CHIBears
An apology to Marc Trestman about a very specific thing that is not at all related to his coaching
When Marc Trestman was hired, he made the following comment during his introductory press conference
The fact of the matter is I love calling plays. I love ball, and I want to be hands on coaching football.
The "I love ball" portion of this quote came in for a good bit of ridicule from local media, as part of a broader critique of Trestman's background, appearance, demeanor and overall vibe. The requisite Anchorman "I love lamp!" jokes were made on social media, and I distinctly remember the "I love ball" quote being used as an audio drop on ESPN1000 in a derisive fashion, usually to suggest this guy is just an awkward weirdo who is not a football guy. I'm certain I made similar jokes myself at the time
Fast forward a decade+ later, referring to football (and frankly any ball sport) as "ball" is everywhere. All around you people are professing to know ball and love ball, and accusing others of not knowing ball or being dedicated to ball. It's practically in the "talking sports on the internet" starter kit.
Now I'm not here to say Trestman invented the use of "ball" in this fashion. But he certainly trotted it out in a public forum long, long before it was widely used and caught a good amount of shit. That was wrong. Setting aside all his other faults (and there were many), the guy loved ball, and he shouldn't have been ridiculed for saying so.
Discussion
Heavy hitting stuff
it hasn't been easy carrying this around for years. it was time to correct the record.
I love ball 3000
peak offseason post
true irrelevance is what July is all about
It's the time for a final frenzy of inconsequential anecdotes for the (foot)ball-starved fans prior to the start of training camp.
I distinctly remember the "I love ball" quote being used as an audio drop on ESPN1000 in a derisive fashion
They do this endlessly at 1000. I remember a few years back they took a sound bite of Jerry Jones saying "I don't have the patience to jack with you" and played that bite like they were infants playing with a noisemaking toy.
If they can take 2 seconds of someone sounding gay, they'll play it until your ears bleed
A lot of that generation's humor is either calling someone gay or defending yourself from being called gay.
Bro I’m not gay stop it’s like if I was gay why would i constantly remind you I’m not like bro a cock hahahaha whipped out hHahaha locker room fights hahaha gay I’m not I cock I’m not
Gay
The harder you defend yourself, the gayer you are. I think the lady doth protest too much...
That's gay.
Trestman is still coaching in the NFL and is obviously respected by his peers.
It sucked it was an utter disaster here but those Bears were dysfunctional top to bottom. The awkward release of Urlacher. The Briggs immaturity. Cutlers bad attitude. The big mistake was firing Lovie without blowing up the rest of the team.
The second mistake was hiring Trestman over Arians
He's respected in a specific role. He was awful HC material.
Yeah he even failed as an HC in the XFL in 2020 his team Tampa Bay Vipers were so bad that they got moved to Las Vegas when XFL rebooted in 2023.
Yeah truth be told I don't respect anyone's ball knowledge if they think Trestman was a worse Head Coach than Nagy. Trestman inherited a situation that he could not possibly have been expected to fix. He was handed a declining team which featured a defense that was aging out of effectiveness and that was fiercely loyal to the previous coach, and several volatile personalities. He came in and gave us the best Bears offensive season of any of our lifetimes. Sure, the defense never respected him because they didn't want a new coach and he was just some Canadian dork, and yeah, he didn't have the connections in the league to get the DC position right. But both he and Nagy were brought in to fix the offense, and only one of them even temporarily accomplished that. I'm not crediting Nagy for inheriting a better, easier-to-manage team and an all-time great defensive coordinator. He never did his job.
Trestman may have handled the Offense better for the one year, but he was a way worse head coach than Nagy. This shouldn't even be up for debate. Many of the issues being stated by you and pouch28 he's responsible for fixing/managing as the HC. It's not just the job of the HC to run an offense.
Trestman inherited a team that was 10-6 and barely missed the playoffs without a functional offensive coordinator.
He got the job because he told McCaskey what he wanted to hear (as in guaranteed he could retain Rod Marinelli as DC). Marinelli wanted nothing to do with the organization. Trestman, as HC, hired a guy who never called this defense to come and learn to be Lovie Smith calling plays.
Let’s not forget how he had discipline issues from his first camp. The players never respected him. Heck, he was mocked by our opponents who claimed that they can predict his play calls simply by alignment and personnel (the Lions of all teams). His offense was figured out by year 2.
Also, he benched Jay Cutler for Jimmy Clausen to try to make a case that his offense wasn’t the problem. In doing so, he denied Cutler from being a 4000 yard passer, thus making us a continual punching bag league wide.
Trestman was 100% worse than Nagy. He inherited a team that made the playoffs 2/3 years, and lost control. Nagy took a 5 win team to make the playoffs twice.
There is no comparison. Fuck Trestman.
That same team that Trestman inherited would quickly have grown to respect Nagy even less than Trestman. Because not only was Nagy also not Lovie, but he was also completely useless schematically and a master scapegoater. Trestman's degree of difficulty was MUCH higher. It's not like Nagy was Phil Jackson. He just inherited a young roster of easy personalities that was excited for a new coach instead of a bunch of crazy old heads who were determined to hate the new guy.
Let me put it to you this way, if Trestman inherited Nagy’s situation and had the 2018 team, the Bears would’ve won a playoff game and Trubisky would still be on the roster.
Trestman was a worse head coach than Nagy. A team completely imploding is on the HC.
Trestman was a better offensive mind than Nagy.
Trestman’s circumstances were more challenging than Nagy despite him having the better QB to run his offense,
Again, it would have imploded worse if Nagy was in charge. The factors that saved Nagy from being exposed sooner were the facts that the personalities were much easier to manage and he inherited a defense (and a defensive coordinator) that could win games on its own. Nagy did not contribute anything to the Chicago Bears. Trestman at least contributed the best offense we've ever seen by far. Give them each other's teams and Trestman destroys Nagy.
