the fastest Canadian receiver to reach 1,000 yards in a season<\/a>, accomplishing the feat in just eight games. He remains the only receiver in the CFL with more than 800 receiving yards this season, which is incredibly impressive.<\/p>\nThe only concern surrounding Philpot has been injuries. So far this season, he hasn\u2019t missed a game. If he stays healthy, he\u2019s on pace to challenge the CFL\u2019s single-season receiving record.<\/p>\n
Davis Alexander responds<\/p>\n
Last week, Davis Alexander admitted after the game that Hamilton\u2019s deep coverage slowed down Montreal\u2019s vertical passing attack. The Als relied on screens and the running game and still found success, although Alexander missed a few deep shots.<\/p>\n
This week, Alexander reminded the CFL why he\u2019s still the frontrunner for Most Outstanding Player, finishing with 420 passing yards and three touchdowns.<\/p>\n
He was absolutely dominant, especially in the first half. By halftime, he had completed 15-of-20 passes for 287 yards and two touchdowns.<\/p>\n
Montreal\u2019s first three drives ended in touchdowns, and this time it wasn\u2019t because of Travis Theis. Alexander completely dissected Ottawa\u2019s zone defence, with Tyson Philpot and Tyler Snead leading the way.<\/p>\n
A lot of credit also goes to Calvillo and his play-calling. He gave Alexander maximum protection and had his receivers attacking the middle of the field, something Montreal didn\u2019t do nearly enough last week.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s almost impossible to contain Philpot and Snead when plays last six or seven seconds. Whenever Ottawa tried to blitz, Alexander exploited the resulting one-on-one matchups.<\/p>\n
Good ol\u2019 Noel Thorpe defence (feat. Josh Archibald)<\/p>\n
When a quarterback finishes a game with 311 passing yards, you\u2019d expect at least one touchdown pass. Or, at the very least, more than one touchdown from his offence. Neither happened for Ottawa.<\/p>\n
Jake Maier was able to move the ball effectively, especially in the first half. However, Montreal\u2019s defence slammed the door shut in the red zone, as Ottawa finished the night just one-for-five.<\/p>\n
After allowing the Redblacks\u2019 lone touchdown on their second drive of the game, the Als surrendered only one additional field goal for the remainder of the night.<\/p>\n
Josh Archibald made two massive plays on third down in the red zone. In the third quarter, he intercepted Maier on the one-yard line. Later, he stopped Greg Bell behind the line of scrimmage when Ottawa needed only one yard for a first down.<\/p>\n
Beautiful play design<\/p>\n
With every passing week, Anthony Calvillo\u2019s play-calling seems to get better.<\/p>\n
Although I would have liked to see him be more aggressive in the second half last week, he appears to have found the right balance between being bold and being conservative. On Friday night, he didn\u2019t force anything and instead gave Alexander the time needed to break down Ottawa\u2019s defence.<\/p>\n
There was one particular play that stood out to me: Tyler Snead\u2019s touchdown that made it a 31-13 game.<\/p>\n
It was a triple-screen design, with Travis Theis leaking to the right, Jacob Mason to the left, and Snead staying in the middle. Alexander manipulated the defence by first looking right, then left, before finding Snead for the major.<\/p>\n
The play was brilliantly designed and executed just as well.<\/p>\n
Replay centre\u2019s questionable interventions<\/p>\n
According to RDS\u2019s David Arsenault, Al Bradbury was in charge of the CFL\u2019s replay centre on Friday night. Let\u2019s just say that the relationship between Bradbury and the Alouettes has not been a positive one over the years.<\/p>\n
The replay centre intervened on two plays that raised eyebrows.<\/p>\n
The first involved Najee Murray\u2019s roughing the passer penalty in the first quarter, which was upgraded from 15 to 25 yards. I still don\u2019t understand the decision, as the hit didn\u2019t appear to be directed at the head.<\/p>\n
Then, there was Tyrice Beverette\u2019s apparent forced fumble on Daniel Adeboboye near the goal line in the second quarter. The replay centre ruled that forward progress had already been stopped before the ball came loose.<\/p>\n
By rule, forward progress is considered a judgment call that is best made by on-field officials in real time and should only be adjusted in extreme circumstances. I think this one is debatable. It could have gone either way.<\/p>\n
What\u2019s next?<\/p>\n
The Montreal Alouettes (7-1) will return home next Saturday, August 8, to take on the Edmonton Elks. Kickoff is scheduled for 3:00 p.m. EDT.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Since the beginning of the season, the Montreal Alouettes have had multiple opportunities to put teams away in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":839926,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194292],"tags":[166835,166836,50470,3179,110126,49,48,7028,520,50475,527,50472,292559,2002,2338,186704,173328,116858,77016],"class_list":["post-839925","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-montreal","tag-3down","tag-3downnation","tag-alouettes","tag-als","tag-anthony-calvillo","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-canadian","tag-cfl","tag-davis-alexander","tag-football","tag-jason-maas","tag-joshua-archibald","tag-league","tag-montreal","tag-noel-thorpe","tag-replay-centre","tag-tyler-snead","tag-tyson-philpot"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/839925","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=839925"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/839925\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/839926"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=839925"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=839925"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=839925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}