Often overlooked as a head coach, George Seifert put up some very good numbers in what was a relatively short time as an NFL head coach when compared to many others. The biggest criticism of Seifert is that most of his accomplishments came with a team the was built by his predecessor and NFL legend Bill Walsh. While this may be somewhat true, there are many instances in the history of professional sports where a succeeding coach does not build on the successes of his immediate predecessor.

Here are a few facts regarding George Seifert:

-Despite Bill Walsh’s presence in the Hall of Fame, and his status as one of the best coaches the NFL has ever seen, it is George Seifert who holds the 49ers team record for most wins by a head coach. He accumulated 98 wins in only eight seasons while Walsh put up 92 wins in ten seasons.

-During all eight seasons that George Seifert was the head coach of the San Francisco 49ers, the team never won fewer than ten games.

-It was during Seifert’s time as 49ers head coach that the organization had to navigate the difficult process of transitioning from one superstar quarterback (Joe Montana) to another (Steve Young).

-Through the eight seasons that Seifert was the head coach of the 49ers, the team ranked first in the league in scoring five different times, including a string of four straight years (1992-95).

George Seifert was much more than just the guy that kept doing what Bill Walsh had started. For eight seasons in San Francisco he was the head coach of one of the best teams the league has ever seen. He kept them at this high level through difficult times and deserves much more respect than he gets.

The Interesting Coaching Career Of Ted Marchibroda

Ted Marchibroda has served as both an assistant and head coach in the National Football League. The interesting thing about his coaching career is the teams that he has coached for.

From 1975 through the 1979 season, Marchibroda was the head coach of the Baltimore Colts. During his stay there they went to the playoffs three times, each time losing in the first round. Thirteen years after leaving the Colts following the 1979 season, Marchibroda was hired again as their head coach, this time while the team was located in Indianapolis. Marchibroda’s only two playoff wins came during this second stint with the Colts during the 1995 season.

After being dismissed as the head coach for the Colts for the second time, Marchibroda was given his third head coaching job the following season. In 1996, the Cleveland Browns organization had moved to Baltimore which had been without a team since the Colts had left for Indianapolis in 1984. The franchise, now known as the Baltimore Ravens, was in need of a coach so they hired Marchibroda. His time as the first head coach in Baltimore Ravens history lasted just three years and he never posted a winning record.

So, Ted Marchibroda had three head coaching jobs, two of them were in the same city but not for the same team and two of them were for the same team but not in the same city. That’s truly an oddball coaching career if we’ve ever seen one.

Tony Dungy’s first head coaching job was with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. He experienced a good amount of success, but the organization felt he couldn’t get the job done in the playoffs so he was let go. Since then, he has made a name as one of the more successful coaches in the NFL through his running of the Indianapolis Colts franchise that won the Super Bowl following the 2006 season. These two experiences have lead Dungy to be in a unique position that no other coach can claim:

Tony Dungy is the winningest coach in franchise history for two different franchises: The Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the Indianapolis Colts.

One of the many legendary coaches the NFL has ever had was Don Coryell. Coryell is known for his “Air Coryell” offense that catapulted the San Diego Chargers of the early 1980s into the upper echelon of the NFL. This pass-happy offense was exciting to watch and tough to defend against too, but how successful did it make Don Coryell as a coach?

Don Coryell began his NFL head coaching with the St. Louis Cardinals in 1973, and after his first season when he went 4-9-1 he reeled off four consecutive seasons where his teams’ record didn’t dip below .500. After going 7-7 during the 1977 season, Coryell’s tenure with the Cardinals was over and he moved onto the Chargers for the next season.

Coryell’s Chargers had five consecutive winning season from the time that he arrived there. That made for Coryell to have nine consecutive seasons with his teams having a record of .500 or better. This is truly a great accomplishment, hundreds of coaches would love to have that record. But, what happened after that? The Chargers records in his last four seasons were 6-10, 7-9, 8-8, and finally 1-7 before his time with the Chargers was over.

Don Coryell’s NFL Head Coaching Record

1973 Cardinals 4-9-1
1974 Cardinals 10-4
1975 Cardinals 11-3
1976 Cardinals 10-4
1977 Cardinals 7-7
1978 Chargers 8-4
1979 Chargers 12-4
1980 Chargers 11-5
1981 Chargers 10-6
1982 Chargers 6-3
1983 Chargers 6-10
1984 Chargers 7-9
1985 Chargers 8-8
1986 Chargers 1-7

Dennis Green’s Run As The Vikings Head Coach.

