Advertisement

Dan LeFevour signing boosts Montreal's quarterback depth, but will he get a chance to play?

Dan LeFevour did well in limited playing time with Hamilton last season before getting hurt. Will he get a chance to shine in Montreal? (Ben Nelms/Reuters.)
Dan LeFevour did well in limited playing time with Hamilton last season before getting hurt. Will he get a chance to shine in Montreal? (Ben Nelms/Reuters.)

The Montreal Alouettes' signing of receiver Nik Lewis Wednesday afternoon looked like a good fit for both the player and the team, but while their Wednesday evening signing of quarterback Dan LeFevour is a boost for the team, it may be more ambiguous for the player. LeFevour is a nice addition for Montreal; in the wake of Kevin Glenn's signing with Saskatchewan, he was clearly the best quarterback left on the free-agent market (and there's a case that he's a better signing than Glenn; he's less proven, but is younger with more upside and put up better per-game numbers in 2014), and he gives the Alouettes some much-needed depth behind Jonathon Crompton. However, the question is if LeFevour will get much of a chance to play with Montreal.

On the one hand, there weren't a lot of other landing spots for LeFevour. Every CFL team is going into this year with their starter from last season still entrenched in that role (a rarity in recent CFL offseasons), so LeFevour wasn't getting a chance to start right away regardless of where he landed. Teams also had questions about how well he'd recovered from the season-ending torn ACL he suffered last August. Thus, it was down to picking the best place to be a backup. However, choosing Montreal has advantages and disadvantages. On the upside for LeFevour, Crompton is the least-experienced starter in the CFL, and the team's other current quarterbacks (Tanner Marsh, Jerrod Johnson and John Skelton) don't have a lot of CFL experience either. It's quite easy to see LeFevour becoming the firm #2 in Montreal if he has a good training camp and plays at the level he did in 2014.

On the other hand, being the #2 quarterback with the Alouettes may be less valuable than it is elsewhere. Crompton is young (27), so it's not like the team will be grooming a replacement for him based on age, and he's been healthy so far, so playing time may be hard to come by. Compare that to other CFL cities; just about every other CFL quarterback missed time last year, and the B.C. Lions in particular (who reportedly were targeting LeFevour) still have serious questions to face about the health of starter Travis Lulay. Many of those cities also have over-30 starters who they'd like to start developing a replacement for. That seems unlikely to be the case in Montreal.

This could possibly work out well for LeFevour if the Alouettes aren't all that committed to Crompton. Despite how well they played down the stretch (they recovered from a 2-7 start to go 7-2 in the back half of the schedule and made it all the way to the East Final), and how much credit Crompton got for helping to spark a once-horrible offence, his stats weren't all that great. He finished the year with just 2,482 passing yards, a 58.1 per cent completion rate and 11 touchdowns against eight interceptions. Meanwhile, LeFevour posted 1,276 passing yards with a 67.8 per cent completion rate in five games as Hamilton's starter (although he did have four interceptions against four touchdowns), and he also picked up 631 rushing yards on 104 carries.

Recent history suggests the Als may not be committed to Crompton for the long run just because they won with him, either; look what happened with Troy Smith, who did well down the stretch in 2013 and entered this season as Montreal's starter, but was benched and then cut halfway through after a string of rough performances. If Crompton does struggle, LeFevour could get a chance. It's also notable that the Alouettes experimented with quarterback subs in rushing-focused packages last year with Marsh; LeFevour has excelled in that role before, so he might get to play even if Crompton remains the starter.

It's also notable that LeFevour isn't locked in for the long term. This is reportedly a one-year contract (a feature of the new CBA), so if Montreal doesn't prove to be the right fit for him, he can go elsewhere after the season. Still, he's shown off a lot of intriguing potential so far, based both on his remarkable NCAA career at Central Michigan and what he's accomplished in two seasons with Hamilton. If he gets substantial playing time with the Alouettes, that could be what he needs to step up to a starting role in 2016, whether that's in Montreal or elsewhere. We'll see if he gets the opportunity or not.