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Marc Trestman nurtures Bears' band of brothers
Coach believes greatness possible when team emotionally invests in itself and that's evident in chance they have Sunday
By Rich Campbell, Chicago Tribune reporter
6:13 p.m. CST, December 28, 2013
When the game clock finally showed the Bears the only shred of brotherly love Philadelphia had to offer last Sunday, they retreated to their locker room to assess the damage.
Their 43-point margin of defeat was the fourth-largest in franchise history. That it occurred in a nationally televised game in which the Bears could have clinched the NFC North title compounded the embarrassment.
There was, however, a tranquility among players and coaches that belied the final score. Their collective mental state didn't just survive the beatdown. It was healthy. Before the showers stopped flowing, the Bears moved on to Sunday's de facto division championship game against the Packers at Soldier Field.
That ability to compartmentalize an outcome and focus on the next opportunity comes from coach Marc Trestman, who continuously has preached the importance of that during his first season. It certainly helped the Bears recover from their nadir earlier this month.
The outlook was much bleaker after the Vikings beat them in overtime Dec. 1 than it was last Sunday. Minutes after the Bears' third loss to a last-place team, Trestman encountered an emotionally wounded group. Several players were despondent at their lockers. Others dressed in silence.
Tears welled in Brandon Marshall's eyes. Robbie Gould, who missed a potential game-winning 47-yard field goal on a second down in overtime, fought to compose himself for reporters.
Trestman addressed his team, lauding players' effort and preparation before acknowledging they did not deserve to win. He blamed himself for their mistakes.
And in that moment, the Bears' two-game resurgence began. There was, after all, something serendipitous about that crushing defeat.
"You cannot fight adversity," Trestman told the Tribune in a recent interview. "You have to embrace it. You have to smile in the face of it and know that it's just temporary and it will pass, and we have to keep doing what we're doing."
Trestman has strived to instill that mentality since the Bears hired him to replace Lovie Smith in January. Football is his toolbox for teaching life lessons to the men who play this game, and overcoming adversity tops the syllabus.
He added that dimension to his coaching repertoire as a result of the personal transformation that began during his two-year stint as North Carolina State's offensive coordinator from 2005-06. He found professional happiness when his principles off the field became rooted as deeply as his competitiveness on it.
Trestman came to believe that greatness is possible when people emotionally invest in one another. He structured the Bears' program to foster such connections, and the rewards are evident in the opportunity they have Sunday.
Trestman's values and methods, matched with his football acumen, helped the Bears save their season this month with victories over the Cowboys and Browns that set up Sunday's title game.
That dire loss to the Vikings, then, was the ultimate measure of how successful Trestman's emotional stewardship has been. How he guided them through it fostered confidence they will respond to last Sunday's debacle with a championship performance against the Packers.
"It's one thing to handle adversity personally and to go through it personally, but to watch him lead through it, I think I've learned a lot," quarterback Josh McCown said. "It's his consistency. It's his toughness to stick to the plan. That's what I've been impressed with the most."
Socially unifying
McCown and Trestman commiserated in the coach's office on the Monday after the Vikings loss. At the time, the Lions' fortuitous collapse was three weeks from completion, so the Bears' defeat pushed their season to the abyss.
"It just sucked the life out of us," McCown said. "It was hard on everybody."
During the aftermath, the Bears had to contend with a scheduling quirk. The organization's holiday party was planned for that night.
With their season crumbling, how could players patch their emotions and genuinely engage other members of the organization?
"To be honest," Marshall said, "I was re-thinking about going because I was so hurt."
Trestman felt his players' pain and sensed reluctance to attend.
After that Sunday loss, though, he wanted Monday's metaphorical victory to entail meaningful interpersonal connections with those in the organization who don't commonly interact with players. It was the type of teaching moment Trestman thrives on at this stage of his career.
"We're not just in the football business," he said. "We're in the people business, and everybody matters. Everybody is important."
His reasoning is multi-faceted and a bit abstract. But once you grasp it, you understand the man behind the headset.
Trestman believes passion fuels performance. People who are passionate about their work and understand why they're driven is likely to be effective, especially when facing adversity, because of the positive energy the passion generates. He also believes passion is especially powerful when it's cultivated interpersonally.
As that applies to the Bears, Trestman formatted his program to nurture emotional investment by players and coaches in one another.
"Getting them to be in an environment where they want to do it for their teammates," he said. "And show them when you give with your heart, you may not get rewarded in that present moment, but eventually you will."
That extends throughout the organization, from the ticket sales staff to custodial workers. Trestman values the energy such connections create, especially as they relate to the franchise working toward its goals. He also appreciates how such relationships fulfill people in ways that withstand any final score or record.
