MONTREAL — Sometimes teams just have those game. Ones where they can’t seem to get into rhythm on offence; ones where the quarterbacks and receivers are just a step behind one another; ones where the QB spends more time looking in the dirt than up-field.
Chalking it up to one bad game may be the easiest way to move forward and look ahead to next week but not for Nik Lewis. The veteran slotback and Grey Cup champion with the Calgary Stampeders has been around too long and had too many winning seasons to let one disappointing performance get swept under the rug.
“(Expletive) that! Why am I here? If that is going to be our excuse, then why are we showing up?”, Lewis said post-game after fielding a question from Herb Zurkowsky of the Montreal Gazette about the fact that the Als entered the game without their starting QB Kevin Glenn. That was just the beginning of what was an impassioned, expletive fueled rant caught by TSN cameras in the Alouettes post-game media availability after the game.
“We are not here to play football, we are here to win games,”
– Montreal Alouettes’ SB Nik Lewis
“There are no excuses, we are all professionals … they put you in the game, win the (expletive) game,” Lewis continued. That’s it and that is the bottom line. If you can’t do it then you shouldn’t be here.”
Lewis and the Als had a challenging Week 4 vs. Hamilton where there was an opportunity to win the game for the majority of the contest. Aided by a defence that held their own for most of the first half, the Als were down just a point heading into the third quarter. But turnovers and an inability to move the ball deep into Hamilton territory netted Montreal just seven points on the evening, all off of field goals or rouges.
“We are not here to play football, we are here to win games,” Lewis stated emphatically to the scrum of media. “It is about looking at yourself in the mirror and saying ‘I am not good enough’. If you can admit to yourself that you are not good enough then that is where you start … and we are not good enough.
Although Lewis wasn’t directly calling out anyone individually on his team, including backup QB Rakeem Cato, he was quick to make clear that his post-game rant was directed at the entire organization including himself.
“I am not pointing the finger at nobody. We just have to get better and I am included … I have to get better.”
With 15 weeks remaining in the season and a lot of football to be played, Lewis also made it clear that he wasnt concerned with the will or committment from those in the room but rather their ability to execute.
“I don’t think it is about character,” Lewis continued “(Expletive) if it was about character it would be a whole different problem. I have never played this bad coming off of a bye week. We should have been way better prepared and went out and executed a lot better”
To watch Lewis’ full post-game media scrum, click here.
