This is a sample guest message. Register a free account today to become a member! Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members through your own private inbox!
Cam Cameron? anyone?
I have no problem replacing Belichick with Walsh - makes sense since Walsh did it just as well in the postseason and with a certain amount of class lacking in the hoodie. Walsh innovated the game and his "tree" isincredible.And I need to alter my list to somehow include Mr. Bill Parcells.
Those were the determining factors for me. Walsh has had a greater impact on the game at this time with his short passing attack as well as the number of coaches who learned from him. Of course, if any of these other taping rumors are proved true, Belichick might have a more memorable effect on the game, but certainly not a positive one.
Ya didn't start off so hot. Shula won in 1973, as well. What's pretty telling is that Shula took over a team that had been 15-39-2 in its first four years, and went 10-4 in his first year with them, taking them to the playoffs. Over the next four years, the Fins lost a TOTAL of ten games. One of those losses was Super Bowl VI, the other was the "Sea of Hands" game against the Raiders, which very well may have cost them a fourth straight Super Bowl appearance. In 1975, the WFL gutted the Fins, pretty much ruining any shot at a dynasty.
..... not of all time.
Yeah I realized that I was wrong on that... he won the year after, right?
I'm not sure that Lombardi was the clear #1 in football (Madden beats him on career winning percentage), but as far as other sports go . . .John Wooden 671-161 with 10 National ChampionshipsRed Auerbach 9 titles in 10 seasons and 6 more as a GMPhil Jackson 9 titles in his first 12 years as a head coach, highest career winning percentageMike Krzyzewski 17 years ranked in the Top 10, 9 Final Fours, 3 titlesJoe McCarthy Highest winning percentage (.615) of any manager, 7 titles, 9 WS appearancesThere are probably other examples . . .And IIRC, of NFL head coaches with at least 10 years of experience, Tony Dungy coached teams have the highest percentage of playoff appearances (10 times in 12 seasons so 83.3%).
Most people were not alive when Guy Chamberlain coached (in the 20s) and he only coached for 6 seasons. While his accomplishments were great back in the day, the game now is not even close to being the same.
for one, 10 years cuts Lombardi out... Who knows what Lombardi would have done had he had 20 more years to live. I would not be surprised if he would have won another 10 titles...Everything you stated about those other coaches require TIME to do... Yes, Lombardi might not have the highest winning percentage, but he inhereted the worst team in the league his first season... Does that not come into the equation at all? (I think it should)and Jackson shouldn't be on your list, if you take away Jordan & Shaq (or even Pippen & Kobe), he probably wouldn't have won any of those titles. He won 'cuz he was in the right places at the right times...Also, I know that in at least one of the 2 non-championship game years the Packers were 2nd place in thier division... Which means there is, at best, 1 season out of 8 with the Packers where they were not either in the Championship game or in the top 4.... not even Dungy has that...
Lombardi coached 10 seasons. Obviously you have to be living to coach and that can't be held against him. To go from 1-10-1 to 7-5 is a good accomplishment, but other coaches have made similar one year turnarounds. In 10 years, he coached 6 playoff teams (obviously fewer teams made the playoffs back then). Never had a year with a losing record.Obviously he had an exceelent but brief career, but I still have to wonder if he was the greatest coach of any sport ever . . .
You can't include Belicheat because you don't know how much of his success is based on cheating. He may have hired plants in other team's locker rooms, phone taps, you just don't know how far a scumbag will go. His moral compass is skewed badly and I'd put nothing past himBill WalshVince LombardiDon ShulaMarv LevyJimmy JohnsonIn no particular order.
Is the role of a coach to win . . . or rack up some impressive offensive stats?Vermeil had a 120-109 regular season coaching record and a 6-5 post season record. Yes, he turned the Rams and Chiefs offenses around. But he had 5 seasons with 5 or fewer wins and was under .500 in 7 of the 15 years he coached.Does that really get him into the Top 5 discussion?