If all that sounds to you like a bunch of psycho-babble, that's OK.
"He doesn't expect everyone to get it," said tight ends coach Andy Bischoff, who's one of Trestman's confidants from their five-year stint in the CFL. "He'll very openly say: 'Some of you young guys won't understand this.' But as long as we can keep bringing the group along, more people get it over time."
On that Dec. 2 Monday, players did understand Trestman's instruction to honor their commitments to attend the party.
The event in past years averaged five players. But that night, approximately 25, including McCown, Marshall, quarterback Jay Cutler and left tackle Jermon Bushrod joined 300 adults and 100 children at the Ivanhoe Club in Mundelein.
"At the end of the day," Bushrod said, "it was just about going there and clearing our minds and enjoying the people around us."
Trestman attended wearing a red and blue dress shirt, a dark sweater, a dark sport coat and jeans. A week later, after the Bears beat the Cowboys 45-28, he began his postgame news conference by citing players' attendance as a sign of their resilience.
"Coach just putting things in perspective, just addressing what it's really about," Marshall recalled. "He got everyone on the same page and helped us move forward faster. He helped me and a bunch of guys get past it."
Bonding as a whole
Connectivity is the Bears' way of life because Trestman structured it so from the beginning. When he arrived at Halas Hall, locker room stalls were arranged in segments by position groups. The running backs were next to each other, adjacent to the receivers, and so on.
Because players in a position group spend more time together than with anyone else, Trestman recognized a chance to expand players' social circles.
"They're passing up opportunities to really have lifelong relationships with guys," Trestman recalled last week. "And you never know where that's going to go. That's the beauty of it."
Trestman allowed several team leaders to remain in place, and then he empowered head equipment manager Tony Medlin to "spin the dial," as Trestman put it, to rearrange the room.
"He wants you to invest yourself in the rest of your teammates, so when game day comes, you want to work harder for that guy beside you because you know a little bit more about him," Bushrod said. "It's not just a work-related atmosphere. It's more of a family-type atmosphere."
Trestman encourages players to socialize with teammates and coaches during their meal periods, which are longer now than in past years.
He also schedules no meetings for the night before a game so that players can dine together or with their families. All meetings are completed before they check into the team hotel for home and away games, and players are free until they must return to the hotel in the 9 o'clock hour. That's not the norm in the NFL; Saturday night walk-throughs and game-planning meetings are common.
Third-year safety Chris Conte took advantage two Saturdays ago by dining at one of Cleveland's best steakhouses, XO Prime Steaks, with veteran backup quarterback Jordan Palmer.
"He's a guy who I see creating a lifelong friendship with," Conte said. "I probably wouldn't have even talked to him, but we have a lot in common. We went to high schools that played each other. We're from Southern California. When I get back to Southern California, he's a guy I'm going to hit up and call."
Trestman last week said he recently talked to Palmer about Conte.
"That's a good relationship to have because Jordan would be a good sounding board for somebody like Chris, growing up and help him — not how to backpedal, but other areas: how to be a pro and do the right things in his life," he said.
Trestman's culture of openness and togetherness scored its greatest triumph before the Browns game.
When Cutler was cleared to return from a four-game absence because of a sprained ankle, the debate between reinstalling him as the starter or sticking with McCown polarized the city. Cutler understood the magnitude of the decision, so he sought several leaders on offense to address any discord head-on.
After Cutler overcame two first-half interceptions with three touchdown passes in a 38-31 comeback victory, he lauded the environment Trestman has created.
"That's kind of what direction we want to go in is having an open locker room—players, coaches, everyone all-in on this because it takes all of us," Cutler said. "We all have to be together, and we all have to make it happen, or we lose together. We're starting to understand that it's reflected in how we play and how we practice."
Investing in each other
Trestman hosts a team meeting at 7:30 a.m. during the work week on each day players are at Halas Hall. He shares a quote or a video clip or a statistic to get players and staff to invest emotionally in the day and the week.
"It's not something that's just grabbed out of the clear blue sky," Bischoff said. "He talks about if your heart is not in it, you may be here practicing, know the plays, but you're heart has to be in it to fulfill how well you want to play."
On the Wednesday after the Vikings loss, Trestman displayed his "document," as he calls it, on the projector. It's basically a power point presentation that sets the team's course. That version had the scores of the Bears' victories over the Steelers (40-23), Giants (27-21) and Packers (27-20).
Ahead of their must-win Monday night game against the Cowboys, he tried to restore confidence by reminding them they had played their best in prime time.
