Johnny Manziel throws first 2 CFL TD passes, Alouettes fall

MONTREAL (AP) — Johnny Manziel threw the first two touchdown passes of his Canadian Football League career Sunday in the Montreal Alouettes' 34-29 loss to the Saskatchewan Roughriders.

"If we would have come out here and gotten a win, and there were zero touchdown passes on the board, I would be sitting here happier than I am right now," Manziel said. "But I got the monkey off my back."

Manziel completed 9 of 16 passes for 138 yards and ran for 45 yards. He was sacked five times.

On a flea flicker in the second quarter, Manziel handed off to running back William Stanback, who reversed it to receiver B.J. Cunningham with another handoff. Cunningham flipped the ball back to Manziel, who went deep for the 47-yard score to a wide-open Adarius Bowman.

"I'm not going to lie, I didn't have 100 percent faith in it because it didn't really work in practice," Bowman said. "But Coach said it would and he said it was up this week. It was nice for the team to execute it and get it done."

The touchdown put the Alouettes ahead 14-13 in Manziel's fourth CFL start.

"We had been trying to call it since the first play of the game," Manziel said. "I was just trying to get B.J. to get me the ball as quick as possible because I could see what was happening down the field."

In the fourth quarter, Manziel threw a 20-yard scoring pass to Ernest Jackson to make it 31-29. Manziel was stopped at the 1 on the two-point conversion attempt.

Montreal has lost three in a row to drop to 3-11.