Jul
Alouettes early season class of CFL
Courtesy Edmonton Journal:
On a scale of one to 10, how would Edmonton Eskimos cornerback Jason Goss grade quarterback Anthony Calvillo and the 4-0 Montreal Alouettes in terms of offensive effectiveness so far?
“I mean, being undefeated, you have to give a team like that a nine or a 10,” said Goss, with a rueful laugh.
It does stand to reason, at least superficially.
At the moment, the Alouettes, who play the Eskimos tonight at 7 p. m. at Commonwealth Stadium in an early-season grudge match, are the class of the CFL, by far.
The Alouettes are scoring nearly 40 points a game(38.5 for you bean counters out there) and giving up a shade over 15 (15.2, on average).
They have tattooed the Calgary Stampeders 40-27, whacked the Eskimos 50-16 and pounded the Saskatchewan Roughriders 43-10.
Only the Hamilton Tiger-Cats might claim a moral victory over the Alouettes. They took an early 6-0 lead–the only team to score first on Montreal this season–but eventually lost 21-8.
Some moral victory.
“For Hamilton to hold them to that, they disrupted their receivers a lot and we noticed that,” Goss said. “That caused problems for them.
“But the thing is, Montreal has a way of fighting back when they’re down.”
Under head coach Marc Trestman, the Alouettes also have a way of not letting their 4-0 won-lost mark go to their heads.
For example, where would veteran offensive centre Bryan Chiu rate his unit’s effectiveness, scale of one to 10?
“Six,” said Chiu, who makes the 200th start in his 13-year CFL career, all with Montreal, tonight. “That’s the truth.
“We’re not trying to make light of it or anything. We understand we’ve done well in the first four games, but there’s so much stuff we could improve on: our red-zone production; timing in certain situations.”
Timing is a key theme of Edmonto n’s defensive preparations.
Calvillo, who is on the cusp of hitting the 60,000-yard threshold for career passing, is all about the quick drop, the quick read, the quick release.
“With Calvillo, you want to take him out of his rhythm,” said defensive tackle Dario Romero. “When he’s comfortable and he’s got everything on time, it runs like a well-oiled machine.
“We’ve just got to get him holding the ball a little bit, prevent him from going to his first read. And we’ve got to get pressure on him. That can be frustrating because often, no matter how cleanly you beat a guy, most likely the ball is coming out.”
The deal, Goss said, is to be patient as well as physical.
“You have to,” Goss said, noting that was a key to Hamilton’s effectiveness against Montreal.
“You can’t let them dictate what we do. We have to get our hands on them, hit them hard and get them thinking.
“They know what they’re doing. It’s up to us to disrupt their timing.”
In Goss’s case, that means throwing off the timing of Kerry Watkins, Montreal’s leading wide receiver with 24 catches for 344 yards, 119 of them gained in Montreal’s July 9 victory over Edmonton.
In Romero’s case, it means getting after Calvillo, whose offensive line is mighty stingy with details like quarterback sacks.
“One thing with Calvillo, if you hit him early, that’s in his head,” Romero said. “He knows it’s coming and he’ll be looking for it.
“Even if you’re falling down at his feet, or he’s got offensive linemen falling down at his feet, he gets a little uneasy.”
It’s easier said than done, obviously, given the Alouettes’ performance record.
The Als arrived in Edmonton after a full week of preparation, a full week of Trestman’s meticulous attention to detail.
“He doesn’t let those little things slide when we win,” Chiu said. “I think that’s good for us, it keeps us on our toes.
“He stresses technique and fundamentals and he stresses that every day.”
Chiu believes Trestman’s relentless pursuit of perfection will prevent the Alouettes from becoming complacent as they pile on the victories early, as has been their habit for much of the last decade.
For the Eskimos, the game comes just five days after a potentially season-defining comeback victory over the Roughriders at Regina’s Mosaic Stadium.
“For this whole team, that was a big, big boost,” Goss said of the 38-33 win over Saskatchewan.
“We started slow, though, and we can’t start out slow against Montreal. That would be a problem.”
The game also comes just three weeks after the Eskimos were embarrassed in Montreal, a rare chance for payback.
“We’re not going to forget what happened there, but we know we’ve got to stick to our game plan,” Goss said. “I feel that what we have (planned) is going to work pretty well against Montreal.”
On a scale of one to 10, chances are good this early-season matchup will grade out on the high end of the scale.
