superbowlcoaches

Two Coaches, Four Thoughts, Six Bets, A Dollar

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

Today concludes our Super Bowl series of posts.   We’ve examined good and bad, winning and losing, and coaching and quarterbacking.  We have a few random thoughts to share and speculate upon prior to the big game.  You can think of them as Ten Piece Nuggets (and get three free) just presented differently.

Two Head Coaches

Two head coaches that made the short list, but not the final list in our top five countdown were Chuck Noll and Vince Lombardi.  Noll went 4-0 in SB’s while Lombardi won the first two SB’s and three NFL championships prior to their being a “Super Bowl.”   But a deeper dive versus Gibbs, Walsh, Landry, Shula, and Belichick exposed just a few shortcomings.

1.  Noll won four Super Bowls in a six-year window and went to and deep into the playoffs eight straight years.  Slice that however you wish and its darn impressive.

Did he benefit greatly by a Steeler organization that had multiple home run drafts back to back to back?  Pitt’s first round  pick in Noll’s year one was Joe Greene, who went on to become a perennial All-Pro and anchor the defensive line. During the next few years, the Steelers drafted quarterback Terry Bradshaw (Louisiana Tech) and running back Franco Harris (Penn State) as round one picks. In the 1974 draft, the Steelers achieved a level of drafting success never seen before or since, when they selected four future Hall of Fame players with their first five picks: wide receivers Lynn Swann and John Stallworth, middle linebacker Jack Lambert, and center Mike Webster. To this day, no other draft by any team has included more than two future Hall of Famers. Back then coaches didn’t have the draft day influence that they have today.  Did Noll make Stallworth, Swann, Bradshaw, Greene, Ham, Harris, and Webster?  Or was it vice versa?

His career win percentage was 57%, good, but shy of real good.  His last twelve years at the helm show 93 victories and 91 defeats and only two playoff victories.

2.  Lombardi was so good that his legend is forever cemented into NFL lore.  They named the Super Bowl trophy after him.  His teams won the first two Super Bowls played.  In nine cold Green Bay years he won 96, lost 34, and tied 6.  His playoff record is a great 9-1.  The team he took over had finished 1958 at a league worst 1-10-1.  His first year of meticulous prep, attention to detail, and demand for excellence turned them into a 7-5 club.  As a side note, there was no free agency back then.

The famous Packer Sweep, a real play innovation of its time, was diagrammed many times over on the chalk board and ran even more in practice.  “You cannot stop perfection.”

Unfortunately his health gave way at an early age curtailing his career and limiting his lifetime statistics when measured against others.  But in a shorter window than others had, none were better at winning nor getting more out of his players.

Four Thoughts

1.  The NFL is getting worked over for the blown non calls and incorrect calls in the two Conference Championship Games.  And, the abuse is well deserved.  Complicated rules, additional rules, and incessant video replay are bad enough.  Add to that fact that the NFL hand-picked the two crews that worked the two games and missed or made a handful of game changing bad calls and you have what you have-a mess.

2.  Speaking of a mess, what the hell happened in Pittsburgh?  Arguably the game’s best WR and a great QB cannot even practice together suddenly.  Pittsburgh’s front office puts up with little to nothing.  Ask Le’Veon Bell if you need proof.  If Antonio Brown hasn’t posted his home on Zillow yet one wonders what he is waiting for.

3.  The NFL hype machine(one of the best in the world) will go dark for a week after the Super Bowl, then will start pumping the NFL Combine held annually in Indianapolis.  How long is it before they start shopping the event to other cities like they did the draft?  Tickets, tickets, who needs tickets?

4.  If you haven’t heard, numerous New Orleans bars are showing the 2009 Saints SB victory this Sunday instead of Super Bowl LIII.  Our guess is that the turnout will be great.  Super Bowl LIII is now referred to as Super Bowl LIE in NOLA.  Laissez les bon temps roulier.

Six Bets

BBR never shies from a wager or six.  Below are some prop bets for fun and game action as well.

1.  Give us tails on the coin toss for  -105.   Why?  Why do you even ask?

2.  We’ll take the Rams scoring first for -115.  Brandin Cooks has a score to settle so to speak.

3.  Give us over 49.5 yards on the longest TD scored for -110.  See point two above.

4.  We’ll take -300 that no extra point is missed.  Though NE scares us a bit.

5.  Give us over 56.5 on the total points scored for -110.  Under has been our favorite since 12/1.  This one, however, is indoors and the carpet is warm.

