Arden Zwelling
CFL.ca
This time last summer Marc-Olivier Brouillette was logging hours at a law firm — 50 hours a week to be exact, as he worked towards his law degree.
This summer? He plays linebacker and free safety across town for the Montreal Alouettes.
What a difference a year can make.
“To trade that suit and tie for sweat pants and a t-shirt has been a really, really cool experience,” Brouillette quipped from Montreal where his Alouettes are preparing to host the Toronto Argonauts this Thursday night.
It’s never easy to get to the CFL, but Brouillette chose one of the harder paths, juggling both law school and starting quarterback duties at the University of Montreal while spending his summers working at law firms in the city.
Finding similarities between the courtroom and the football field may seem like a stretch, but any coach will tell you that brightness off the field more often than not translates to intelligence under the lights.
“One of the most important things about Marco is that he’s extremely intelligent,” Alouettes defensive coordinator Tim Burke said. “He picks things up very fast. Add his athletic ability and that he’s got great confidence in himself — he’s got a lot of things going for him.”
It was Brouillette’s blend of intelligence and athleticism that inspired Montreal to select the hometown boy in the third round, 23rd overall, of the 2010 CFL entry draft.
While he played four years of quarterback in the CIS — throwing for exactly 4400 yards and 27 touchdowns — the plan was always to move Brouillette out from under centre. Where to move him, was another story.
“He can play all over the field. When we drafted him, we really didn’t know whether he was going to end up on the offensive or defensive side of the ball,” Burke said.
Montreal initially saw Brouillette as a receiver. But as needs developed on defence, the 23-year-old was shifted to the other side of the ball where he has lined up as a weak side linebacker and free safety.
It seems that Brouillette — who rooms with CFL veteran Ben Cahoon on the road — has found his home in the Montreal secondary. But according to Burke, Brouillette could play anywhere on the field and be successful.
“Marco is one of those guys who could pick up a golf club for the first time and be a great golfer,” Burke said. “He’s just one of those special kinds of athletes. He’s got that ball sense that all great athletes have.”
For now, the Alouettes will settle with the six-foot, 230-pounder playing somewhere on defence. Brouillette has seen limited action this year on the Alouettes’ oceans-deep roster, but he has already racked up a tackle and a highlight reel interception in week three against the BC Lions.
When Lions quarterback Casey Printers lobbed the ball into the end zone with 2:40 left in the second quarter, Brouillette’s eyes lit up. He broke from his coverage and tracked the ball half-way across the field, leaping in the air while falling backwards to pluck the pigskin out of mid-flight before it could find the waiting arms of Lions receiver Paris Jackson.
Not bad for a quarterback.
“I was just trying to not get beat deep,” Brouillette admitted. “But once the ball was in the air, I knew I could make a play on it.
“I had to get it at its highest point, because Paris Jackson is more than capable of jumping over me to get that football. So when I saw that ball in the air, I attacked it and once I got my hands on it there was no letting go.”
Brouillette, it seems, finds his way to the ball no matter where he is on the field. Burke described him as a “ball hawk” who can read plays steps before they happen. Much of that comes from his history as a quarterback.
As a former pivot, Brouillette is comfortable anticipating a quarterback’s movements and where he’s going with the ball. While most defenders spend hours studying quarterbacks to learn their tendencies, Brouillette has inside information on what a pivot is likely to do in different scenarios.
It’s that knowledge that allows Brouillette to get a great jump on the ball, catching ball carriers and receivers off guard.
“I spent so much time studying defences when I was playing quarterback — so now that I’m playing on that side of the ball, I think that’s helped with the learning curve,” Brouillette said. “I can use that to my advantage to try to get a jump on what he’s thinking and what he’s about to do.”
Of course, Brouillette is still a work in progress. He admits to staring at the quarterback too much, trying to anticipate a pass instead of focusing on his zone or man coverage. But Burke is confident that with time and experience, Brouillette will develop into one of the better defenders in the league.
“The one thing he doesn’t have is experience,” Burke said. “But every time he goes out there he gets a little bit better. Every day he’s picking up more and more experience and that’s going to help him in the long run.”
For the Alouettes, one of their linebackers often operates as a safety/linebacker hybrid, laying low to stuff the run on some plays and dropping back deep into the secondary to guard against the pass on others.
Brouillette — a huge physical presence with deceptive speed — was bred to play the position.
“When you look at Marco, you can tell he’s been in the weight room — he’s very strong. But he’s a very good athlete too. He runs really well,” Burke said.
Athleticism, strength, intelligence — Brouillette has them all in spades. The final piece of the puzzle? A little bit of modesty.
When asked about his personal accomplishments, Brouillette is quick to divert the attention from himself to a list of veteran teammates that have helped him along the way. Matthieu Proulx, Shea Emry, Walter Spencer — Brouillette will run off a veritable trading card deck of teammates to credit before he takes any for himself.
Even when talking about his interception against the Lions, he’s quick to put the emblem on the front of his jersey ahead of the name on the back.
“We were on the west coast and everybody knew that the Al’s hadn’t won there in ten years. In a tight game like that, to be able to make a play to help my team out was just a tremendous feeling,” Brouillette said.
In just his first season as a pro and his first season on the defensive side of the ball, Brouillette already looks and talks like a veteran CFLer. And, of course, if football doesn’t work out, the world always needs more lawyers.
“I definitely want to play football as long as I can. It’s the best job on earth. I can’t think of anything better than to get paid for playing the sport I love so much,” Brouillette said. “But it’s also very comforting to know that I have something to fall back on. […] Hopefully the lawyer profession isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.”
