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Three lessons for CFL coaches from Marc Trestman’s time with the Montreal Alouettes
Marc Trestman made one of the more unusual coaching moves in recent memory this past offseason, leaving the CFL's Montreal Alouettes to take over as head coach of the NFL's Chicago Bears. While CFL coaches had made the transition directly to head jobs in the NFL before (Bud Grant and Marv Levy are examples), that hadn't happened in decades. Trestman and his CFL-heavy staffgot off to a great start in Chicago this past weekend, though, knocking off the Cincinnati Bengals 24-21, and that's not really surprising: while Trestman's first head coaching stint at any level in Montreal back in 2008 started with just a 2-3 mark, the same initial record that saw his replacement Dan Hawkins fired this year, he quickly got the Alouettes on board with his ideas and led them to an appearance in the 2008 Grey Cup, then back-to-back Grey Cup victories in the next two seasons and then two solid seasons after that. What's made Trestman an effective head coach at both the CFL and the NFL levels? Yahoo!'s Les Carpenter has an excellent piece on the roots of Trestman's coaching success, and there are three key lessons in it that might prove useful for current CFL coaches. (All following quotes are from Carpenter's piece.)
1. Accountability.
"He wanted everybody on the same page," [Als' WR Brandon] London continues. "He wanted everyone to be accountable."
London stops, still holding his Trestbook in his hand.
"I'm going to say 'accountability' about 100 times in this interview," he says. ...
Trestman was never "one of the guys." In Montreal he lived in an apartment in the cobblestoned street near the St. Lawrence River. If he wasn't there he was in his office at Olympic Stadium either writing one of his books or working on gameplans. His indulgence was not beer but the occasional glass of wine. He was often in bed by 9 p.m. and up and in the office by 4 the next morning.
"I know he expects a lot from his coaches," [linebacker Marc-Olivier] Brouillette says. "He expects them to be in early and leave late. He may not be the easiest guy to get along with because he demands so much of the people around him. But I think he knows that's for the greater good." ...
Accountability's an oft-used term in the CFL, but not everyone actually applies it. Eskimos' general manager Ed Hervey, for example, recently said "this business is about accountability," but the way he's blamed his team's problems on everyone from Eric Tillman to Simeon Rottier doesn't exactly live up to that. Trestman expected a lot out of his coaches and players in Montreal, but he matched that by working himself ridiculously hard, and when things did go wrong, he took the responsibility himself instead of pointing fingers. One case in point came when he credited the Toronto defence for last year's East-Final-ending play rather than blaming receiver Brian Bratton's drop. Throughout his Alouettes' tenure, Trestman was about correcting problems rather than finding scapegoats, and he wasn't afraid to put in the work himself and admit he didn't always make all the right calls. That's a big part of what made him successful, and that leads into the next point here.
2. Team-building:
The Alouettes had never encountered anyone like Trestman before. He came to Montreal with a lifetime of ideas gleaned from men like Bud Grant, Howard Schnellenberger and Bill Walsh, all of whom had employed or influenced him at some point in his career.
New players, accustomed to a traditional football world where each position group had separate meetings, were stunned to find themselves asked to sit in another position's meetings. London, for instance, didn't understand why Trestman wanted the receivers to watch film with the offensive linemen, listening as the coach broke down designed runs that had nothing to do with wide receivers.
"Why do I care about this run play?" London said to himself. "Why do I care about a draw play or a toss?"
Marc Trestman won big twice in the CFL as his Alouettes captured Grey Cup titles in 2009 and '10. (CP)
But the more Trestman spoke, the more London understood. If he could see what the linemen and running backs have to do to make a run play work, the better he could block for it downfield. The more plays the Alouettes ran, the more chances he would have to catch the ball. Then it hit him: If each of them could see the game through their teammate's eyes, grasping what that man had to do, they could bond over the shared responsibility. And once they had that bond they would truly be a team. ...At the same time he immersed himself in his players' lives. He told players to skip practice to tend to family issues and encouraged them to have a life away from football. When Brouillette, a lawyer in the offseason, passed the bar, Trestman called the team together and announced the news. Last year, after London injured his leg and couldn't play, Trestman encouraged him to take the acting classes he had been considering and even inspired him to move to Los Angeles when the season ended.
"It was never about titles," Trestman says standing on the field in Bourbonnais. "We never talked about it. We talked about building authentic relationships so on gameday they knew you had their back. It wasn't you gave pep talks, it was showing guys how valuable relationships are and how working hard will give you a chance at success."
This is the other part of accountability: caring about your players and building an actual team, not just a number of individuals who happen to play together. That can be done in any number of ways, from Don Matthews' encouraging of the 2002 Alouettes' hell-raising to Trestman's more subdued approach, but it's notable how often Trestman was able to get players on side. Even those once considered problem cases such as Dwight Anderson (he of the spitting accusations, fake injuries, feuds with Trestman and now even assault charges) eventually came around.
The way Trestman handled the Anderson situation was particularly revelatory; instead of just cutting a problematic player in the offseason as many coaches or GMs would, Trestman managed to patch things up with him and retain a talented piece. That was one of the key reasons to believe Trestman would do well in the NFL, and it's something other CFL coaches and executives would do well to learn from.
3. Precision.
Trestman besieged them with details. Everything needed to be precise. Pass routes were to be run at exact angles, linemen's stances required fingers on specific spots without a deviation of even a couple inches. But with each demand came an explanation. He told them why a sloppy pass route could lead to a bad throw or a lineman's failure to stand in his assigned place might destroy a run play. He made each of them believe their role was the most important on each play because if they slipped up and something went wrong, the whole play could be compromised.
He prepared an organizational manual that he mailed to his assistants and the front-office people during the offseason. It was an inch thick and it contained page upon page of team policies from how they ate lunch in the cafeteria to how they threw towels in the locker room hamper. To see who was actually reading, he inserted a line about 2/3 of the way through the book that read: "When you get to this, call me."
While accountability and team-building are both important to a team's success, they don't produce great results without tremendous execution. Some coaches focus more on the motivational aspects of the game, but while Trestman excelled at those too, his CFL tenure (and his remarkable tenure as an NFL offensive coordinator before that) showed just how good he was at the X's and O's side of the game. In particular, the West Coast-based, high-percentage passing scheme he brought in was a remarkable innovation for the CFL game, giving Anthony Calvillo some of his best years and leading the Alouettes to the first back-to-back Grey Cups since Matthews did that with the 1996 and 1997 Argos (and a certain quarterback named Doug Flutie). That scheme's led Montreal to find some success this year after Trestman's departure, and it's also led to a lot of success for the Toronto Argonauts (run by two of Trestman's offensive coordinators in Montreal, now-Toronto head coach Scott Milanovich and now-Toronto offensive coordinator Marcus Brady).
Trestman's attack functions on pure precision, though. Every player has to know not only what his own responsibilities are on a given play, but how the linemen are blocking, where and when passes are likely to be thrown and more. Trestman installed his ideas and his playbooks with precision, and he demanded the same from his assistants. He also demanded precise execution from his players once they got out onto the field. That's not an easy sell, but the accountability Trestman delivered himself and the team-building he instilled made it work in the CFL, and that's a key reason why he now has a prime NFL gig. Other CFL coaches would do well to learn from his example.