6.  And, drum roll please, we like the Rams on the money line for +120.  Why?  Why not?

A Dollar

We are so confident in our bets above that we wagered a George Washington on each and every one of them.

 

 

Super (Bowl)Head Coach Countdown II

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

Yesterday part six of our Super Bowl worst, best, first, and last series rolled on.  Super Bowl winners come in different shapes and sizes, but they usually have two things in common.  One, they have a real good or great coach.  And two, they have a real good or great quarterback.

We continue to examine those very questions in part seven of our series.   Today we finish our attempt to answer the question “who is the best head coach to win a Super Bowl?”   Yesterday we chose Joe Gibbs at no. 5 and Bill Walsh at no. 4.  Clearly the choices are nothing but a who’s who of head coaching.  Let the subjectivity begin.

Criteria, in no particular order, that we feel is mandatory to be considered follows.

  1.  Longevity in the league– Longevity usually equates to demand for your ability.  Health reasons were considered.
  2.  Won/loss record– Bill Parcells once famously said ” at the end of the year you are what your record says you are.”
  3.  Pregame and in-game strategy– You have to have a plan of attack and you have to adjust to your opponents plan of attack.
  4.  Maximizing your team’s ability– Coaches eventually have 53 players to work with.  Did they get all that they could out of the group?
  5. Recognizing talent and using it– Coaches today have more say in personnel than yesterday.  Those that do have to obtain value (if FA cheaper than performance, if drafted better than round, if UDFA seeing something that others do not in a player).
  6. Super Bowl wins and appearances You are ultimately judged by getting your team to the biggest game of all and taking home the trophy.

We suspect that when objectivity (1,2,and 6 above) and subjectivity(3,4, and 5 above) cross paths the task of definitively ranking coaches is not possible.  When art meets science the eye and the mind don’t always agree.   Regardless, we press on.  Today we countdown nos. 3, 2, and 1.  Also, there are many who deserve mention, honorable mention at that.  But, we chose to skip those for now to further the discussion.   Let the disagreement begin.

3.  Tom Landry- The ever impeccably dressed leader Landry coached for 29 NFL seasons all with the Dallas Cowboys.  One guesses if you looked up the word “Institution” in Funk and Wagner that Tom’s picture (with his hat of course) might be next to the word.  Two hundred and fifty regular season wins, 36 playoff wins, five SB appearances, and two Lombardi Trophies makes his body of work hard to describe.

Landry coached good players and made them better.  Walt Garrison comes to mind.  He coached great players and helped them get enshrined.  Bob Lilly, Roger Staubach, Tony Dorsett, Mel Renfro and many, many others come to mind.  His culture of out working and out thinking others created a sustainable winning expectation.  After all you were a Cowboy.   Landry encouraged the organization to look at the draft and the pool of players differently than others.  Gil Brandt his GM masterfully assembled the roster accordingly.  The Cowboys dug deep to find talent in undrafted free agency as well as lesser scouted conferences like the SWAC.

He won by strategically putting his offense, defense, and special teams in familiar spots from meticulous preparation. Landry is known as the “inventor of the 4-3 defense” as he was the first to take a lineman out and add a middle linebacker.   Landry also invented and popularized the use of keys (analyzing offensive tendencies) to determine what the offense might do.

2.  Don Shula- It’s hard to top Landry’s resume’ but Shula did.  He was an NFL head coach for 33 seasons, 26 with the Miami Dolphins and seven with the Baltimore Colts.  He won 328 games in all with an amazing 67.7 win percentage.  He too won 36 playoff games.  One Colt and five Dolphin SB appearances later gave Shula two Lombardi trophies.

Shula changed his coaching strategy as his personnel changed. His Super Bowl teams in 1971,2,3, and 1982 were keyed by a run-first offensive strategy and a dominating defense. In 1983, shortly after losing Super Bowl XVII to the Washington Redskins, the Dolphins drafted quarterback Dan Marino out of the University of Pittsburgh. Marino won the starting job halfway through the 1983 regular season, and by 1984, the Dolphins were back in the Super Bowl, due largely to Marino’s record 5,084 yards through the air.

