{"id":454532,"date":"2026-02-05T02:06:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-05T02:06:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/454532\/"},"modified":"2026-02-05T02:06:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-05T02:06:09","slug":"montreal-alouettes-add-longtime-cfl-linebacker-a-j-gass-to-coaching-staff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/454532\/","title":{"rendered":"Montreal Alouettes add longtime CFL linebacker A.J. Gass to coaching staff"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Courtesy: Edmonton Elks<\/p>\n

The Montreal Alouettes have hired A.J. Gass as their new linebackers coach.<\/p>\n

The 50-year-old had his most recent CFL coaching stint with the Edmonton Elks, serving as their special teams coordinator in 2019. He later added the role of linebackers coach, though he stepped away from the team in 2021, citing personal reasons.<\/p>\n

The native of Bellflower, Calif. played linebacker for Edmonton from 1998 to 2007, earning four All-CFL selections and helping the team win two Grey Cups.<\/p>\n

Over 131 career regular-season CFL games, the six-foot-one, 200-pound defender made 440 defensive tackles, 92 special teams tackles, 22 tackles for loss, 13 pass knockdowns, 12 sacks, eight forced fumbles, 10 fumble returns, and three interceptions.<\/p>\n

Gass served as a defensive assistant coach with Edmonton in 2008 and 2009. He most recently served as the special teams coordinator and linebackers coach of the Alberta Golden Bears. He also spent nine seasons as a high school head coach.<\/p>\n

Greg Quick, who served as Montreal\u2019s linebackers coach in 2025, was named the defensive coordinator of the Toronto Argonauts earlier this offseason<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Alouettes also hired Domenico Manno as an offensive assistant coach.<\/p>\n

The Bishop\u2019s University product joined the team as an equipment assistant in 2021, then became the full-time equipment manager in 2022.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was important for us to bring back our staff and I\u2019m happy that most of our coaches and football operations personnel are still with us,\u201d said general manager Danny Maciocia in a statement. \u201cWe know how to work together as a group and I\u2019m confident we\u2019ll continue our success. We have a hard-working staff that\u2019s all pulling in the same direction.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dave Brown, who joined the team\u2019s coaching staff in 2024 after a five-year playing career, has been named the team\u2019s offensive line coach after previously serving as an offensive line assistant. Luc Brodeur-Jourdain, the team\u2019s longtime offensive line coach, stepped away from the team in December<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Dave Jackson has remained the team\u2019s running backs coach, though he\u2019s added the role of tight ends coach.<\/p>\n

The rest of the team\u2019s coaching staff has remained the same with one tweak: head coach Jason Maas has relinquished play-calling duties to offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach Anthony Calvillo.<\/p>\n

Montreal\u2019s full coaching staff is as follows.<\/p>\n

Jason Maas \u2013 Head Coach
Byron Archambault \u2013 Assistant Head Coach and Special Teams Coordinator
Anthony Calvillo \u2013 Offensive Coordinator and Quarterbacks Coach
Noel Thorpe \u2013 Defensive Coordinator and Defensive Backs Coach
Dave Brown \u2013 Offensive Line Coach
Michael Lionello \u2013 Receivers Coach and Pass Game Coordinator
Dave Jackson \u2013 Running Backs and Tight Ends Coach
A.J. Gass \u2013 Linebackers Coach
Corvey Irvin \u2013 Defensive Line Coach
Domenico Manno \u2013 Offensive Assistant
Bryan Wyllie \u2013 Defensive Assistant<\/p>\n

The Montreal Alouettes finished second in the East Division standings in 2025 with a 10-8 record and beat the Hamilton Tiger-Cats in the East Final before losing the 112th Grey Cup to the Saskatchewan Roughriders. Davis Alexander went 7-0 as a starter during the regular-season, though he missed 11 games due to a hamstring injury.<\/p>\n

The Alouettes ranked eighth in net offence, first in net defence, and third with a turnover differential of plus-eight. The club\u2019s leading rusher was Stevie Scott III with 418 yards, leading receiver was Tyler Snead with 1,129 yards, and leading tackler was Darnell Sankey with 103 tackles. Montreal finished sixth in attendance with average crowds of 21,132, which was a 0.8 percent decrease from the previous year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Courtesy: Edmonton Elks The Montreal Alouettes have hired A.J. Gass as their new linebackers coach. The 50-year-old had…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":454533,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[437],"tags":[166835,186696,50470,3179,110126,186697,186698,49,48,521,522,520,7579,186699,186700,186701,186702,23752,13264,77213,50472,186703,2338,186704,82,2473],"class_list":["post-454532","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cfl","tag-3down","tag-a-j-gass","tag-alouettes","tag-als","tag-anthony-calvillo","tag-bryan-wyllie","tag-byron-archambault","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-canadian-football-league","tag-canadianfootballleague","tag-cfl","tag-coaching","tag-corvey-irvin","tag-dave-brown","tag-dave-jackson","tag-domenico-manno","tag-edmonton","tag-edmonton-elks","tag-elks","tag-jason-maas","tag-michael-lionello","tag-montreal","tag-noel-thorpe","tag-sports","tag-staff"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/454532","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=454532"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/454532\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/454533"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=454532"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=454532"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=454532"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}