Nye: Als depth a key to their 8-1 start

Jamie Nye

CFL.ca

@jamienye

The Montreal Alouettes never flinch.

Their attitude of ‘just watch’ that Cody Fajardo made famous at last year’s Grey Cup has carried over into the 2024 season.

First it was the talk of trying to replace Austin Mack after he’d signed with the Atlanta Falcons and William Stanback moved on to the BC Lions. Then it was the key injuries to Wesley Sutton and Reggie Stubblefield in the secondary at the start of the season.

Now it’s Cody Fajardo, Kaion Julien-Grant, Tyler Snead and more recently Tyson Philpot.

You’d think we’d see the Alouettes start to come back to Earth.

Instead it feels like they just get stronger with the more adversity they face.

Full credit to general manager Danny Maciocia, who continues to bolster the depth around his team to make them better. Dealt with an off-season in 2023 that saw the team lose out to players with the uncertainty of even having a team to manage, Maciocia had to do it differently.

Of course midway through that season he added Darnell Sankey and Shawn Lemon, that seemed to put them over the top on their way to their incredible victory over Winnipeg.

Going into the 2024 season, Maciocia was comfortable he didn’t have to chase free agents to replace Mack and Stanback.

Walter Fletcher has over 700-yards of total offence as he has nearly the same amount of yards in the air (351) as he has on the ground (415).

In the receiving corps, Tyson Philpot and Charleston Rambo have been the joint big play receivers. Thirteen of the 23 completions deep down field have been in the hands of this duo. Rambo has made Alouette fans barely utter the name Mack as Montreal found another rookie of the year candidate.

Now another test comes with the loss of Philpot. You’d again expect to see a negative impact with a blow to the talent level within the receivers group.

However, you’ll likely be shocked to find another receiver Maciocia has found to step in.

And we haven’t discussed the fact Cody Fajardo has missed the last three weeks with the team winning all three games with Davis Alexander becoming a capable backup which is even more so necessary with Caleb Evans out of the season with the knee injury he suffered two weeks ago.

Alexander has settled into the CFL with a 73 per cent completion percentage, throwing for five touchdowns to just one interception.

The way Alexander came in three weeks ago to dominate the Roughriders in the second half was impressive and eye opening. When you lose your Grey Cup champion quarterback and your offence doesn’t miss a beat, it’s impressive.

We do have to be honest though, the Alouettes have seen the opponent build up some leads on them before their ability to storm back and eventually take over.

Let’s now shift the attention to defence.

Stubblefield and Sutton are major pieces to the defence. Sutton missed the first part of the season, which allowed Nafees Lyon to step in at corner and was solid until giving way to a starting spot when Sutton returned.

Then there is the devastating injury to Stubblefield, who tore his ACL in the season-opener against Winnipeg.

What do you do when you lose an All-Star calibre defender?

You watch a rookie Bryce Cosby take over, who hasn’t let go of a starting job. He’s now been shifted to halfback with another veteran going down. Najee Murray hit the injured list last week with an ankle injury and will miss their game again this week.

While every team in the league can complain about their injuries and lost-man games, there is only one team that has done it while putting up an 8-1 record.

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