Even though Halloween is still 29 days away, there was a horror movie being shown yesterday in the city of Ottawa.
The Montreal Alouettes present: A Nightmare on Bank St.
A sinister figure invaded the playoff dreams of the Alouettes. Instead of Freddy Krueger and his razor claw hand it was RedBlacks QB Henry Burris, who gleefully shredded the Montreal defense with a multitude of sharp passes and straight up murdered a franchise in front of a national television audience.
The final score reads 39-17 for the Ottawa RedBlacks and even those 17 points seemed more akin to a generous donation, like putting a fiver in a busker’s guitar case despite his off-key voice ruining your all-time favourite song.
Playing their second road game in the span of 4 days, the Alouettes were completely punchless and their rookie quarterback Rakeem Cato couldn’t get anything going at all. The RedBlacks were also playing their second game in less than a week, but they didn’t have to criss-cross the country in order to play last Saturday. They had the luxury of lying in wait at home for the Alouettes and Ottawa did not disappoint their fans who wanted another season sweep added to the ledger.
Montreal’s defensive unit took an incredible beating this week. Having already lost Mitchell White for potentially the remainder of the regular season, they also were dealt a tremendous blow last night when Jonathan Hefney was flattened by Patrick Lavoie early in the game. You knew the hit was bad when Hef’s teammates completely abandoned the ongoing play to call for medical personnel.
From my vantage point, Hefney looked to be out cold long before his body crumpled to the turf. Hopefully he will be able to recover from this terrifying ordeal. Concussions are no laughing matter and after working as hard as he did to get back on the field this year, this setback will hopefully only be a minor one.
Hefney wasn’t the only Alouette walking wounded. Nick Shortill also went down with an ankle injury as the medical woes at middle linebacker continue for the Birds of Prey. Should Shortill not be able to go for the next game that will be THREE injuries this season suffered by a MLB this season. That Henoc Muamba free agent signing is looking better already.
In any event, the less said about this debacle for Alouettes Nation the better. We have a GM that shouldn’t be coaching, two rookie coaches with too much on their plate and a rookie quarterback dealing with an offense that wasn’t designed with him in mind. Too many square pegs trying to be placed into round holes.
It’s time for this team to channel its inner Bill Belichick. “We’re onto Toronto”. Burn the tape and start over on Monday.
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I’m keeping this short and sweet because quite frankly, there’s not a lot of positive here if you’re an Alouettes fan. I don’t take joy in this team’s misfortunes and there are other writers who are much more talented than me when it comes to denigrating the Montreal Alouettes.
The next Alouettes game will be in 10 days, so hopefully this coming week will be one of rest and refocus for this team. The next three games are divisional tilts, so winning will be even more crucial than ever if this team still wants to claim a playoff berth of some sort.
Let’s hope that Montreal wakes up from this nightmare sooner rather than later or it will be a long winter in La Belle Province for football fans.
GO ALS GO!!!