No, he didn’t win a Super Bowl.
No, he wasn’t extremely successful in the playoffs.

But, let’s take a look at Dennis Green’s run as the head coach of the Minnesota Vikings.

Dennis Green took over the Vikings to start the 1992 NFL season following an 8-8 season under Jerry Burns. Green then rattled off nine consecutive years without having a below .500 season, and then in his 10th season after going 5-10 he was fired before the final game of the season which was coached by Green’s eventual successor Mike Tice.

Dennis Green would finish his run with the Vikings with a regular season record of 97-62. The highlight of which was the 1998 season when Randall Cunningham quarterbacked Green’s Vikings to a 15-1 record. Another thing to look at is this, in his ten seasons as head coach of the Vikings, he had seven different starting quarterbacks that quarterbacked either the entire season or a large part of it. Those quarterbacks are: Rich Gannon, Jim McMahon, Warren Moon, Brad Johnson, Randall Cunningham, Jeff George, and Daunte Culpepper. You can even go so far as to say that many of those quarterbacks had one or some of the best years of their career running Dennis Green’s offense.

While his three years with the Arizona Cardinals were not near as successful (a record of 16-32), it could also be said that no one could’ve coached that team to be a winner. Dennis Green’s time with the Vikings will go down in history as one of the more successful runs that any coach has had with any team in the modern NFL era.

Chuck Knox and the 1970s Los Angeles Rams

Perhaps one of the most underrated teams during the 1970s, the NFL’s Los Angeles Rams led by head coach Chuck Knox were a force to be reckoned with. In his five years as head coach of the Rams from 1973-1977, the Rams won their division (the NFC West) each year with a different starting quarterback: John Hadl, Ron Jaworski, Pat Haden, James Harris, and Joe Namath. He compiled an impressive regular season record of 54-15-1 and made it to the NFC Championship Game on three different occasions, only to lose each one. He resigned following the 1977 season in anticipation of Rams owner Carroll Rosenbloom firing him based on his 3-5 career playoff record with the team.

Lets Look At Jimmy Johnson’s Career

Jimmy Johnson, along with Barry Switzer, is one of only two people to have won both an NCAA football championship along with a Super Bowl championship. He’s had a long career on the sidelines and is currently employed analyzing football games for FOX on television. But, let’s take a look at his football career.

Earned the nickname “Jimmy Jumpup” while at the University of Arkansas where he was a teammate of future Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Johnson on a team that won the National Title.

1965: Louisiana Tech University - Assistant Coach
1966: Picayune Memorial High School – Picayune, MS – Assistant Coach
1967: Wichita State University – Assistant Coach
1968-69: Iowa State University – Assistant Coach
1970-72: University of Oklahoma – Defensive Line Coach
1973-76: University of Arkansas – Defensive Coordinator
1977-78: University of Pittsburgh – Assistant Coach
1979-83: Oklahoma State University – Head Coach
1984-88: University of Miami – Head Coach
1989-93: Dallas Cowboys – Head Coach
1996-99: Miami Dolphins – Head Coach

On the sidelines for eleven different teams over 35 years, Jimmy Johnson more than earned his chance to sit back and watch games with Howie Long and the boys on FOX TV.

Let’s Look At Tom Coughlin

Tom Coughlin, winning coach of Super Bowl XLII, has had a long and distinguished coaching career. Always known as a hard nosed disciplinarian, Coughlin’s tough outer shell has also earned him much respect and devotion from a select group of players.

• Tom Coughlin played wingback at Syracuse University in the late 1960’s. While there he set the record for number of passes caught in a season and was a teammate of one of the all time greats, Larry Csonka.

• Coughlin began his coaching career after one season as a graduate assistant at Syracuse with the head coaching position at Rochester Institute of Technology.

• Coughlin returned to Syracuse where he served as quarterbacks coach from 1974-75 and then as offensive coordinator from 1975-80.

• The years 1981-83 saw Tom Coughlin serve as the quarterbacks coach at Boston College.

• He made it to the NFL initially as the wide receivers coach for the Philadelphia Eagles from 1984-85.

• He also coached the wide receivers for the Green Bay Packers from 1986-87.

• He then coached the wide receivers under Bill Parcells from 1988-90.

• In 1991, Coughlin returned to Boston College, this time as the head coach and he would stay there through the 1993 season.

• From 1995-2002, Tom Coughlin would be the first head coach of the expansion Jacksonville Jaguars.

• After a year away from football, Coughlin would return in 2004 as head coach of the New York Giants.