"The medium in which he chooses to express the message is different, but what he's telling us is the same thing all the time," McCown said. "Being at our best in prime time is really no different than being at our best on Sunday afternoon, but it's just using the juice of the week and what's going on to continue to help us generate focus."
Certain themes tie together a season's worth of Trestman's day-starting messages.
"He's very honest with them about the fact there was a time in his career when he viewed players as chess pieces, and that is different," Bischoff said. "He's a different man in the way he approaches players because of the relationships and what they mean. In terms of how he can get them to connect, he talks a lot about mortality."
Trestman's appreciation for mortality in the sport is embedded in his psyche. Being fired seven times has that effect.
"Honor your work on a daily basis because football doesn't care," Trestman said. "Football only cares what it does for you today. You have to honor the game every day."
Trestman uses the concept to create a sense of urgency and prompt players to realize opportunities such as the one they have Sunday are fleeting.
"How could you ever not turn every page in your game-plan book if you completely respect the issue of mortality in this game?" Bischoff asked rhetorically.
Trestman, like many NFL coaches, strives to remain even-keeled. He wants his staff and players to do the same. In a league designed for parity, many coaches have realized the importance of leaving successes and failures behind and proceeding with a steadiness that ensures sharp focus.
Trestman learned that while working for nine NFL teams before he became head coach of the Montreal Alouettes in 2008. He has reiterated proudly how outsiders could not determine the outcome of the previous week's Bears game based on his players' demeanor or energy level.
"The word 'stabilize' is what comes to mind when I think of him," Bears special teams coordinator Joe DeCamillis said. "There hasn't been a lot of ebb and flow in our team because I don't think there's a lot of ebb and flow in him. That has helped us."
Of course, none of that ensures the Bears will be division champions Sunday night. Players still must do their jobs. Their seven losses this season prove that.
The emotional foundation Trestman has laid is just "part of the process of building it back each and every week," he said. "And there are still no guarantees."
But Trestman's emotional stewardship at least has equipped the Bears to conquer the latest round of adversity. If they dethrone the Packers and claim the NFC North crown, that would be no small part of their championship.
And for Trestman, it would validate the blueprint that goes with his toolbox.
rcampbell@tribune.com
Twitter @Rich_Campbell
Copyright © 2013 Chicago Tribune Company, LLC
Coach believes greatness possible when team emotionally invests in itself and that's evident in chance they have Sunday
By Rich Campbell, Chicago Tribune reporter
6:13 p.m. CST, December 28, 2013
When the game clock finally showed the Bears the only shred of brotherly love Philadelphia had to offer last Sunday, they retreated to their locker room to assess the damage.
Their 43-point margin of defeat was the fourth-largest in franchise history. That it occurred in a nationally televised game in which the Bears could have clinched the NFC North title compounded the embarrassment.
There was, however, a tranquility among players and coaches that belied the final score. Their collective mental state didn't just survive the beatdown. It was healthy. Before the showers stopped flowing, the Bears moved on to Sunday's de facto division championship game against the Packers at Soldier Field.
That ability to compartmentalize an outcome and focus on the next opportunity comes from coach Marc Trestman, who continuously has preached the importance of that during his first season. It certainly helped the Bears recover from their nadir earlier this month.
The outlook was much bleaker after the Vikings beat them in overtime Dec. 1 than it was last Sunday. Minutes after the Bears' third loss to a last-place team, Trestman encountered an emotionally wounded group. Several players were despondent at their lockers. Others dressed in silence.
Tears welled in Brandon Marshall's eyes. Robbie Gould, who missed a potential game-winning 47-yard field goal on a second down in overtime, fought to compose himself for reporters.
Trestman addressed his team, lauding players' effort and preparation before acknowledging they did not deserve to win. He blamed himself for their mistakes.
And in that moment, the Bears' two-game resurgence began. There was, after all, something serendipitous about that crushing defeat.
"You cannot fight adversity," Trestman told the Tribune in a recent interview. "You have to embrace it. You have to smile in the face of it and know that it's just temporary and it will pass, and we have to keep doing what we're doing."
Trestman has strived to instill that mentality since the Bears hired him to replace Lovie Smith in January. Football is his toolbox for teaching life lessons to the men who play this game, and overcoming adversity tops the syllabus.
He added that dimension to his coaching repertoire as a result of the personal transformation that began during his two-year stint as North Carolina State's offensive coordinator from 2005-06. He found professional happiness when his principles off the field became rooted as deeply as his competitiveness on it.
