Reed, Alouettes hope patience pays off in 2019

MONTREAL — For the Montreal Alouettes, ‘the dog days of summer’ had new meaning in 2018.

It was Aug. 18, to be exact, and the Als had just fallen 40-24 to the Edmonton Eskimos, plummeting in the standings with a 1-8 record. Antonio Pipkin was the fifth quarterback to start a game — and lose — in the first half of the season, while the defence was allowing a staggering 34.3 points per game.

Oh, and then there was Johnny Manziel, ineffective and then injured after just two starts, after the club had given up two first round picks and two starters to get him.

With one win in the span of a calendar year, this was the low point for the Montreal Alouettes.

Suddenly, things changed. With a spark from Pipkin and improved play from Manziel, the Als went 4-5 in the second half of the season.

A light at the end of the tunnel?

“When we first started this thing we knew it was going to be a process,” said general manager Kavis Reed, now in his third off-season at the helm. “The first and most important thing was to try and establish the quarterback position.

“We saw the last third of the season where good-to-average quarterback play really lifted our team, really gave us a new sense of ‘hey, if we can have good quarterback play, if we can do things around him fundamentally sound, we have an opportunity every game’.”

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Draw what you will from the opponents — two of those wins came against the last-place Argos and one was against the Tiger-Cats’ backups — the Alouettes played with renewed confidence in the second half of the season.

They tightened up defensively, made big plays on offence and fewer mistakes, and kept it close against the CFL’s elite, losing to Calgary and Saskatchewan by a combined 11 points.

Tyrell Sutton was traded and William Stanback became a rising star at the running back position, averaging 6.7 yards per attempt and combining for 852 yards from scrimmage. Twenty-five-year-old Eugene Lewis became the go-to option at receiver, hauling in 44 passes for 827 yards in his second season in the league.

After four straight seasons of disappointment, perhaps the Als’ trajectory has changed. For a team that went 1-19 from Aug. 19, 2017 to Aug. 18, 2018, the Alouettes had a much different look in their final nine games.

“[We need to] continue the progress we’ve made from the last part of the season,” said Reed. “Continue to establish that we’re a team that’s going to play fundamentally sound football, have the depth at the positions we need, continue to qualify our national content, continue to make sure we become a more explosive team.

“Those are the ingredients of having success in the season. It’s a long season but those things allow you to be successful and I really do believe in 2019 you will see it all come together.”

While the quarterbacks could be the focus of free agency for most CFL teams, the Alouettes look like they’ll fill the role internally in 2019. They’re gearing up for a heated competition in camp, with Manziel, Pipkin, Matthew Shiltz, Jeff Mathews and Vernon Adams all in the equation.

JOHNNY MANZIEL 2018 STARTS

Pipkin briefly captivated the Alouettes’ fan base, and, at age 23, provided hope of being a future franchise quarterback when he won two of his first three starts, making big plays both with his legs and his arm. But while he averaged 8.5 yards per passing attempt and rushed for eight touchdowns, a four-interception game against BC led to his benching.

Manziel, on the other hand, won’t be handed the job, but deserves the opportunity after showing progress throughout his first eight starts. The 26-year-old made some flashy plays and also limited mistakes over his last five starts, throwing five touchdowns and just two interceptions while averaging 8.6 yards per attempt. Small sample size, yes, but that actually ranks on the higher end of the spectrum among CFL starters.

This off-season, the Als are entering a new phase in Reed’s plan to get the team back in contention. They were big spenders a year ago, signing marquee free agents Tommie Campbell, Mitchell White, Henoc Muamba and Jamaal Westerman, among others.

Now, in one of the most hyped up free agent classes ever, with roughly 240 players due to become free agents on Feb. 12, the Alouettes won’t be as busy. Unlike most teams across the league, the Als have locked up most of their top free agents.

While they’ll still look to upgrade, the hope is that with a little bit of continuity, they can carry over the success established late last season.

“I said two years ago the Montreal Alouettes would be active in free agency to start to re-establish ourselves a foundation,” said Reed. “I’m a firm believer that once you have a foundation established, you develop your own and be very conscientious of your own — introducing a lot of new players into your environment sometimes can be a more of an impediment than a progressive thing.

“We’ll be very careful in free agency this year. We’ve identified a couple of positions we feel we need to dive into. It’s one of those things where we identify a core group of people we want to look at and we’ll move forward from there.”