Hit the Post with Rick Moffat

Coach Trestman has pulled off an Alouettes’ coaching first….first never to win a pre-season game (since the team was reborn in ’96). While Don Mathews invoked his balls-to-the-wall,win at all costs approach even in his first exhibition(ist) games on the Als’ sideline, Trestman’s studious method to the talent-evaluation madness may have cost a meaningless game, but will pay off come regular season.



Trestman may be driving his players hard with more meetings, rules and regs than the veterans are used to, but he’s driving his assistants equally hard. Is he a closet Maoist? The work-camp ethic also revealed an egalitarian streak on the flight home from Winnipeg…no coaches were upgraded to First-class seats as in some previous years, with Trestman and his confidantes scattered among the players.



Adrian McPherson throws on the run better than any Als’ qb I’ve seen. His ease sliding out of the pocket jumps out as the highlight of the ’08 pre-season. An NFL castoff hasn’t made this big an impression this fast since Lawrence Phillips but the two men could not be more polar opposites….The bi-polar Phillips told me in a live postgame interview on CJAD back in 2002 that he felt he was the best player in the CFL (it was still pre-season!), and if the Als didn’t keep him (Pringle still seemed indestructible and indispensable at the time) , Phillips was sure he’d land somewhere else.



McPherson seems truly thankful for an opportunity to be playing football anywhere outside a hockey arena! The Arena League survivor is articulate, open, calm and humble. If the Als’ o-line shows cracks again this season, the man blacklisted for suing the NFL’s Titans because he couldn’t escape the blindside rush from Tennessee’s mascot on an ATV may at some point be needed to fire bombs from the escape hatches of the offensive backfield.

-- Rick Moffat is a Lachine resident and the play-by-play voice of the Montreal Alouettes and Montreal Canadiens on CJAD 800 AM.