MontrealAlouettes.com
by Steve Lyberopoulos
MONTREAL – Tyrell Sutton is, until further notice, the “man” moving forward in the backfield for the Montreal Alouettes. As his Twitter moniker, @AllofASutton22, indicates, the Akron, OH native has been unexpectedly thrust into the spotlight with the campaign drawing to a momentous close. Taking over for incumbent Brandon Whitaker, who was ruled out for a minimum of 6 games with an undisclosed injury two weeks ago, Sutton has done his best to ensure that the running game, sans one of the league’s top backs, continues to be a strength at 106.9 yards per game for this Alouettes offence.
And, really, no one should be surprised that this is still the case.
The 27-year old Sutton has been a key catalyst to the team’s run of dependable rushing – pun intended – this season with 51 carries and 283 yards, good for a stellar 5.5 yards per carry. Though Sutton has gotten onto the field with less frequency than his counterpart Whitaker (169 attempts) in 2014, he has been effectively deployed as a change-of-pace tailback by head coach Tom Higgins and offensive coordinator Ryan Dinwiddie, allowing the Alouettes to roll with a dangerous two-back set, a setup that is far more common in the NFL than the CFL.
It’s been here, done that time for Tyrell Sutton, who currently finds himself in a familiar situation.
“The same thing happened last year [with Brandon Whitaker’s season-ending injury], so it’s kind of a deja-vu,” explains Sutton. Though, he beams, half-seriously, half-facetiously, there is one key difference: “except we’re going to win the Grey Cup this year!”
Given the Alouettes dropped seven of their first eight games, it’s tough to imagine Sutton or any of his teammates being this comfortable referencing contending for the Grey Cup just some weeks ago. But the fact is the team never stopped believing in their odds of pulling through what many called an impossible uphill battle.
The end result? Six wins in the past seven games to boost their record up to 7-8, a respectable figure that has allowed them to slide into first place atop the CFL’s East Division. The team may be in first, but their lead on the division is precarious at best and nonexistent at worst, given the second place Tiger-Cats hold an identical record and third-place Toronto is just one win behind both Hamilton and Montreal.
Nevertheless, optimism is on the menu for the Alouettes these days, as the team exudes a confidence that is far more like what Als fans are used to seeing from an organization that hasn’t missed the playoffs since its relocation from Baltimore in 1996.
Sutton knows there is still work to be done, with the team having not yet punched its ticket to the postseason for a 19th consecutive year.
“We control our own fate. We can’t act as if we’re pressing the situation. We have to make sure that we’re coming out here and playing Alouettes football and just still having fun.”
It may sound like a cliche, but Sutton’s appraisal of how the team has been able to not only keep pace, but improbably take the league by storm, rings genuinely.
“I think that’s been the biggest difference in the last part of the season: we’re actually having fun and enjoying each others’ company. We have to stay focused and just continue to play the way we have to play.”
A topic of conversation for much of this season has been the transition into the post-Anthony Calvillo era for the team at quarterback. Each of Troy Smith, Alex Brink, Tanner Marsh, and Jonathan Crompton have taken snaps under centre for the Alouettes at some point or another as coach Higgins patiently cycled through his pivots searching for some stability. The team seems to have found that in Crompton, who has started each of the past 6 games and won 5 of them, the true barometer of a quarterback’s worth – can he win, and do his teammates believe in him? – in Higgins’s book.
And though the passing game has hit its stride, the team isn’t running the ball any less now that yards are being picked up through the air.
“Nothing has changed for us. The road has to come to us at some point. If we’re winning and the passing game is going, we get the ball.”
Cold weather, meanwhile, is a factor in going to the ground more often. With November just around the corner but it feeling much like winter already in Canada, Sutton’s going to be trying to keep warm on the sideline and in the huddle. And the trick to keeping the blood flowing is pretty straightforward, according to him.
“Give me the ball! [laughs] When it gets colder, you can’t throw the ball as much. You have to come to us [running backs].”
Sutton, who joined the Alouettes early in 2013, can neatly sum up the qualities he strives to embody as a running back: “Aggression. Leadership. Intelligence. Intangibles: heart, determination.”
“I want to win,” he offers bluntly. “I want to win more than anyone else when I’m out there. I like to be firing on all cylinders.”
And, what seems to be the perfect refrain for this then-tumultuous and now-uplifting 2014 Alouettes season:
“Winning cures everything.”
That it does.
