{"id":542555,"date":"2026-03-17T15:23:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-17T15:23:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/542555\/"},"modified":"2026-03-17T15:23:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-17T15:23:09","slug":"jason-maas-expects-other-alouettes-receivers-to-step-up-in-place-of-austin-mack","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/542555\/","title":{"rendered":"Jason Maas expects other Alouettes receivers to step up in place of Austin Mack"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Photo: Reuben Polansky\/3DownNation. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n

Montreal Alouettes head coach Jason Maas is hoping other members of the team\u2019s receiving corps will step up to fill the void left by Austin Mack.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe always think about what\u2019s best for\u00a0the organization, and that\u2019s what we take care of. I think (general manager) Danny (Maciocia) has done a tremendous\u00a0job of always looking after that fact, and then you live with it from there,\u201d\u00a0Maas recently told the media in Montreal regarding Mack\u2019s departure<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow, it\u2019s Alex Hollins, it\u2019s (Jerreth) Sterns, it\u2019s Cole (Spieker), it\u2019s everybody on our receiving corps\u00a0having more opportunities now to win jobs, and to provide what Austin had provided\u00a0for us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mack was cut ahead of a $45,000 offseason roster bonus<\/a>, which was due on February 1. He signed with the Edmonton Elks shortly following his release from Montreal, reuniting him with former Alouettes quarterback Cody Fajardo.<\/p>\n

The 28-year-old target caught 48 passes for 674 yards and two touchdowns in 2025, missing six regular-season games due to injury. He was hampered by a nagging hamstring problem during the playoffs, making five catches for 119 yards over three postseason games including the 112th Grey Cup loss to the Saskatchewan Roughriders.<\/p>\n

Mack finished third on the Alouettes in receiving in 2025 behind Tyler Snead and Tyson Philpot. Snead, who was named All-CFL after surpassing the 1,000-yard mark for the first time in his career, signed a contract extension in September that ties him to the team through 2027. Philpot signed a new contract in December that made him the highest-paid Canadian receiver in the CFL<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Sterns was brought over from the Winnipeg Blue Bombers in free agency after making 48 receptions for 530 yards and four touchdowns in 2025. Hollins, a former All-West Division selection with the B.C. Lions, appears primed to start in 2026 after filling a depth role with the Alouettes last season. Both players are projected to start by\u00a03DownNation<\/a>, though nothing will be official until the team makes decisions during training camp.<\/p>\n

As for Mack\u2019s departure, it appears Maas and Maciocia agreed to try to retain the veteran receiver on a new contract but that those negotiations didn\u2019t work out.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe looked at all of it. What (Mack) did his first year (in 2023) here was tremendous \u2014 win a Grey Cup, have\u00a0the year he had. We all wanted him back and we all wanted him to be here as\u00a0an Alouette forever. Then he goes down south (for a shot in the NFL in 2024), comes back up and\u00a0the same feelings are there,\u201d said Maas.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you have great players in your building, you want to retain them, you want to keep them. That doesn\u2019t always happen, so no matter how\u00a0many years they sign for, a lot of times it is year-to-year. It\u2019s the amount of money you have invested in them and each year you look at your club, where you\u2019re\u00a0spending your money, and the value you\u2019re getting. There\u2019s so much\u00a0that goes into one player being here and being retained.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen Danny comes\u00a0to me \u2014 and he and I speak a lot on our players and how it affects everybody \u2014 it\u2019s\u00a0not one day of thinking about it. There\u2019s a constant talk through\u00a0what the roster\u2019s going to look like if we make these decisions. The fact is, we\u00a0came to an agreement with Austin, it was with the thought of bringing him back\u00a0under the conditions and under the terms that we believed helped everybody.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat transpired (with Mack\u2019s departure) was out of our control a bit, and we decided to say that\u00a0is what\u2019s best for both parties. When you make that move, you\u2019ve just gotta believe\u00a0it\u2019s what\u2019s best for the organization.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Montreal Alouettes were relatively quiet in free agency, though they still added quarterback Dustin Crum, receiver Jerreth Sterns, and return specialist DeVonte Dedmon. The team also suffered some key losses, including Austin Mack (Edmonton Elks), linebacker Darnell Sankey (B.C. Lions), defensive back Marc-Antoine Dequoy (retirement), and return specialist James Letcher Jr. (Saskatchewan Roughriders).<\/p>\n

The Alouettes hold the eighth overall pick in the 2026 CFL Draft, which is scheduled for Tuesday, April 28 at 7:00 p.m. EDT. All CFL training camps are scheduled to open on May 10. The team will play its first preseason game against the Ottawa Redblacks on Friday, May 22 and its first regular-season game against the Hamilton Tiger-Cats on Thursday, June 4.<\/p>\n

In 2025, Montreal finished second in the East Division standings 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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Photo: Reuben Polansky\/3DownNation. All rights reserved. Montreal Alouettes head coach Jason Maas is hoping other members of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":542556,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[437],"tags":[166835,166836,50470,3179,50478,49,48,7028,521,522,520,211748,13264,527,50472,2338,82,116858,77016],"class_list":["post-542555","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cfl","tag-3down","tag-3downnation","tag-alouettes","tag-als","tag-austin-mack","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-canadian","tag-canadian-football-league","tag-canadianfootballleague","tag-cfl","tag-cole-spieker","tag-edmonton-elks","tag-football","tag-jason-maas","tag-montreal","tag-sports","tag-tyler-snead","tag-tyson-philpot"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/542555","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=542555"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/542555\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/542556"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=542555"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=542555"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=542555"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}