CALGARY — The Montreal Alouettes carry the most productive offence in the Canadian Football League into Sunday's 113th Grey Cup, and they get to test it against the defence that has spent a week being called the best in the country.
Kickoff is set for 5 p.m. ABT at McMahon Stadium. It is the 12th Grey Cup meeting between Montreal and the Edmonton Elks, and the season series says there is nothing between them: Edmonton won 32-29 in Week 3, Montreal answered 48-30 in Week 10, and Sunday settles it.
Everything in Montreal's offence runs through Davis Alexander, and Sunday is the biggest start of his life. Alexander threw for 5,257 yards this season, second in the CFL, with 35 touchdown passes against just four interceptions and a 72.1 per cent completion rate. He makes his first Grey Cup start, three years after he stood on Montreal's sideline as the third-string quarterback while Cody Fajardo, now Edmonton's starter, won the 110th Grey Cup for the Alouettes.
His protection gives him time to work. Montreal allowed a league-low 19 sacks this season, and Alexander was not interested Saturday in dressing the moment up as anything more than another road week.
"Maybe a little bit of nerves but this week to me is felt like a normal week. It feels like we're on the road playing a road game," Alexander said at Saturday's availability. "I mean, I'm ready. We're ready."
What he sees in the room around him is quieter than a year ago, when Montreal's season ended in a Grey Cup loss.
"Killer, killer mentality, killer instinct. You look at everybody and it's everyone's not in their head. There's not a lot being said," Alexander said at Saturday's availability.
He has carried that tone all week. Montreal has been favoured in every game it has played this season except one, in BC, and Alexander shrugged at the label when the team arrived in Calgary.
"The odds makers, they don't decide who wins the game. We do," Alexander said at the arrivals availability. "But it doesn't mean much, and it's 0-0 when the game starts on Sunday."
Edmonton head coach Mark Kilam called Montreal the standard of the league this week. Alexander heard it, and filed it away.
"He said we are the standard. Oh, yeah. I mean, that's a really nice thing for him to say," Alexander said at the arrivals availability. "But it doesn't mean anything until Sunday."
Alexander knows exactly what is coming at him. Asked earlier in the week about Edmonton's defence, he reached for a squeezing image.
"It's kind of like anaconda. You know, you start to pressure down, pressure down, and end up breaking them," Alexander said at the arrivals availability.
His two biggest targets finished one-two in the CFL in receiving yards. Tyson Philpot led the league with 1,809 yards, and Tyler Snead was second with 1,474. Philpot, playing a Grey Cup in his hometown, has handed the week's family ticket requests to his twin brother Jalen, a Stampeder, and kept his own focus on the loss that has driven Montreal all season.
"That feeling of loss and that feeling of all your hard work that you put in and coming up short. Not wanting to feel that those emotions again," Philpot said on the field Saturday. "So, just using that as motivation and, you know, just getting excited for, you know, the game tomorrow."
Philpot's whole career has been built the Canadian way, a point he made Saturday.
"I think that just goes to show on the talent in Canada. You know, like I said before, it's just continuing to get better every single year," Philpot said on the field Saturday. "Being someone that, you know, didn't even go to the States to play university football and just, you know, doing my whole route, the Canadian way. I think it's inspiring for young Canadians."
And there is no overconfidence in him, he insisted.
"There's no overconfidence, you know. Look at, you know, what we've done every, every game this year," Philpot said on the field Saturday. "I feel like if you're not confident, you know, you wouldn't be in the big game and, yeah, you know, the guys are ready to go."
There is no shortage of belief around Snead, either. Head coach Jason Maas was asked Saturday about his receiver's comments after the East Final, and he backed his player without repeating what was said.
"We'll go in your building and we'll beat you. That's how we're built here," Maas said at Saturday's press conference. "I have his back. And that whole locker room has his back."
On the ground, Montreal's run game belongs to Stevie Scott III. Maas confirmed Saturday that Scott carries the load on Sunday.
"He's a workhorse for us. And he's healthy," Maas said at Saturday's press conference. "He's more than capable of, you know, doing that whole load."