Trestman came into a team who had a winning record and was built to win now. He had Cutler, Marshall, Alshon who was actually trying, Bennet, and Forte.
He took that 10-6 team and proceeded to go 8 - 8 and then 5 - 11 with coaches leaking manufactured negative stories to the media about players.
He took the 16th ranked offense and got them to 2nd, then in his second year, 23rd.
Losing Urlacher was massive, but if he gets a break for having an older defense he can’t take as much credit for a much better offensive staff than Nagy ever had
Respected enough to keep around for more than a season or two?
This guy bounced around the NFL a ton. Some success but quite honestly, not a ton. He went to the Charger last year but before that he wasn’t in the NFL since he was canned midseason by Baltimore.
The guy stinks and might be the worst hire in NFL history.
Trestman was in over his head and a bad coach, but he also faced a poisonous locker room that needed to be cleared of low effort vets.
We convinced ourselves that the locker room cancer could be fixed by firing him and not addressing the problem players, and nothing actually got better.
Good thing we will never make that mistake again...
I think it's more that he was a nerd and hearing him say "ball" was like hearing your dad say "that is dope" or something.
The offense was fun under Marc. I know Josh McCown had fun. He looked like Marino in that offense.
feel better now that you’ve gotten that off your chest?
i do, yes.
Hot Take: I miss Phil Emery as a GM. He was awful but he always kept fans on their toes with dumb hires/draft picks. If you're gonna be bad, at least be entertaining.
Found the undercover Packers fan, guys!
I'm guessing Packers fans would be lobbying for Ryan Poles to get a lifetime extension
i wouldn’t say i “miss” him, but i do understand what you’re saying. there was a certain volatility to his approach that made for an exciting fan experience.
Phil Emery drafted better than Ryan Pace in the first round, so I guess he had that going for him.
Didn’t he take Shea McClellin? Awful pick
Not saying much, but two of his three first round picks were pretty good, I'll give him that, though unfortunately both had a pretty brief peak and swift decline. Most of the rest of his drafts, aside from pulling Charles Leno out of the 7th round, were pretty awful. It just really sucks knowing that the Bears could have had Jason Licht (who was the other finalist for the job at the time), and then if they still decided to get rid of Lovie after 2012, potentially paired him with Bruce Arians. Ah, what could have been.
Umm, the term “ball” as you’re using it has been around forever. Maybe you’re just noticing it more recently. Trestman was made fun of for using it because of the other reasons you mentioned, not necessarily the term itself. Growing up, whether you played football, baseball, or basketball, you were playing “ball.” Probably the only exception was soccer. Hell, Steve Spurrier was known as the “‘Ol Ball Coach” at the very least since he was at UF.
these are subtle distinctions. "playing ball" is a different syntax than saying "i love ball" or "i know ball." again, i am not saying that trestman invented this use of the word, he did not. but the ridicule of his use was because people thought he was brick tamland referring to "ball" in that fashion, and that over time, the use of it in that specific syntax has skyrocketed.
Ball is kind of a broad term that people have been using a long time, but still people love to act they have been on terminology all along when they haven't.
Great example being the great "middle 8" epidemic of last year where perhaps a few true ball knowers mentioned the middle 8 and then literally every football commentator at every level was suddenly talking middle 8, explaining the middle 8 like they didn't just learn the concept that week themselves.
Dude, do you even ball?
i don't personally ball, but i love it.
Marc are you just looking at things in the room and saying that you love them?
Off season can't end soon enough
Hear hear!
Grow the man
"I haven't heard any of that. I didn't hear all of it. I heard a lot about most of it, but what I did hear, I did not hear any of that."
-Dr Death
I was wondering when you were going to fucking apologize
When does training camp start?
you want me to post shit like this during Packer Week? it's a dumping ground, here's my trash.
Just a joke, bud. It's obviously pretty slow on this sub right now.
so what you're saying is you don't love ball. got it.
Honestly, sure. I like this kind of content. I use Reddit, it’s filled with it! Also, decent take. Almost like you’re sayin he is a dawg. Cuz “dawg” is in that starter kit.
i wouldn't go so far as to say trestman "got that dog in him" but that specific talking point is in line with what i'm saying here about loving and knowing ball.
Trestman? Dawg. Grossman? Dawg. Hutchinson, I didn’t even know he played football; dawg.
Really makes you think…
You can’t set trends looking like a ventriloquist dummy
I would like to also point out that we had the Belichick of the CFL and never put enough respect on his name. THE ARGONAUTS EXIST, PEOPLE!
Chicago media having weird takes that only shows how disconnected from the sport.tney really are? No... Never.
Even the guys who used to play football, it's just obnoxious how out of date their knowledge is.
Trestman is an all time ball lover
Alrighty then
I never ridiculed him for saying that.
But he also loves lamp
no, NO. he loves ball. please try and keep up.
LOUD NOISES
I think I might be even dumber after reading this
https://preview.redd.it/na2irpddznbf1.jpeg?width=610&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3d7e35a15d83784c3b6a4eea4793bd0ae970645d
“I love ball”
he did. he still does.
He used to love ball. Still does, but he used to too.
The second Mitch Hedberg joke I've heard today.
Just add "er" to what it does. Kitchen appliance naming institute. This keeps things fresh. Well that's a fresher. I'm going on break!
I think he said it because he only has one ball. He showed it in his coaching.
Gives
I think that man embalmed my grandpa when he died.
https://i.redd.it/n7ppjynk0pbf1.gif
I am so happy that our coaches don't dress like that anymore.