Trestman came to believe that greatness is possible when people emotionally invest in one another. He structured the Bears' program to foster such connections, and the rewards are evident in the opportunity they have Sunday.
Trestman's values and methods, matched with his football acumen, helped the Bears save their season this month with victories over the Cowboys and Browns that set up Sunday's title game.
That dire loss to the Vikings, then, was the ultimate measure of how successful Trestman's emotional stewardship has been. How he guided them through it fostered confidence they will respond to last Sunday's debacle with a championship performance against the Packers.
"It's one thing to handle adversity personally and to go through it personally, but to watch him lead through it, I think I've learned a lot," quarterback Josh McCown said. "It's his consistency. It's his toughness to stick to the plan. That's what I've been impressed with the most."
Socially unifying
McCown and Trestman commiserated in the coach's office on the Monday after the Vikings loss. At the time, the Lions' fortuitous collapse was three weeks from completion, so the Bears' defeat pushed their season to the abyss.
"It just sucked the life out of us," McCown said. "It was hard on everybody."
During the aftermath, the Bears had to contend with a scheduling quirk. The organization's holiday party was planned for that night.
With their season crumbling, how could players patch their emotions and genuinely engage other members of the organization?
"To be honest," Marshall said, "I was re-thinking about going because I was so hurt."
Trestman felt his players' pain and sensed reluctance to attend.
After that Sunday loss, though, he wanted Monday's metaphorical victory to entail meaningful interpersonal connections with those in the organization who don't commonly interact with players. It was the type of teaching moment Trestman thrives on at this stage of his career.
"We're not just in the football business," he said. "We're in the people business, and everybody matters. Everybody is important."
His reasoning is multi-faceted and a bit abstract. But once you grasp it, you understand the man behind the headset.
Trestman believes passion fuels performance. People who are passionate about their work and understand why they're driven is likely to be effective, especially when facing adversity, because of the positive energy the passion generates. He also believes passion is especially powerful when it's cultivated interpersonally.
As that applies to the Bears, Trestman formatted his program to nurture emotional investment by players and coaches in one another.
"Getting them to be in an environment where they want to do it for their teammates," he said. "And show them when you give with your heart, you may not get rewarded in that present moment, but eventually you will."
That extends throughout the organization, from the ticket sales staff to custodial workers. Trestman values the energy such connections create, especially as they relate to the franchise working toward its goals. He also appreciates how such relationships fulfill people in ways that withstand any final score or record.
If all that sounds to you like a bunch of psycho-babble, that's OK.
"He doesn't expect everyone to get it," said tight ends coach Andy Bischoff, who's one of Trestman's confidants from their five-year stint in the CFL. "He'll very openly say: 'Some of you young guys won't understand this.' But as long as we can keep bringing the group along, more people get it over time."
On that Dec. 2 Monday, players did understand Trestman's instruction to honor their commitments to attend the party.
The event in past years averaged five players. But that night, approximately 25, including McCown, Marshall, quarterback Jay Cutler and left tackle Jermon Bushrod joined 300 adults and 100 children at the Ivanhoe Club in Mundelein.
"At the end of the day," Bushrod said, "it was just about going there and clearing our minds and enjoying the people around us."
Trestman attended wearing a red and blue dress shirt, a dark sweater, a dark sport coat and jeans. A week later, after the Bears beat the Cowboys 45-28, he began his postgame news conference by citing players' attendance as a sign of their resilience.
"Coach just putting things in perspective, just addressing what it's really about," Marshall recalled. "He got everyone on the same page and helped us move forward faster. He helped me and a bunch of guys get past it."
Bonding as a whole
Connectivity is the Bears' way of life because Trestman structured it so from the beginning. When he arrived at Halas Hall, locker room stalls were arranged in segments by position groups. The running backs were next to each other, adjacent to the receivers, and so on.
Because players in a position group spend more time together than with anyone else, Trestman recognized a chance to expand players' social circles.
"They're passing up opportunities to really have lifelong relationships with guys," Trestman recalled last week. "And you never know where that's going to go. That's the beauty of it."
Trestman allowed several team leaders to remain in place, and then he empowered head equipment manager Tony Medlin to "spin the dial," as Trestman put it, to rearrange the room.
"He wants you to invest yourself in the rest of your teammates, so when game day comes, you want to work harder for that guy beside you because you know a little bit more about him," Bushrod said. "It's not just a work-related atmosphere. It's more of a family-type atmosphere."
Trestman encourages players to socialize with teammates and coaches during their meal periods, which are longer now than in past years.
