October 10, 2016

The Alouettes are going for their second consecutive victory at McGill’s stadium!

MONTREAL – As Canadian families enjoy turkey and a holiday today, the Edmonton Eskimos and Montreal Alouettes will meet at McGill’s stadium in Montreal, Quebec.

The Eskimos kicked off their four-game October road trip with a statement 40-26 win in Winnipeg against the Blue Bombers last week, and will be looking to capitalize on Winnipeg’s Saturday-night loss to gain ground in the West Division playoff picture.

For Montreal, a 4-9 season would typically mean disappointment and resignation to a season sans-playoffs. Luckily for the Als, 2016 is not a normal year in the CFL:. Montreal is two wins out of a playoff spot in the East Division, and defeated the Toronto Argos, 38-11, in new head coach Jacques Chapdelaine’s Week 15 debut.

Both will have plenty to play for on Thanksgiving Monday in Montreal.

The Montreal Alouettes are out to prove that a strong final third is enough to make noise in the playoffs.

Jacques Chapdelaine’s football team is realistically still in contention for a playoff spot, and not entirely out of the race for first place in the East — despite holding a 3-9 record at the two-thirds mark of the regular season.

The challenge for the Als on home turf this week is the Edmonton Eskimos: Aggressive and complex.

Edmonton’s defence has done a tremendous job, they have four excellent D-linemen over there who put pressure on the quarterback,Chapdelaine told MontrealAlouettes.com. “It’ll be important for us to make sure we keep executing as well as we did last week. We’re looking for an up-tempo type of game again.

A large portion of the credit for Montreal’s modest success this season is defensive coordinator Noel Thorpe, whose complex and varied defensive looks have kept opponents guessing and Montreal amongst the league’s defensive best all season.

“We’ve got our hands full this week, there’s no kidding there,” said Thorpe. “Their offence is led by Mike Reilly, he’s on pace for over 6,000 yards and has two of the top receivers in the league — Bowman and Walker really stretch the field. John White and Shakir Bell in the backfield, producing.

Special teams will present a unique challenge for the Als today.

It’s a tremendous challenge, they’re best team in (the league in) terms of covering kicks, and third-best in terms of punts,” said Als special teams coordinator Kavis Reed. “Against them, we’ll have to stop Kendrick Doe — he has improved as the year has progressed. We have to make sure we don’t give him a vertical seam to exploit.