Montreal Alouettes' Brian Bratton, right, gets tackled by Edmonton Eskimos' Kelly Malveaux during the first half of CFL action at Edmonton's Commonwealth Stadium on Thursday, July 30, 2009. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jimmy JeongThe Canadian Press
So much for the notion that the Montreal Alouettes being unbeatable this season.
Instead, the Als looked down-right ordinary Thursday night in Edmonton where they suffered their first defeat of the season by a 33-19 score.
The Eskimos, meanwhile, managed to keep the momentum created by last week's come-from-behind win over Saskatchewan rolling against the Als, improving to 3-2 on the season while the Als fell to 4-1 before 33,206.
"I think you just saw what we're capable of doing," said Edmonton head coach Richie Hall. "We played four quarters against an outstanding football team."
"A lot of times when you have one of those character-building wins like last week, it doesn't matter as much if you can't follow it up. What we needed was consistency. We like to think last week was a big step forward for our football team but it was important we play well two weeks in a row."
The Alouettes, whose offence had torched teams to the tune of more than 40 points per game during the first three weeks of the season, failed to score a touchdown until the fourth quarter.
Meanwhile, Edmonton's Ricky Ray was good on 22 of 26 passes for 332 yards and two touchdowns, continuing the form he showed last week at Regina when he helped the Eskimos overcome an early 22-0 deficit.
But the story in this game was the Edmonton defence which had been torched two weeks ago in a loss to the B.C. Lions which resulted in the signing of former Montreal linebacker T.J. Hill and a shuffling of the defensive secondary.
Montreal settled for four Damon Duval field goals, continuing a recent trend of failing to close drives by putting the ball in the end zone. Montreal had over 300 yards of offence and its only turnover was a late-game turnover-on-downs.
"I'm not going to get concerned about any of that," said Montreal head coach Marc Trestman. "We're paid to score touchdowns but more importantly we're paid to win games."
The Eskimos led the game 26-9 with less than eight minutes to play when the Als rode the legs of running back Avon Cobourne on a 34-yard drive that closed with a one-yard run and shaved Edmonton's lead to 26-16.
But Arkee Whitlock took the ensuing kickoff 55 yards all the way to the Montreal 32-yard line. From there, however, Montreal's Jerald Brown intercepted a Ricky Ray pass as the Als 5-yard line and returned it 46 yards where Montreal took over with 5:46 to play.
A 31-yard field goal by Duval made it 26-19 with 3:29 to play, which looked like the prelude to a Montreal comeback.
But a busted coverage in the secondary dashed Montreal's hopes when Ricky Ray hit a wide open Fred Stamps with a 48-yard touchdown that made the score 33-19.