Milanovich era ends in Edmonton before it begins
The team with no name now doesn’t have a head coach.
Scott Milanovich resigned Monday as the head coach of the Edmonton Football Team to explore NFL opportunities. The move came just over a year after Milanovich stepped down as the quarterback coach with the NFL’s Jacksonville Jaguars after three seasons to return to the CFL, where he got his first opportunity to become a pro head coach.
“Scott informed me (Monday) that he was resigning as the head coach of the Edmonton Football Team to accept a position in the NFL,” Edmonton GM Brock Sunderland said. “It’s disappointing that he was never able to coach a game for our organization due to the pandemic.”
Milanovich guided the Toronto Argonauts to the 2012 Grey Cup title in his first year as a head coach. But he never got the chance to coach Edmonton as the CFL didn’t play in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Milanovich, who turned 48 on Monday, is expected to become the quarterback coach with the Indianapolis Colts. That position became vacant after Marcus Brady — who served as the Montreal Alouettes’ receivers coach from 2009-11 when Milanovich was the offensive co-ordinator and assistant head coach on Marc Trestman’s staff — was promoted to offensive co-ordinator on Monday.
Milanovich is also good friends with Colts head coach Frank Reich. Both were quarterbacks collegiately at Maryland and served as backups in the NFL before getting involved in coaching.
Milanovich actively courted Reich to join his Toronto staff in 2012 before the latter accepted a job as receivers coach that year with the Arizona Cardinals. Brady, who replaced Milanovich as Montreal’s offensive co-ordinator, reunited with Milanovich as Argos offensive co-ordinator (2013-17) before being hired as the Colts assistant quarterback coach in 2018.
Milanovich and Brady won three Grey Cups together as coaches (2009-10 with Montreal, 2012 with Toronto). Before entering the coaching ranks, Brady was a CFL quarterback with the Argos (2002-03), Hamilton Tiger-Cats (200405) and Alouettes (2006-08) and met Reich in large part because of the Colts coach’s relationship with Milanovich, the 2012 CFL coach of the year.
Brady replaces Nick Sirianni, who left Indianapolis to become Philadelphia Eagles’ head coach. Brady becomes just the third Black offensive co-ordinator in the NFL.