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<\/p>\nAlexander has been receiving treatment this week on his left leg and it would appear he\u2019ll start the Grey Cup for Montreal. But the real question remains whether he\u2019ll be able to finish?<\/p>\n
\t<\/p>\n
Alexander\u2019s first season as Montreal\u2019s starting quarterback has certainly been a winning one, but the Alouettes were 3-8 in games Alexander didn\u2019t start. Bethel-Thompson registered those wins (3-5), including a 48-31 decision in Regina.<\/p>\n
Bethel-Thompson threw for 379 yards and three TDs in that game after Riders easily won the first meeting of the season 34-6 on Aug. 2. Bethel-Thompson also started that contest.<\/p>\n
However in the victory, Bethel-Thompson connected nine times with Canadian Tyson Philpot for 238 yards and two touchdowns. And Stevie Scott III ran for 125 yards on 19 carries (6.6-yard average).<\/p>\n
Two years ago, Philpot was the Grey Cup\u2019s top Canadian after registering six catches for 63 yards and the winning TD in the Alouettes\u2019 28-24 upset victory over Winnipeg.<\/p>\n
In his first season with Montreal, Bethel-Thompson, 37, completed 158-of-218 passes (63.6 per cent) for 1,746 yards with nine TDs and nine interceptions. The San Francisco native earned Grey Cup rings with Toronto in 2017 and \u201922.<\/p>\n
After serving as Ricky Ray\u2019s backup in \u201917, Bethel-Thompson started against Winnipeg in 2022. However, a second-half thumb injury forced him out of the contest as Chad Kelly came off the bench to help rally the Argos past the Bombers 24-23.<\/p>\n
Whoever starts for Montreal will face a solid Riders\u2019 defence that forced two big stops late in the West final with the B.C. Lions leading 21-17. Trevor Harris capped a dramatic six-play, 74-yard drive with a three-yard scoring strike to Tommy Nield with 11 seconds remaining to give Saskatchewan the 24-21 victory.<\/p>\n
This season, Saskatchewan\u2019s defence was the CFL\u2019s stingiest against the run (76 yards). It was also second in fewest yards allowed (341.5) and interceptions (24) and third both in sacks (43) and fewest offensive points (22.7).<\/p>\n
Montreal\u2019s strong defence is anchored by standout linebackers Darnell Sankey and Tyrice Beverette. Sankey registered 101 tackles (three for loss), two sacks and a fumble recovery while Beverette had 83 tackles (one for loss), seven sacks, four interceptions and four forced fumbles). <\/p>\n
The Alouettes were fourth in offensive points allowed (22.8 per game) but led the CFL in fewest offensive yards (338.4 per game) and passing yards (256.9) surrendered.<\/p>\n
One spot Montreal would appear to have an edge is with kicker Maltos Diaz. He led the CFL in field goals made (58) and tried (65) and was a stellar seven-of-eight from 50-plus yards out, with his longest being 58 yards.<\/p>\n
Veteran Riders kicker Brett Lauther made 39-of-54 attempts but his longest (59 yards) was second only to Winnipeg\u2019s Sergio Castillo (CFL-record 63 yards).<\/p>\n
Montreal was 4-6 versus the West Division this season while Saskatchewan was 7-1 in games with East Division teams. The Alouettes enter this game as underdogs but still have many key players on their roster from the \u201923 team that upset the favoured Bombers.<\/p>\n
And with both defences having the ability to shut an offence down, the game could come down to a late field goal.<\/p>\n
Pick: Montreal.<\/p>\n
Last week: 1-1<\/p>\n
Overall: 56-29.<\/p>\n
NOTE \u2014 Donna Spencer and Gemma Karstens-Smith contributed to this weekly feature.<\/p>\n
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 12, 2025.<\/p>\n
Dan Ralph, The Canadian Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Alexander has been receiving treatment this week on his left leg and it would appear he\u2019ll start the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":278941,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[437],"tags":[49,48,521,522,520,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-278940","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cfl","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-canadian-football-league","11":"tag-canadianfootballleague","12":"tag-cfl","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278940","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=278940"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278940\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/278941"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=278940"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=278940"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=278940"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}