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Davis Alexander eclipsed 5,000 passing yards on the season and the Montreal Alouettes rolled past the Saskatchewan Roughriders 44-24 in the CFL’s Thanksgiving Day Classic on Monday afternoon.<\/p>\n
Alexander joined Anthony Calvillo as the only quarterbacks in Alouettes history to reach the 5,000-yard mark.<\/p>\n
The 27-year-old from Gig Harbor, Wash., threw for five touchdowns, one interception and 403 passing yards on 26-of-33 completions. He also rushed for 40 yards on three carries as Montreal (13-3) finished undefeated at home in the regular season for the third time.<\/p>\n
Jerreth Sterns added eight receptions for 124 yards, while Charleston Rambo and Tyler Snead made two touchdown catches apiece before a sellout of 23,035 at Molson Stadium.<\/p>\n
Montreal, which clinched first place in the East Division last week, returns home to host the Eastern final on Nov. 7.<\/p>\n
Saskatchewan quarterback Travis Harris also hit the 5,000-yard mark for the second time of his career, but the Riders (8-8) dropped their fourth consecutive game amid a tight West Division playoff race.<\/p>\n
With two weeks remaining in the regular season, Saskatchewan remained tied for third with Winnipeg (8-8) and Calgary (8-9) at 16 points. Both the Blue Bombers and Stampeders hold the season-series tiebreaker over the Riders, but four West teams will make the playoffs via the CFL’s crossover rule.<\/p>\n
Harris finished with two touchdowns, one interception and 243 yards on 23-for-33 passing in the rematch of last year’s Grey Cup game. Kian Schaffer-Baker caught two touchdowns. <\/p>\n
Roughriders kicker Brett Lauther, in his first game since Saskatchewan reacquired him from Ottawa, converted 3-of-3 field goals, including one from 51 yards. Montreal’s Jose Maltos Diaz went 3-for-3.<\/p>\n
After a back-and-forth first half, Montreal pulled ahead with a pair of massive touchdown receptions early in the third quarter.<\/p>\n
CFL receiving-yards leader Tyson Philpot gave the Alouettes a 24-16 lead with a spectacular catch six minutes into the second half, diving into the end zone to haul down Alexander’s 46-yard bomb.<\/p>\n
On Montreal’s next possession, Alexander dodged multiple tackles before launching a 51-yard pass up the middle to Rambo, giving the Alouettes a 31-16 advantage.<\/p>\n
The Alouettes extended that lead four minutes into the fourth quarter, when Alexander hit Snead for his second touchdown on a five-yard throw.<\/p>\n
Montreal linebacker Geoffrey Cantin-Arku then picked off Harris and returned the ball 32 yards to the Saskatchewan 31, setting up a field goal.<\/p>\n
Harris found Schaffer-Baker on a 14-yard pass to trim the lead to 41-24 with 2:31 remaining.<\/p>\n
Alexander opened the game with a 30-yard run up the middle, stoking the crowd, before Roughriders defensive back Marcus Sayles picked off the quarterback’s deep pass at the Saskatchewan four-yard line, leading to a field goal.<\/p>\n
Montreal answered on the next drive. Alexander completed four passes to Sterns, then found Snead on a nine-yard TD with 6:33 left in the first quarter. Snead reached 1,400 receiving yards this season on the play.<\/p>\n
Schaffer-Baker gave the Riders a 10-7 lead to end the first quarter when he caught a pass from Harris and powered through Montreal’s defence for a 27-yard touchdown.<\/p>\n
Alexander connected with a wide-open Rambo on a 45-yard touchdown to put the Alouettes ahead 14-10 three minutes into the second quarter.<\/p>\n
Earlier in the drive, Alexander made his best impression of Kansas City Chiefs QB Patrick Mahomes, completing an acrobatic, highlight-reel toss while falling after he was tripped in the Pocket.<\/p>\n
The Alouettes and Roughriders square off again Saturday at Regina’s Mosaic Stadium.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to this article Estimated 4 minutes The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":930723,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[437],"tags":[49,48,521,522,520,82],"class_list":["post-930722","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cfl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-canadian-football-league","tag-canadianfootballleague","tag-cfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/930722","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=930722"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/930722\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/930723"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=930722"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=930722"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=930722"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}