Shula’s Miami teams were known for great offensive lines (Larry Little, Jim Langer, and Bob Kuechenberg), strong running games (Larry Csonka, Jim Kiick, and Mercury Morris), solid quarterbacking (by Bob Griese and Earl Morrall), excellent receivers (Paul Warfield)and a defense that worked as a cohesive unit. The Dolphins were known as “The No-Name Defense”, though they had few good to great players, including MLB Nick Buoniconti.

In 1972, the Dolphins were unbeaten in the regular season, 14–0–0. They swept the playoffs and finished 17–0–0.  They remain the only team in the modern era to do so.

1.  Bill Belichick – Is there really any doubt as to who is the most successful coach of all time?  There really isn’t.  But, “most successful” and “best” may not be exactly the same.  With Belichick we think it is the same.  What is not debatable is 1) on Sunday he will be coaching in the SB for the ninth time which is three more than Shula’s six, and 2) he can put further distance in the win column between himself (five now and maybe six soon) and Chuck Noll who has four.

In 24 years as head coach (5 Cleveland and 19 New England) the irascible one has won 261 regular and 30 post season games.  That’s a 68% win percentage overall and 74% in NE alone.  Seventy four percent equates to an average season being 12-4.  There’s nothing average about that!

Belichick is a grand master at finding a opponent’s weakness and exploiting it.  A defensive side of the ball head coach with perhaps the GOAT QB in Tom Brady is the perfect combo for long term success.  This is especially true with the rules the league has put in place in the last 15 years to protect QB’s.

His coaching tree grows significantly each offseason.  Eight of his former assistants to date have become NFL head coaches.  Seven have become NCAA head coaches, one of which is Nick Saban.

But, perhaps his most significant measure of success is one that is actually hard to measure.  How good has the Patriots personnel (outside of Tom Brady, which is a big “outside of”) been during his incredible run?  Current and future Hall of Famers are few.  Their best RB has been?  WR?  LB?  DL?  You get the picture.  There have been many, many good to real good ones no doubt.  Perhaps Belichick has the key to making the whole far greater that the sum of the individual parts.

Tomorrow we briefly examine two who were strongly considered for the final five, but ultimately left out.

 

 

 

Super Bowl Head Coach Trivia Time

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

Friday part four of our Super Bowl worst, best, first, and last series rolled on.  We offered our opinion on who the worst head coaches were to win a Super Bowl.  Gary Kubiak took home first place.  Unfortunately, first meant worst for the eight year Texan and two-year Bronco’s head coach.  After stepping away from the game in 2018 Kubiak will be back in 2019 as the OC in Minnesota.

Super Bowl winners come in different shapes and sizes, but they usually have two things in common.  One, they have a real good or great coach.  And two, they have a real good or great quarterback.  There are outliers of course.  So, who might be those outliers?

We were going to continue to examine those very questions in part five of our series of our series.  But, today rather than examine the question “who is the best head coach to win a Super Bowl?”  we offer a fun trivia quiz about the quarterbacks and coaches in the big game.  The best coaches to ever coach in the big game heads your way tomorrow.   Enjoy the audible.  The answers are below Bill Belichick and yet another trophy hoist and to avoid the urge to peak.

  1.  Five coaches have coached in exactly four Super Bowls.  Three have lost all four.  Two of them lost all four with the same team.  Who were they?
  2. Another coach lost four but accomplished this with two teams.  Who was he and what teams did he coach?
  3. Only one coach appeared in four games and won the Vince Lombardi trophy in all four appearances.  Who is he?
  4. Bill Belichick will be coaching this Sunday for an amazing 9th time easily the most ever appearances and counting.  Who has the second most appearances?
  5. Only four coaches have won more than two Super Bowls.  Belichick is one.  Name the other three.
  6. Marv Levy, with four consecutive appearances leads that category.  Only one head coach has worked in three straight.  Who?
  7. (extra point) Twelve coaches have been to two big games.  All won at least once except one who went 0-2.  His losses were 10 years apart and he brought a different team to each.  Who?

