With the release of Darian Durant, the 2018 version of the Montreal Alouettes are coming into something of a clearer focus.

After a disappointing 3-15 season that saw Durant endure one of the worst seasons of his career (274-of-417 passing for 3,233 yards, 15 touchdowns and 16 interceptions in 15 games), GM Kavis Reed has taken the team’s focus off of his 35-year-old starter and will look to the future.

He hinted at that last week in Banff, at the CFL GMs and presidents meetings.

“Montreal was very fortunate that since it returned (to the CFL in 1996) it’s had really two quarterbacks that were the stabilizing forces of the franchise: Tracy Ham and Anthony Calvillo,” he told CFL.ca.

“There are a number of very good names in between but long-term, those two names were at the top of the quarterback list for the franchise. Since Anthony’s retirement we’ve had a number of people try at that position, work at that position without success.

“Maybe what we’ve been looking for and how we were doing it has to be adjusted. Maybe we have to say we’re going to find that young individual and we’re going to groom them to be that next guy. Tracy Ham went through a process, Anthony Calvillo went through a process.”

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With the signing of former NFL QB Josh Freeman on Saturday, and with the increased use of 25-year-old Matthew Shiltz late in the season, Reed and the Alouettes had already begun looking to the future and thinking about that development process.

“People tend to remember the last part, the finished product,” Reed said. “They don’t remember the first couple of years with those quarterbacks (Ham and Calvillo) and few and far between their first couple of years are stellar in terms of their success.

“We have to be committed to a developmental process and we have to make certain that the infrastructure around that particular player or players are in place so that our team can be competitive while we develop the next guy.”

If you talk with Reed long enough, you’ll hear that catchphrase, trust the process. A longtime Philadelphia 76ers fan, Reed has spent considerable time watching his team take its lumps with an eye to the future. Through those years, he’d always talk about the assets acquired through 19, 18 and 10-win seasons and how it would eventually, hopefully work out.

Now, finally, with Ben Simmons and Joel Embiid looking like a pair of franchise players and all-stars for years to come, the Sixers are an even 20-20 and have their sights on a playoff berth for the first time in six years.

The situation isn’t exactly applicable in Montreal. Reed knows that a No. 1 pick in the Canadian draft isn’t going to pull his team out of the league’s cellar. He’s seen and felt the pain of Philly’s process as a fan, but he watched the Sixers trust in it and enjoyed seeing them come out the other side.

Wins and losses aren’t necessarily a product of just what happens on the field, he says. It starts with building a foundation the right way. When you have that foundation and the right culture, you’re set up for long-term success.

“I think about (the Sixers’ situation) all the time,” he said. “It’s that resiliency when you’re being attacked and bombarded in the media about what you should do and what you didn’t do.

“I’m going to go steadfast with what I believe is going to be the right thing for this franchise.”

He admits that he’s got to work in fast-forward, that he doesn’t have the time that the Sixers did to bottom feed for years and rise up. The Alouettes laid low before Reed took the job last year. He knows that Sam Hinkie, the Sixers’ GM that initiated the process, didn’t get to see the team’s brighter days.

“Unfortunately we’re in an instant gratification world. Social media and everything has made everything,” — Reed snapped his fingers loudly, the noise echoing through the large ballroom at the hotel in Banff — “instant. Everyone has an opinion, everyone knows what’s right and everyone has a solution to all the world’s problems but yet the problems still exist.”

“I think leaders sometimes go into things and they don’t have an ability to immediately get it done. Because we don’t get it done immediately you start to have a lot of questions.” Alouettes GM Kavis Reed on being patient

Reed will lean on Freeman, on Shiltz, on Antonio Pipkin. For the fans of a team that’s been out of the playoffs three years in a row, the future can’t get here fast enough.

“I think leaders sometimes go into things and they don’t have an ability to immediately get it done. Because we don’t get it done immediately you start to have a lot of questions,” he said.

“Then when it is done, i.e., the Sixers, people go retrospectively, ‘Hmm, he was on to something’. But you didn’t give him the time to be able to solidify it.

“The Sixers are probably going to be perennial contenders because of the foundation work that has been done. It’s a patience thing and you have to balance that as a leader. You have to balance the business aspect of it that you want your team to be competitive right away. You can do that in a nine-team league but you can’t compromise certain things or you’re going to find yourself, the next year, back in a difficult situation.”