He also schedules no meetings for the night before a game so that players can dine together or with their families. All meetings are completed before they check into the team hotel for home and away games, and players are free until they must return to the hotel in the 9 o'clock hour. That's not the norm in the NFL; Saturday night walk-throughs and game-planning meetings are common.
Third-year safety Chris Conte took advantage two Saturdays ago by dining at one of Cleveland's best steakhouses, XO Prime Steaks, with veteran backup quarterback Jordan Palmer.
"He's a guy who I see creating a lifelong friendship with," Conte said. "I probably wouldn't have even talked to him, but we have a lot in common. We went to high schools that played each other. We're from Southern California. When I get back to Southern California, he's a guy I'm going to hit up and call."
Trestman last week said he recently talked to Palmer about Conte.
"That's a good relationship to have because Jordan would be a good sounding board for somebody like Chris, growing up and help him — not how to backpedal, but other areas: how to be a pro and do the right things in his life," he said.
Trestman's culture of openness and togetherness scored its greatest triumph before the Browns game.
When Cutler was cleared to return from a four-game absence because of a sprained ankle, the debate between reinstalling him as the starter or sticking with McCown polarized the city. Cutler understood the magnitude of the decision, so he sought several leaders on offense to address any discord head-on.
After Cutler overcame two first-half interceptions with three touchdown passes in a 38-31 comeback victory, he lauded the environment Trestman has created.
"That's kind of what direction we want to go in is having an open locker room—players, coaches, everyone all-in on this because it takes all of us," Cutler said. "We all have to be together, and we all have to make it happen, or we lose together. We're starting to understand that it's reflected in how we play and how we practice."
Investing in each other
Trestman hosts a team meeting at 7:30 a.m. during the work week on each day players are at Halas Hall. He shares a quote or a video clip or a statistic to get players and staff to invest emotionally in the day and the week.
"It's not something that's just grabbed out of the clear blue sky," Bischoff said. "He talks about if your heart is not in it, you may be here practicing, know the plays, but you're heart has to be in it to fulfill how well you want to play."
On the Wednesday after the Vikings loss, Trestman displayed his "document," as he calls it, on the projector. It's basically a power point presentation that sets the team's course. That version had the scores of the Bears' victories over the Steelers (40-23), Giants (27-21) and Packers (27-20).
Ahead of their must-win Monday night game against the Cowboys, he tried to restore confidence by reminding them they had played their best in prime time.
"The medium in which he chooses to express the message is different, but what he's telling us is the same thing all the time," McCown said. "Being at our best in prime time is really no different than being at our best on Sunday afternoon, but it's just using the juice of the week and what's going on to continue to help us generate focus."
Certain themes tie together a season's worth of Trestman's day-starting messages.
"He's very honest with them about the fact there was a time in his career when he viewed players as chess pieces, and that is different," Bischoff said. "He's a different man in the way he approaches players because of the relationships and what they mean. In terms of how he can get them to connect, he talks a lot about mortality."
Trestman's appreciation for mortality in the sport is embedded in his psyche. Being fired seven times has that effect.
"Honor your work on a daily basis because football doesn't care," Trestman said. "Football only cares what it does for you today. You have to honor the game every day."
Trestman uses the concept to create a sense of urgency and prompt players to realize opportunities such as the one they have Sunday are fleeting.
"How could you ever not turn every page in your game-plan book if you completely respect the issue of mortality in this game?" Bischoff asked rhetorically.
Trestman, like many NFL coaches, strives to remain even-keeled. He wants his staff and players to do the same. In a league designed for parity, many coaches have realized the importance of leaving successes and failures behind and proceeding with a steadiness that ensures sharp focus.
Trestman learned that while working for nine NFL teams before he became head coach of the Montreal Alouettes in 2008. He has reiterated proudly how outsiders could not determine the outcome of the previous week's Bears game based on his players' demeanor or energy level.
"The word 'stabilize' is what comes to mind when I think of him," Bears special teams coordinator Joe DeCamillis said. "There hasn't been a lot of ebb and flow in our team because I don't think there's a lot of ebb and flow in him. That has helped us."
Of course, none of that ensures the Bears will be division champions Sunday night. Players still must do their jobs. Their seven losses this season prove that.
The emotional foundation Trestman has laid is just "part of the process of building it back each and every week," he said. "And there are still no guarantees."
But Trestman's emotional stewardship at least has equipped the Bears to conquer the latest round of adversity. If they dethrone the Packers and claim the NFC North crown, that would be no small part of their championship.
And for Trestman, it would validate the blueprint that goes with his toolbox.
rcampbell@tribune.com
Twitter @Rich_Campbell
Copyright © 2013 Chicago Tribune Company, LLC
