Of all the coaches I covered in the NFL, the one assistant I wasn't sure would find what he was looking for was Marc Trestman.
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| 'I'm excited and having fun with it,' Marc Trestman says of his CFL job. (Getty Images) |
At the time, Trestman hoped to parlay his success -- and the success of the Raiders -- into a head coaching job, but it never happened.
So he wound up on the cutting room floor last year after losing his job as offensive coordinator at North Carolina State -- the first time in the past 18 years he was out of football.
That's not how you find head coaching jobs, but it's how Trestman found his. He's now the head coach of the Montreal Alouettes, and c'est si bon.
It's the perfect job for Trestman.
First of all, it allows him to do what he always wanted, which is to run a football team. Second, the Alouettes let him spend the offseason with his family in Raleigh, N.C., where his girls attend high school. Third, CFL rules play to someone with Trestman's expertise in the passing game. Fourth, it's Montreal, and, hey, what's not to like?
"I'm excited and having fun with it," said Trestman, hired after GM Jim Popp asked him to interview for the job. "I'm really grateful, and I'm going to do the best I can."
Here's hoping he does because Trestman was one of the smartest, most thoughtful and most gracious coaches I met covering this league. He was one of the most successful, too, with his work with the 2002 Raiders the crowning achievement.
When Oakland played the Steelers the second game that season, Trestman dialed up 65 passes -- including 18 in the first 19 snaps -- and the Raiders cruised to a 30-17 victory. Later, the Raiders ran 60 times in a 24-0 defeat of Kansas City, becoming the first team in NFL history to win running and passing 60 times each in the same year.
Gannon wound up with 4,689 passing yards and 26 TDs, and the Raiders produced a league-high 450 points. By comparison, Oakland's quarterbacks had 24 touchdown passes, and the team 451 points the last two years.
"The best time of my whole career," Trestman said of his Oakland experience.
Until now, that is. Because now he has his first head coaching job, albeit in a league where the rules, the field, the rosters, the budgets are -- pardon the expression -- foreign to anything Trestman experienced in the NFL.
"It is, and it isn't different," said Trestman. "When you get to the game aspect it looked very different to me early on. The field is wider. It's longer. There are 12 guys. And it's maximum motion, so you can have everyone running on a play.
"But when you come to what I call 'the box,' it's very similar to the NFL. The coaching is outstanding -- with everything you see defensively in the NFL expertly done in the CFL.
"Yes, there are probably a dozen or so rules that are different -- the first being that there are only three downs -- but overall the more you do it and the more you see it the more it becomes understandable. So it doesn't look as different anymore. Over the last six months it's changed dramatically, at least to my eyes."
That was apparent in Trestman's debut, a 34-34 tie in an exhibition game with Toronto. Trestman called the plays in the first half; his offensive coordinator called them the second.
The results speak for themselves: Montreal's quarterbacks were 34-for-47, throwing for 360 yards.
"I'm just going to have fun and see what happens," said Trestman.
And why not? Trestman is operating out of the critical eye of the NFL. He can take chances in a new environment. He has a proven quarterback in 15-year veteran Anthony Calvillo, and he likes what he has behind him -- former Iowa star Brad Banks and Florida State's Adrian McPherson. Florida's Chris Leak, UNH's Ricky Santos and veteran Marcus Brady were put on injured lists.
Trestman likes the ownership, too, saying Robert Wetenhall "has given me all the resources necessary to do this job," and he's grateful to Popp -- the team's head coach/GM last season -- for giving him the chance I thought never would arrive.
"I never gave up," said Trestman. "I never looked at another coach and said, 'Why is he there and I'm not?' I always believe that everyone's time comes when it does."
So Marc Trestman's time is now. Good. What I want to know is if he has success here, what's next?
Warren Moon, Doug Flutie and Jeff Garcia traded in the CFL for the NFL. So did coaches Marv Levy and Frank Kush. It's not the conventional road to the top, but now that Trestman is in a position to prove himself I wonder whether we see him coaching again in this country.
"That's always something you think about," he said. "But at this stage I'm really starting the second half of my coaching career. And I'm highly energized in terms of my approach to the team and what I'm doing.
"I'm really having a blast. I have high-quality players. We have good quarterbacks. I'm living in old Montreal. And my family is going to be spending the summer with me. I'm just focusing on having a great time up here and being a part of this and whatever happens."
For years, Marc Trestman told people he could be a successful head coach; that he could help their programs; that he was worth a gamble. One team believed. Now it's up to Trestman to deliver.
"Time will tell the direction we go with this thing," he said. "But right now it's really good, and I'm accomplishing and pushing everything I hoped last January -- which is continuing to do the things I love and keeping my family in place. I'm enjoying this whole process, and I'm not concerned with what may happen down the road."
