Canadian Thanksigiving has come and gone and we celebrated what we are thankful for in our lives. I for one, am thankful for my family whom I got to spend time with this past weekend. Many Canadians are thankful for the two Blue Jays wins in Texas, tying up their American League Division Series at two games a piece.
Alouettes Need Christmas List after Thanksgiving Debacle
Meanwhile, the Montreal Alouettes do not have much to be thankful for, as they just keep on losing and losing and losing. The Alouettes have now dropped three games in a row and four of their past five, with the lone win coming nearly a month ago against another skidding team, the Winnipeg Blue Bombers.
In their 25-17 loss to the East Division leading Toronto Argonauts on Thanksgiving Monday, general manager and interim coach Jim Popp proved why he should be the first to get the boot from the organization should the team fail to make the playoffs and head into a rebuild during the off-season.
The Alouettes have been through six quarterbacks through 14 games in 2015 but half of them have been forced out due to the other injury, an unfortunate turn of events for the player and for the team. But heading into to Monday’s game, only two of those quarterbacks, Jonathan Crompton and Dan LeFevour were still sidelined long term, leaving four players to battle it out for one spot. Apparently in Popp’s eyes, his team isn’t in week 16 but rather still in pre-season mode and he can freely rotate quarterbacks mid-game.
The already shaky Rakeem Cato was forced out of the contest against the Argos with an upper-body injury. This isn’t the first time he’s left a game due to injury- he has already left four games in his 11 CFL starts. Cato is injury prone and Popp continues going back to him over and over again, no matter the situation.
After going 9/12 for 72 yards, Cato was replaced by Anthony Boone, who was as accurate as the weather report for three weeks from now. He completed 50% of his 12 passes for 51 yards and an interception, but was having trouble with short passes, constantly missing his target and frustrating his receivers, most notably S.J. Green. The Duke product is going to need to learn that to be a professional football player, he must be able to complete passes off of slant and hook routes, five yards in front of him.
The biggest mistake by Popp at that point, was to replace Boone by the third-stringer Tanner Marsh when the score was already 25-10 in favour of the Boatmen with 2:10 left in the fourth. With the win virtually out of reach, why didn’t Popp keep Boone in to stay in sync with his receivers, knowing that Cato was likely to remain out the following week? Is Popp afraid of continuity or is he that left-wing to think that constant change will improve the team’s already zero-chance of winning an actual football game?
Luckily for the coach, Marsh went 9/14 for 114 yards with a touchdown and interception and was a few seconds from tying the game and producing one of the greatest comebacks. This made Popp look good and look smart. Marsh shouldn’t have done that. A similar situation happened in week 15 in Ottawa when Boone, in relief of Cato, scored two touchdowns in the dying minutes, but still lossed 39-17. The Alouettes play their best football when the opposing team has already won.
It should be interesting to see who Popp plays next week against the Hamilton Tiger-Cats, a team the Alouettes have already beaten twice this season. Marsh led his team to a victory in Hamilton in week ten. In that game, Cato left after being sacked hard, paving the way for Marsh. The next week, Marsh threw five interceptions against the B.C. Lions- a game in which Popp mysteriously didn’t replace Marsh after noticing his poor play.
Popp is unpredictable and confusing. He is the main reason behind their 2-4 record since he replaced Tom Higgins in late August and the fact that the Alouettes really have no number one quarterback is solely Popp’s fault. He failed to develop a young arm when Calvillo was closing in on retirement and apparently his retirement was a shock to Popp, who’s had to juggle between nine pivots since. NINE! Eight other quarterbacks started week 16 in the CFL and the Alouettes have started nine since Calvillo last played a down in August, 2013.
Enough is enough with Popp. He is delusional and egoistic, thinking he can return this team to their form from the Marc Trestman years between 2008 to 2012. When owner Bob Wetenhall cleans house after his team fails to qualify for the playoffs this year, Popp is the first kicked out. The Alouettes need a new image and Popp will not be part of it.
As for now, the Alouettes have four games remaining and a shot at the playoff cross-over thanks to the constant failures of both the B.C. Lions and Winnipeg Blue Bombers, but can likely start looking forward to next season. With games against Hamilton, Toronto, Edmonton and Saskatchewan, Montreal has a tough schedule ahead of them and can only dream of the playoffs.
What can the Alouettes be thankful for on Canadian Thanksgiving? Not much. They can’t win a football game. They can be thankful that they’re one week closer to ending their debacle of a season. Their head coach wants to become Bill Belichick and find his Tom Brady out of a haystack. The 2015 season is a failed season and Montreal needs to start their Christmas list so that Santa can deliver them some wins in 2016.
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