping between cracks in the sidewalk and finished with a chest pump, à la Ray Lewis.
Putting Dancing With the Stars dreams aside, Crompton’s leadership didn’t stop there. When Stefan Logan returned a punt for 78 yards to the end zone in the second quarter to extend the score to 21-3, Crompton was probably the only man in the stadium happier than the 34-year-old Logan himself. After the 11 other special teams players, Crompton was the first on the field to congratulate Logan.
The greatest moment of the whole day came when, during Logan’s 95-yard opening-second-half-kick-off return to the Winnipeg 8-yard line, Crompton stood on the sidelines, running on the spot. Once he was allowed to run onto the field at the end of the play, Crompton proceeded to slap a few of his team mates, and even a coach, right in their rear ends. As Brett Favre once said, “You don’t want to cup it. You want to smack it.” Judging by their reactions, Crompton did exactly that.
Unfortunately butt-patting is the only way Crompton could be compared to Favre, but the former Tennessee Volunteer did still have a great game. He made harder passes than what he would throw last season and he was spreading the ball around evenly, keeping the Bombers defence on their toes. Only five receivers made a catch all game, but the leader in receiving yards and receptions, Giguere, only had four catches for 66 yards. S.J. Green was right behind him with 4 receptions for 44 yards and a major score.
The defence was equally pumped to have their true number one quarterback leading the charge. The defence made their mark, holding the Bombers to six points for the first three quarters, and allowing only eight in the fourth quarter. With two turnovers, a forced fumble by Kyries Hebert and a Billy Parker interception, this outing resembled a week 11 game last year when the defence made the timely turnovers against a powerful Hamilton Tiger-Cat offence en route to a 38-31 victory. That contest, on a sunny Sunday just like this past game, kick-started the Alouettes’ conquest as they rolled into the playoffs on an 8-2 finish. That was Crompton’s coming-out party, emerging as a leader on the sidelines, with equally bad dance moves.
The Alouettes have historically been a good team once the fall hits, and judging off of this one game, 2015 won’t be any different. Still a relatively healthy team, with the exception of the injuries to middle linebackers Bear Woods and now Kyler Elsworth, the Alouettes are poised to surge in the back seven of the CFL season. With Crompton now returned from injury, the Montreal Alouettes will have their unequivocal leader behind center, leading the charge in weeks to come.
