ALOUETTES’ MISERABLE SEASON COMES TO A BRUTAL END WITH HUMBLING LOSS
33-0 defeat to Ticats caps 3-15 campaign, with Montreal losing 11 final games
HAMILTON It’s all over for the Alouettes this season except for the crying, and that will come soon enough — perhaps as early as Saturday morning, when the players pack up for what figures to be a long and cold winter.
But John Bowman got a head-start on what figured to be a bittersweet evening. He was too emotional to conduct a pregame television interview. He cried during the game. He cried again as he entered the dressing room, perhaps for the final time, following Montreal’s seasonending 33-0 loss to the Hamilton Tiger-Cats Friday evening at Tim Hortons Field.
“I mean, I’m an emotional guy. I cry all the time. That’s my reputation around the league. I wear my heart on my sleeve. That’s the way my aunt raised me,” the Als’ veteran rush-end said. “I was just fed up. There’s been cameras in my face all day. I’m not Anthony Calvillo. I’m just John Bowman. I’m just a defensive end. I never garnered all the attention. I never wanted it. I was just a little tired.”
If you connect the dots, it’s easy to jump to conclusions. Bowman, 35, has played his entire 12-year Canadian Football League career with the Als. This game was the 200th of his illustrious and distinguished career. He’s the team’s career sack leader, with 121. Yes, quite fittingly, he got one more against the Ticats. And, to top it all off, the first game of his career came on this site, then known as Ivor Wynne Stadium.
He said he was crying because his contacts were dry from the wind. And, of course, Bowman refused to speculate about his future, saying he’ll go somewhere warm for a well-deserved vacation before coming to a decision, perhaps in December.
“I cried before my first game and I cried before this one,” he said. “I love football that much. I’m not going to say anything right now.”
Bowman then thanked the team’s owners, Robert and Andrew Wetenhall, for providing him with this opportunity, and former general manager Jim Popp for discovering him when he was playing indoor football. Draw your own conclusions.
What’s more conclusive and indisputable is the depths to which this once-proud franchise has sunk.
It seemed somewhat appropriate that the Als, who were impotent much of the season on offence, would be shut out in their final game — the first time that has occurred since July 17, 1997, at Edmonton, when Montreal actually had a good team.
The Als concluded the year with a 3-15 record, their worst in history over 18 games. They lost their final 11, another team record, and failed to record a road victory in 2017. Montreal scored a league-low 314 points this season in a league that’s built for offence.
This is a team that couldn’t stay out of its own way. The Als might have averted the shutout in the final minute, when T.J. Graham returned a punt 79 yards for a touchdown — only to have Nate O’Halloran, a Canadian backup fullback, called for holding. It was so typical of their season.
The Als went almost three months without a victory, their last win coming against Toronto — without Ricky Ray — on Aug. 11. They opened the season with a one-point victory at home against Saskatchewan, when Tyler Crapigna missed a potential game-winning field goal on the final play. In other words, the Als could have finished 1-17.
General manager Kavis Reed, the team’s interim head coach after Jacques Chapdelaine was fired in September, called it a “disappointing” season. Isn’t that an understatement? Disappointing’s when a team’s competitive and comes up short. Disappointing’s when a team hasn’t learned how to win. No, this season was brutal. And the immediate future doesn’t look much better.
“This was the cap on a very disappointing season,” Reed said. “Those kind of things that happened at the end ... encapsulates the disappointing season we had. There’s no other word for it.
“We can’t under-ring this bell. We all feel crappy about it. It’s something we never would have predicted happening. I shoulder it. As a leader you shoulder it. They must remember this feeling and prepare to be winners.”
Rookie quarterback Matthew Shiltz got his first career CFL start for the Als — and was sacked on the opening two plays. He also threw three interceptions when trying to force the ball into tight coverage. For this, he’s not totally culpable. Montreal receivers in general get no separation from defenders. And most of the receivers don’t fight for the ball or win the one-on-one battles that are incumbent.
Perhaps the one exception is B.J. Cunningham, the Als’ only 1,000-yard receiver this season. He caught four passes for 81 yards, including consecutive second-quarter plays that produced 60 yards. Cunningham is one of the few offensive players this team might build around.
Shiltz completed only seven of 16 passes for 96 yards before being replaced by another rookie, Antonio Pipkin, late in the third quarter. Pipkin, only 22, completed two of nine for 14 yards in his Montreal debut.
Shiltz, if nothing else, carries himself well and talks like a starting quarterback — someone who might be the franchise’s future leader.
“I didn’t execute. That starts with the quarterback,” he said. “There are things I didn’t do well and I’m going to take the blame for that. It’s the quarterback position that moves an offence. It’s the quarterback that’s going to take the blame when the game doesn’t go well. I’m fully aware of that.
“I need to be better. I need to play better. At the end of the day, that’s what it is.”