Montreal's defence has its own assignment: Justin Rankin, Edmonton's No. 5, second in the CFL in rushing this season. Linebacker Geoffrey Cantin-Arku laid out the job this week, and it starts on first down.
"It's about stopping number five, and you know he's been very good for them all season, so it's about slowing them down and make sure that we tackle well and, you know, be the most physical defence on the field," Cantin-Arku told Provectus Media.
"Play action always works better when the run works, so it's going to be very important that we win first down and make sure we get them in second and long," Cantin-Arku told Provectus Media. "If we do that, we play our brand of football, be physical, do our thing, we're very hard to beat."
The defence has playmakers of its own. Lorenzo Burns knocked down 17 passes this season, and Beauchemin led the Alouettes with four interceptions. Defensive end Isaac Adeyemi-Berglund, the CFL's Tom Pate Award winner this season, described Friday how the unit plans to handle an Edmonton offence that can hurt a defence from anywhere.
"Wherever the hole in the bucket is, the water is going to come out. So maybe if you stop Cody, maybe you have Rankin to deal with. Maybe you stop Rankin, you have Mack," Adeyemi-Berglund said at Friday's availability. "It's not about stopping anybody. It's just about doing our job. And if we do our job then I think we're very confident."
The one roster question that hung over Montreal all week is settled. Receiver Cole Spieker, who made two of the biggest catches of the 110th Grey Cup, is on the Alouettes' official depth chart for Sunday, released by the CFL on Saturday, after six weeks of work to get back.
"He seems to be back at full health," Maas said at Friday's availability. "For him to work as hard as he did the last six weeks to even be available to us, to be honest with you, this week was remarkable."
Spieker never declared himself in this week. He just described the work.
"Every day, just doing everything I can do to get one percent better and closer to being back on the field," Spieker said on the field Saturday. "Every game I treat like the biggest game, so it's normal just to make the play."
One Alouette remained a game-time decision when Maas spoke Saturday, a player he referred to only by a nickname, "Moose," and the coach was comfortable either way.
"Is Moose healthy enough to play and give us all four quarters. And if that's not the case, he won't play," Maas said at Saturday's press conference. "And we won't bat an eye."
Montreal's quarterback room carries experience even if its starter does not. Four Alouettes quarterbacks have Grey Cup experience, and Caleb Evans, No. 18, handles the short-yardage work.
Maas himself is chasing a fifth Grey Cup ring. He won two as a player with Edmonton, in 2003 and 2005, one as Toronto's quarterbacks coach in 2012, and one as Montreal's head coach in 2023. Across the field, his old assistant Jordan Maksymic now runs Edmonton's offence and knows the Maas system from the inside. Maas waved the whole storyline off this week.
"It doesn't affect either one of us. Our offence is predicated on what the defence does," Maas told Provectus Media. "I have utmost respect for Jordan and what he's been able to do. But I'm not worried at all."
And for all his rings, Maas put his own faith in experience at almost nothing at Wednesday's head coaches' conference.
"I have calculated that it's 0.425%. That's how much I think experience comes into this game," Maas said at Wednesday's head coaches' conference. "In other words, I don't think experience counts for much. It's just who plays best on the day."
What he believes in instead is the room. At the same conference, he described a team built on respect and connections, and on playing for someone other than yourself. Cantin-Arku said the same thing Saturday, in French: we play for each other in Montreal, and that is what makes the difference. Cantin-Arku also passed along the message the team got this week from Georges St-Pierre: we don't want a victory, but we want a domination.
Cantin-Arku's English answers Saturday carried the same edge.
"I think this team is more prepared than we have ever been in the past," Cantin-Arku said at Saturday's press conference. "Now we're here, and it's time to finish. There's no excuse."
By Saturday afternoon, Montreal's work was done. Maas sent his players to their families with no meetings Saturday night and none on game day.
"We will not have any meetings tonight. We will never have a meeting in game day ever," Maas said at Saturday's press conference. "I think we're ready to play. We're confidently ready to play."
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