In 2007, Coughlin working on a one-year extension contract, would lead the Giants to a Super Bowl victory over the up-until-then undefeated New England Patriots.

Tom Coughlin has definitely put his time in, with the exception of one season, coaching continuously from 1970 to 2007. He finally achieved the ultimate goal of every coach with a Super Bowl title in 2007.

Second Time Around – Taking The Coaching Carousel To The Extreme

People often refer to the coaching carousel in the National Football League; where it seems the same coaches move from one team to the next. The true coaching carousel happens less frequently, it happens when one coach moves on from his team only to eventually return and coach that team again. Joe Gibbs of the Washington Redskins was the last one to perform this feat as he just completed his second tour of duty with the Redskins. What other coaches have done this?

The Rams
Chuck Knox coached the Rams in the 1970’s for a while and then came back to hold the same position in the early 1990’s. John Robinson did the same thing, coaching the Rams in the 1980’s and then returning to coach them again before retiring.

The Falcons
Marion Campbell coached the Falcons from 1974-1976 and then again from 1987-1989.

The Raiders
It was big news when Al Davis hired Art Shell to coach the Raiders in the late 1980’s, he would then bring him back to coach the same team over fifteen years later.

The Vikings
After Bud Grant retired following 17 years as Head Coach of the Vikings, Minnesota hire Les Steckel to replace him. Steckel lasted only one season and Grant was rehired and coached the team for one more year.

The Bears
The Chicago Bears situation was a little different, George Halas had four different stints as the Head Coach of the Chicago Bears, this rehiring was however made a little easier by the fact that Halas also owned the team.

The Colts
In one of the more interesting cases, Ted Marchibroda coached the Colts while the team was in Baltimore during the 1970’s, he then coached the Colts again in the 1990’s in Indianapolis.

There are more examples of coaches with multiple stays with the same team from the real early days of the NFL, but the practice is pretty rare these days.

Patient Ownership: A Thing Of The Past

In today’s hire-and-fire world of pro football it is rare to see a head coach suffer through too many sub .500 seasons without being shown the door. Sometimes it makes you wonder what that coach could’ve developed into or accomplished with that team if the ownership had exhibited a little more patience.

Two examples:

Bill Belichick is regarded as a genius for his accomplishments with the New England Patriots. Knowledgeable football people credit him as the best coach in the league. Few mention that there was a time that Belichick was head coach of the Cleveland Browns and he wasn’t quite as successful. What would’ve happened if the Browns ownership of the times had shown more patience, would they have three Super Bowl rings?

Tom Landry coached the Dallas Cowboys for 29 years starting in 1960, the team’s first year in the league. The Cowboys record their first year was 0-11-1, and over the course of the next five seasons they never won more than 5 games. Despite this inauspicious start, Cowboys ownership gave Landry a ten year extension and he went on to make (with the help of General Manager Tex Schramm) the Cowboys into “America’s Team”, win two Super Bowls and appear in half the Super Bowls of the 1970’s. From 1965 to 1985, Landry’s Cowboys ran off 20 consecutive winning seasons.

One team showed patience and was nicely rewarded, the other lacked faith in their head coach and fired the man some call the smartest coach in the game. No telling what may have happened if the opposite decisions had been made, but it sure is fun to wonder.

The Accomplishments of Bill Parcells

Bill Parcells has proven himself to be one of the best NFL head coaches of his era. Rising up through the ranks as a much-traveled and longtime college assistant before getting his chance with the New York Giants, Parcells went on to experience success at each of his coaching stops and always leaving teams better off than they were before he came to them.

Career Record: 172-130-1
Career Playoff Record: 11-8
Super Bowl Championships: 2

The only head coach to lead four different NFL teams into the playoffs (Giants, Patriots, Jets, and Cowboys).

The list of eventual NFL head coaches that served as assistant coaches under Bill Parcells includes: Ray Handley, Tom Coughlin, Bill Belichick, Al Groh, Chris Palmer, Sean Payton, Eric Mangini, and Romeo Crennel.

By far Parcells biggest strength was being able to turn struggling franchises around. The Giants had one winning season in the previous ten years when Parcells took over and four years later they were Super Bowl Champions. The Patriots had not made the playoffs for six years before Parcells came and they would go on to make a Super Bowl appearance a few years later. The Jets were perennial losers and in Parcells’ second season they made it all the way to the AFC Championship Game. The Cowboys had three consecutive 5-11 seasons before hiring Parcells and in his first season there they would go 10-6 and make the playoffs.

Bill Parcells, truly one of the greats.