Anthony Calvillo's career may or may not be coming to an end thanks to the August concussion that's ruled him out for at least this year, but it's worth remembering just how spectacular a career professional football's all-time leading passer has had over his twenty years in the CFL—and how things could have gone very differently. Calvillo's difficult upbringing in the tough L.A. suburb of La Puente and the long-shot path that took him to success at Mount San Antonio Junior College, Utah State and then the CFL's Las Vegas Posse, Hamilton Tiger-Cats and Montreal Alouettes have been well-chronicled, but a lesser-known part of his story is how close he came to joining the NFL's Pittsburgh Steelers. Yahoo!'s Les Carpenter explores that in this excellent feature, and Calvillo himself spoke to Yahoo! about it (plus his wife's battle with cancer, his current concussion struggles and more) in the video below:

As Calvillo details in that video, the Steelers brought him in in January 2003 as part of a search for a quarterback to back up Tommy Maddox. It was a good time for Calvillo, as despite being 30, he was just hitting his CFL stride. His 1994 campaign with the Posse and his 1995-1997 stint in Hamilton saw flashes of potential, but inconsistent overall results, and it wasn't until he went to Montreal that he really became the dominant quarterback we've so often seen in the CFL. He began his Alouettes' tenure learning under established starter Tracy Ham, but took over the main job in 2000 and went on to several great seasons. 2002 marked a particularly impressive year for Calvillo, as he threw for 5,013 yards, his best showing ever to that point, with 27 touchdowns and 10 interceptions. He also led the famed 2002 Alouettes to the Grey Cup. NFL organizations started to take notice, and the Steelers were very interested. Here's the key part of Calvillo's comments in that video about the tryout:

"When I get there, there's like no other players around, it's just me. It's the entire coaching staff of the Pittsburgh Steelers and there's like three cameras around me, and they put me through an hour of workouts. The big question was Charlie Batch, was Charlie Batch going to come back as the backup? If he left, then they would bring me in for the backup job. After that workout, about a few days later, they informed me that Charlie had resigned with them and that they were going to go with him as their quarterback, and that closed that window with the Pittsburgh Steelers."

As Carpenter writes, an injury Calvillo suffered late in the 2002 CFL season also played a role in things not working out for him in Pittsburgh:

When Calvillo arrived, the entire Steelers coaching staff was waiting. Three cameras had been placed on the field to film him. An hour of dills was planned. But there was a problem. Calvillo's right ankle ached. He had sprained it during the Alouettes' title run, twisting it inward. He played the championship game on an ice-covered field in Edmonton with his leg heavily taped. And weeks later, at what should have been the biggest moment of his life, the ankle had not healed. He tried hard to do the things the Steelers asked, but his ankle wouldn't let him. He couldn't plant his foot to throw. He couldn't backpedal. He couldn't run. With each wobbly throw, his one chance at the NFL slipped farther away. A few days later, Pittsburgh signed its old backup, Charlie Batch. Maddox never turned out to be the answer, and the following year the Steelers drafted a quarterback from Miami (Ohio) University named Ben Roethlisberger, who lived Anthony Calvillo's NFL dream instead. "That was his chance," Popp says. "Who knows? If he could have gotten there maybe he would have won all those Super Bowls."

Some may write that off as biased talk from a long-time CFL executive, but it's notable that current NFL coach Marc Trestman, who left the Alouettes to take over the Chicago Bears this offseason, also sees Calvillo as a guy who could have shone in the NFL. Trestman's a quarterback guru who's produced spectacular NFL seasons from the likes of Scott Mitchell, Jake Plummer and Rich Gannon, and he spent five seasons with Calvillo as his quarterback (winning two Grey Cups and going to a third in the process), so he knows whereof he speaks on both counts here. Here's what he told Carpenter:

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