 

 

The Answers

  1.  Marv Levy went 0-4 with the Bills in four consecutive years amazingly from 1991-4.  Bud Grant lost all with the Vikings in 1970,4,5,and 7.
  2. Dan Reeves lost three with the Broncos in 1987,8, and 1990.  He coached the Falcons in 1999 to a 34-19 loss to the Falcons.
  3. Chuck Noll led the Steel Curtain and Terry Bradshaw to four appearances and four wins in 1975,6,9, and 1980.
  4. Don Shula won two and lost four.  Joe Willie and Weeb beat his Colts in SB III.  He went on to five Dolphins appearances winning two and losing three.
  5. The previously mentioned Chuck Noll won four, sneaky Joe Gibbs won three, and the great Bill Walsh won three.
  6. If you guessed Bill Belichick we understand.  However, Don Shula lost SB VI to Tom Landry and the Cowboys, then won back to back in 1973 (the undefeated year) and 1974 over Bud Grant’s Vikings.
  7. John Fox and the Carolina Panthers lost to NE in 2004.  He took the Broncos to SB XLVIII ten years later and lost to Pete Carroll’s Seahawks  in a beat down 43-8.

 

 

Super Bowl Jumbo Shrimp.

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

Yesterday part three of our Super Bowl worst, best, first, and last series rolled on.  We offered our opinion on who the worst quarterbacks were to appear or lose a Super Bowl.  David Woodley took home first place.  Unfortunately, first meant worst for the former LSU hero.

Super Bowl winners come in different shapes and sizes, but they usually have two things in common.  One, they have a real good or great coach.  And two, they have a real good or great quarterback.  There are outliers of course.  So, who might be those outliers?

We continue to examine those very questions in part three of our series.  Today we examine the question “who is the worst head coach to win a Super Bowl?”  Our take from bad to worse is below.

Our NFL only criteria includes longevity, w-l percentage, playoff appearances, playoff wins, and coaches hired that went on to great success in the league.  Like the previous quarterbacks that we have selected, we note that these are men who have risen to the very top of their profession.  So, we are calling them the worst of the best really.

This was a tough task.  Undeterred we march on.  We decided on four for very different and difficult reasons.   Drum roll please.

4.  Don McCafferty- The HC that no one remembers or heard of led the Baltimore Colts to 16-13 win of Tom Landry and the Cowboys in SB V in 1971. It was an error filled forgettable game.   It was his first year as a HC replacing Don Shula who left the Baltimore to go south to Miami.  In his third year he refused to bench Johnny Unitas and was fired as a result.  He signed on to coach the Detroit Lions in 1973.  After one year there he dropped dead of a heart attack while mowing his lawn.

3.  Brian Billick- After getting much credit as an OC at Minnesota Billick took over the HC reins for the Baltimore Ravens in 1999.  Nine years later he amassed an 80-64 regular season record.  He rode DC Marvin Lewis and Mike Nolan’s historically great defenses,

led by Ray Lewis, as his offenses were annually anemic.  This included the 4 game playoff run that culminated in the SB XXXV victory in 2001. His other eight seasons ended in three playoff berths.  His one-dimensional teams went one and one in one and one and done in the other two.  His coaching tree was solid.  Rex Ryan and Mike Singletary are two other notable ones.

2.  Weeb Ewbank- When the NY Jets and Joe Willie Namath shocked the football world-beating the heavily favored Baltimore Colts(Don Shula again) in SB III in 1969, Wilbur Charles “Weeb” Ewbank rode off on his players shoulders crew cut hair and all.  Weeb was a head coach for 20 years.  The last 11 were with the J-E-T-S.  In eight of those 11 his teams were .500 or less and in total were 71-77.  His total won loss record was one above .500 at 130-129-7.  His teams only totaled 5 playoff games.  Although in fairness to Wilbur Charles his Baltimore Colts head coaching days prior to the Jets included two one game championships when there weren’t really any playoffs. Chuck Knox and Buddy Ryan both toiled under Weeb.

1.  Gary Kubiak- In 10 NFL seasons (8 Texans, 2 Broncos) Kube’s teams appeared in the playoffs only three times.  Two Texan teams went 1-1 and done.  The 3-0 record with the SB winning Broncos and Peyton Manning was his only deep run.  His teams won 82 regular season games and lost 75.  Multiple medical maladies forced him to resign in 2016.  His coaching tree includes Mike Sherman, Wade Phillips, Ray Rhodes and a few other retreads.  He will resume coaching as OC in Minnesota in 2019.  Perhaps his head coaching days are done.

Head coaching a team to a Super Bowl triumph and being called one of the worst is an oxymoron like the phrase “jumbo shrimp.”   But they are our “only choices” for the worst of the best of the “civil war” known as the Super Bowl.