Really no need to mention Coach K after putting Wooden on the list... in theory this list is about the best coach across sports, so only the best college basketball coach needs to be on there.On your last point about Dungy, that is apples and oranges. Many more teams make the playoffs now than made the playoffs at other times in NFL history.
Great post.
If I'm not mistaken, Landry was from the Brown tree as well.
He certainly continued what Brown had started. Brown tried to bring management and teaching into the league. Landry acheived that. One of the great sins in Football in my mind was the unceremonious way the Cowboys treated Landry once Jerry Jones carbetbagged his way into the league. I was saddened to see the classiest organization around turned into a whore house where winning became the only ethos and championships were brought with money and lack of discipline and respect for the game and the fans. Seeing Dallas turned into the Yankees sickened me
you forgot the guy with 4 Super Bowls, the one that took a 1-13 team and built them into the greatest dynasty ever within 5 years. and he did it without the financial backing that so many other teams have had. How about this for drafting:1969 - Joe Greene (HoF), Jon Kolb, L.C. Greenwood1970 - Terry Bradshaw (HoF), Mel Blount (HoF)1971 - Jack Ham (HoF), Dwight White, Gerry Mullins, Larry Brown, Ernie Holmes1972 - Franco (HoF), Steve Furness1974 - Lynn Swann (HoF), Jack Lambert (HoF), John Stallworth (HoF), Mike Webster (HoF)1976 - Gary Dunn1977 - Steve CoursonHe drafted half of the original Steel Curtain in his first season. He drafted the other half 2 years later, then drafted the replacements in 72 and 76. He drafted the entire offensive line by 1974 as well as his HoF RB, QB, and 2 WRs.Oh yeah, he also drafted 2 of the best linebackers in the 1970s within a space of 3 years. 9 HoF draftees within his first 5 years, 4 Super Bowls within his first 10 years. Let's give him some credit.
I agree - which is why not including Shula = :badposting:Not only was he a master motivator, but he brought, as innovation, many of the things we now take as commonplace in the game - such as clock management. Moreover, he was always considered a play calling genius. Finally, let's not forget his work on the competition committee.Great post.
He wasn't in my top 5.
If you want to argue for arguments sake, then to be far, the seasons where he had 5 wins or fewer were his first two years in Philly, his first two years with the Rams, and his last year in Philly when did admit to being burnt out. As far as his record goes, look where he coached. Philly, St.Louis, and Kansas City. He took over franchises that were arguably at their lowest points and turned them around. Kansas City was a former winning franchise, but when he took over they were pretty much a mess.As I said before, he was my sleeper pick. I only mentioned him because I think he is one hell of a coach and from all accounts, one of the nicest guys you'll ever know. I think he is a master at bringing in a positive atmosphere and winning attitude. He probably isn't even top 10, but he was a very good coach.
I agree that he was a good coach, a nice guy, and injected some life and positive attitude into teams. But IMO he's more of a footnote of coaches that had good attributes and some deent results but overall was not in the top tier of greatest coaches. That's not a knock on Vermeil, only that there have been a lot of good coaches . . .The only thing I would point out is that it normally took 3 or 4 years for his system to take root, and in this day and age he might not have been given that long to turn things around. While I would not go so far to suggest that most coaches would make an impact in 4 seasons, I would suggest that some of the better ones would be able to make a concerted improvement in that time if they could coach that long without getting booted for not winning quick enough.Again, good coach, good results.He wasn't in my top 5.If you want to argue for arguments sake, then to be far, the seasons where he had 5 wins or fewer were his first two years in Philly, his first two years with the Rams, and his last year in Philly when did admit to being burnt out. As far as his record goes, look where he coached. Philly, St.Louis, and Kansas City. He took over franchises that were arguably at their lowest points and turned them around. Kansas City was a former winning franchise, but when he took over they were pretty much a mess.As I said before, he was my sleeper pick. I only mentioned him because I think he is one hell of a coach and from all accounts, one of the nicest guys you'll ever know. I think he is a master at bringing in a positive atmosphere and winning attitude. He probably isn't even top 10, but he was a very good coach.
