Montreal coach: QB Manziel could play this week

Johnny Manziel is going to get on the field for the Montreal Alouettes, team officials made clear Monday. It’s just a matter of when.

“We didn’t bring him here to have him sit on the bench,” said Alouettes coach Mike Sherman, one day after the team acquired Manziel in a blockbuster CFL trade.

Manziel practiced for the first time Monday in Montreal, which hosts the Edmonton Eskimos on Thursday night. Sherman joked that Manziel might need extra time to assimilate because “our playbook is in French.”

But Sherman did not rule out the possibility that Manziel could get his first CFL game action against the Eskimos.

“This is quite a short week,” Sherman said. “We’ll just see how the week plays out. I don’t want to put added pressure on him and I want everybody else to get ready to play. We’ll just play it out during the course of the week.”

Manziel did not play a single snap during a five-game stretch with the Hamilton Tiger-Cats, stuck on the depth chart behind starter Jeremiah Masoli. Manziel said Monday that “in no way, shape or form” did he request a trade and said he would trust Sherman and general manager Kavis Reed “to put me in a position to succeed.”

Manziel added: “I believe … that when I’m ready, they’ll give me a chance. Until then, I’m going to continue to come in and work like I need to work to try to catch up at a rapid pace.”