{"id":164653,"date":"2026-08-12T03:11:50","date_gmt":"2026-08-12T03:11:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/164653\/"},"modified":"2026-08-12T03:11:50","modified_gmt":"2026-08-12T03:11:50","slug":"montreal-alouettes-sent-message-to-cfl-with-win-over-edmonton-elks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/164653\/","title":{"rendered":"Montreal Alouettes sent message to CFL with win over Edmonton Elks"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPhoto courtesy: CFL<\/p>\n

Saturday\u2019s game between the Edmonton Elks and Montreal Alouettes was billed as a matchup of CFL heavyweights, but the home team dominated at Percival Molson Stadium in a 48-30 win.<\/p>\n

Cody Fajardo, who threw for 231 yards, two touchdowns, and one interception in a losing effort, believes the victory was Montreal\u2019s way of proving they\u2019re the best team in the league<\/a> at the midway point of the season.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think they sent a message to the league. We\u2019re one of the top teams in this league, and they beat us in all three phases,\u201d Fajardo told the media postgame<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe knew that it was going to be a dogfight, but we also knew they were pissed off after we took them down to the wire at our place (in Week 3). That\u2019s a good football team \u2014 all three phases, they they beat us up pretty good, and we\u2019ve gotta be better.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alouettes quarterback Davis Alexander outplayed his former teammate by completing 22-of-28 passes for 352 yards, four touchdowns, and one interception. He also scored a touchdown along the ground.<\/p>\n

The 27-year-old, who is a front-runner for Most Outstanding Player alongside teammate Tyson Philpot, also believes that the win sent a message nation-wide.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would say it\u2019s probably a statement game for the rest of the league,\u201d said Alexander. \u201cWe think our offence is the best and our defence is the best, so it\u2019s expected.\u201d<\/p>\n

Montreal was forced to make four changes to their starting lineup on defence, as Mustafa Johnson, Geoffrey Cantin-Arku, Wesley Sutton, and Najee Murray were all placed on the one-game injured list. The unit fared well despite the changes, forcing three takeaways and allowing only 6.7 yards per play.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith all the injuries they had on defence, they played a hell of a game.\u00a0I can only speak to\u00a0that, just from what I saw, they did a great job. (Defensive coordinator Noel) Thorpe did a great job of changing up their looks,\u201d said Fajardo.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll the data that they showed, they seemed to flip it on its head and go completely different than what they were doing the first eight games, so they had a tremendous game plan, and it made it difficult on us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trailing by over 20 points late in the fourth quarter, Elks head coach Mark Kilam pulled Fajardo to protect him from injury. The veteran quarterback didn\u2019t like the decision, but it appears he understood why it was made.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt sucks. You know me, I\u2019m a competitor. I want to fight. I want to go out and I want to finish with the ball in my hand in all four quarters,\u201d said Fajardo. \u201cI\u2019m never happy with it, but I understand they\u2019re trying to protect certain guys.\u201d<\/p>\n

Montreal and Edmonton were once both 6-1, though the Alouettes have since improved to 8-1 while the Elks have dropped to 6-3 with losses to Saskatchewan and Montreal.<\/p>\n

\u201cFull credit to Montreal, they beat us,\u201d said Kilam. \u201cThey\u2019re really good at what they do, they\u2019ve got full buy-in from their guys.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Alouettes are now entering their second of three bye weeks riding high, while the Elks will look to end a two-game losing skid against the Toronto Argonauts (4-4) on Saturday afternoon.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Photo courtesy: CFL Saturday\u2019s game between the Edmonton Elks and Montreal Alouettes was billed as a matchup of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":164654,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[349,350,1192,1193,351,352,52,1046,354,50],"class_list":["post-164653","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-edmonton","tag-3down","tag-3downnation","tag-alouettes","tag-als","tag-canadian","tag-cfl","tag-edmonton","tag-elks","tag-football","tag-montreal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164653","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=164653"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164653\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/164654"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=164653"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=164653"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=164653"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}