This is a great post. And makes me wonder why Noll isn't in more top 2's and 3's. There seems to be a bias here that says things like "Bradshaw wasn't really a great QB, he was just a very good QB with a great team." "Swann isn't really a HOF WR. He's a very good receiver who benefitted from the exposure of being on a great team." Etc.There may be some validity to it, but while you can question individual players' accomplishments, I don't see how you can do anything but look back in awe at the architect of the dynasty. Noll created the first post-merger dynasty, and changed professional scouting forever. He was sending scouts to small colleges across the country, scouring for talent, when most personnel depts still scouted by reputation alone. No other coach from that era would have or could have found Joe Green, LC Greenwood, John Stallworth, and others in that era. They simply weren't looking. Noll was the first to see what scouting would become, was the first to capitalize, and from that head start, created a dynasty by his own hand.What more could you want from a coach?Goes right at the top of the discussion with Lombardi and Brown, and is one of the few whose thinking genuinely revolutionized the game.
Good analysis and I don't disagree DW, but do you consider the conventional wisdom (or is it a myth?) that Hallas routinely placed spies in apartments on Oneida street to observe Lombardi's practices? I would suspect (if not expect) Lombardi did the same. We look back and chuckle a bit at this, but view BB's escapades differently it seems (at least I do, but can't articulate why it is any different).
I accept that Halas likely tried to spy on Lombardi's practices. Lombardi did occassionally have his guys change jerseys before practice to confuse matters. Given Lombardi's strict religious and moral code I don't believe he would have reciprocated, but that may just be my bias.As for articulating the difference between past acts and the present I suppose one can look at matters as being on a continuum. I see matters differently. In the very early days of coaching scouting might have meant reading newspaper accounts of one's opponent. As rail travel gave way to air travel one might have had scouts at games. These were never coaches, just scouts. coaches wanting greater info then had scouts start charting matters instead of just giving impressions. Then movies came to be more prevelent and it was possible to review film. Somewhere along the line tough tape, computer analysis, and particularly audio enhancement (read electronic evesdropping) made scouting cross the line into spying. Members of the league determined themselves this was no longer a smooth continuum, but rather would now be considered cheating if it occured outside of strict rules. Belicheck either completely ignored the agreement or he looked to find loopholes therein. Not the acts of an honorable man. I want my legends to be somewhat honorable. I make allowances for a rascally past. I understand some may find my view hipocritical. I just acknowledge that it is my view and that I am comfortable sometimes holding paradoxical views. Greater men than I, have suffered with articulating where the lines are resorting to acknowledging they can't always define a thing but they know it when they see it. What I have seen of Belicheck disturbs me, but thus far I am trying to remain open to the possibility that his flawed personality has biased me and that his alienating of others may have provided motive for those people to now be taking unjustified cheap shots.
He's in the top 5 list.Marc Levin said:I agree - which is why not including Shula = :badposting:Not only was he a master motivator, but he brought, as innovation, many of the things we now take as commonplace in the game - such as clock management. Moreover, he was always considered a play calling genius. Finally, let's not forget his work on the competition committee.Great post.
How anyone can leave the all-time winningest coach off their top-5 list is, IMO, criminal.
I mentioned above that my list was in no order, but, in truth, it goes:
1. Lombardi
2. Shula
3, 4, 5
6, 7, 8
the rest.
Can't figure how you can link Landry to Brown. He played for Steve Owen and Jim Lee Howell and was asst. under Howell who did not coach with Brown. Enlighten me
I know he was an Asst. with the Giants in the 50's and invented the 4-3 defense to counter Paul Brown's offense, I thought I remember seeing a biography years ago that he started out with Brown. I may be wrong and I'm just remembering the part where he kind of was the one who countered Brown's offense with his defense with Huff.
