{"id":697397,"date":"2026-05-27T15:48:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-27T15:48:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/697397\/"},"modified":"2026-05-27T15:48:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-27T15:48:10","slug":"veteran-cfl-quarterback-dustin-crum-chose-montreal-alouettes-over-b-c-lions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/697397\/","title":{"rendered":"Veteran CFL quarterback Dustin Crum chose Montreal Alouettes over B.C. Lions"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPhoto courtesy: Montreal Alouettes.<\/p>\n

Counting the Ottawa Redblacks, Dustin Crum estimated five to six Canadian Football League teams inquired about his quarterbacking services during the negotiation window in February.<\/p>\n

\u201cTowards the end, the biggest two it came down to were B.C. and Montreal. They were both very interested, and they\u2019re both very appealing teams.\u00a0It was a very hard decision from that standpoint, they\u2019re both very successful organizations\u00a0this past year and I have a lot of respect for both coaching staffs,\u201d Crum told 3DownNation.<\/p>\n

\u201cHonestly, one of the biggest draws of Montreal is coach [Jason] Maas and some things he\u2019s\u00a0built there culturally, what they do and what they believe is something that\u00a0I\u2019ve been able to have a lot of respect for from afar. It\u2019s something I\u2019m\u00a0very excited to be a part of in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n

Crum signed a one-year contract with the Alouettes<\/a>, which includes $140,000 in hard money for the 2026 CFL season<\/a>. The 27-year-old enters his fourth year in Canada as Davis Alexander\u2019s backup. He\u2019s looking forward to learning from Alexander, Maas, offensive coordinator Anthony Calvillo<\/a> plus other teammates and coaches in La Belle province.<\/p>\n

\u201cCoach Maas<\/a> has built a tremendous culture over there, a winning culture. They truly force you when you\u2019ve played them the past three years, they force you to truly beat them, they\u2019re not going to beat themselves,\u201d Crum said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey don\u2019t\u00a0shoot themselves in the foot, per se, in a lot of games, so they\u2019ve been able to win a lot of\u00a0games. That\u2019s what you have to do in professional football.\u201d<\/p>\n

Former Redblacks general manager, Marcel Desjardins played a role in Crum joining Montreal. Desjardins was in Ottawa when his name was added to the team\u2019s negotiation list. The 59-year-old has been an assistant to general manager Danny Maciocia and player personnel since January 2024<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was the guy that helped me get into the league. That definitely was a little bit a part of it, I would think. He\u2019s known about me since I was in college and helped me end up getting into Ottawa. Now, he\u2019s over in Montreal. A\u00a0lot of connections, and hopefully, I can prove their belief in me right,\u201d Crum said.<\/p>\n

Crum started 14 games during his rookie CFL season in the nation\u2019s capital in 2023. He called that a \u201cunique\u201d experience because it\u2019s rare for a first-year quarterback to start at all, let alone so many games. The six-foot, 210-pound QB believes that\u2019s the image coaches, talent evaluators, and fans have in their minds about him as a player. Although, the Grafton, OH native believes he has improved since.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a rookie coming\u00a0in the CFL, there\u2019s so much to learn as a quarterback. The coverages are so much different\u00a0than what you experience in American football. The pace of the game, the routes,\u00a0and the throws, there\u2019s nothing that\u2019s truly the same, to be honest. They\u2019re close, but there\u2019s nothing completely the same, so making that adjustment has been huge,\u201d Crum explained.<\/p>\n

\u201cRunning and being a mobile guy is a part of my game, I\u2019m not saying\u00a0it\u2019s not, but to be very frank that rookie year I was playing backyard football.\u00a0Looking back at who I was this past season versus my rookie year, it\u2019s like two totally different guys. It\u2019s funny to go back and watch those games sometimes and see how I\u2019ve changed. I owe a lot of that to coach Tommy Condell, he did a great job helping me learn the game.\u201d<\/p>\n

Through three CFL seasons, Crum has started 20 regular season games. All those starts came with the projected No. 1 QB being hurt and in some cases a backup suffering an injury. He has gained valuable experience even though the dual-threat pivot was not a first choice to start, yet. However, Crum has belief he can become a franchise CFL quarterback.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s definitely a goal of mine. It\u2019s something I would like to\u00a0accomplish before I\u2019m done in the league is to be able to be that guy and prove that I am worthy\u00a0of that as well. That\u2019s hopefully something on the horizon for me that I\u2019m working towards,\u201d he said confidently.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s one of the toughest things as a quarterback in\u00a0this league, there\u2019s nine teams, so if no one retires or ends up\u00a0getting benched or let go or something, there\u2019s no spots open. You got to continue to grow, get better, develop and wait for that opportunity to come.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Montreal, Crum has a chance to learn from one of the best to ever play football\u2019s most important position in the CFL in Calvillo and work towards his goal to become a bonafide starter while providing the Alouettes experience behind Alexander.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Football insider, reporter and analyst.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Photo courtesy: Montreal Alouettes. Counting the Ottawa Redblacks, Dustin Crum estimated five to six Canadian Football League teams…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":697398,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[437],"tags":[166835,166836,50470,3179,110126,2602,49,48,7028,521,522,520,254327,118182,7408,14971,50472,254328,2338,941,20739,14967,70504,82],"class_list":["post-697397","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cfl","tag-3down","tag-3downnation","tag-alouettes","tag-als","tag-anthony-calvillo","tag-bc-lions","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-canadian","tag-canadian-football-league","tag-canadianfootballleague","tag-cfl","tag-crum","tag-danny-maciocia","tag-dustin","tag-dustin-crum","tag-jason-maas","tag-marcel-desjardins","tag-montreal","tag-montreal-alouettes","tag-ottawa","tag-ottawa-redblacks","tag-redblacks","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/697397","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=697397"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/697397\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/697398"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=697397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=697397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=697397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}