Top 10 NFL Coaches

Left: The most important coach in NFL history.

Right: The greatest coach in NFL history.

Don't tell me that Bill Belichick, who was fired as head coach of the New England Patriots yesterday, is "the greatest coach in NFL history." He is not. Bill Belichick is a damn cheat. And without his biggest co-conspirator in cheating, Tom Brady, we saw the real Belichick, in Cleveland, 1991-95: 36-44. And in New England after Brady, 2020-23: 29-38.

And so, to everybody calling him the greatest coach in NFL history, I quote a great football coach, though not in American football, who never had to cheat, Brian Clough: "You lads are a bloody disgrace!

Top 10 Greatest NFL Coaches

10. Tom Landry. Dallas Cowboys, 1960-88. His greatest contribution may have come as defensive coordinator for the New York Giants, as he invented the 4-3 defense. As a head coach, he won 13 Division titles, reached 12 NFL or NFC Championship Games, and reached 5 Super Bowls, winning 2. Built not one but two great offenses, and not one but two great defenses. Won a Super Bowl against Shula's Dolphins.

I'd rank him higher, but the Cowboys did get a lot of breaks.

9. Weeb Ewbank. Baltimore Colts, 1954-62. New York Jets, 1963-73. A few coaches have won back-to-back NFL Championships, and he's one. But he's the only one to win titles in both the NFL and the AFL, and beat Shula's Dolphins in Super Bowl III.

8. Joe Gibbs. Washington Redskins, 1981-92, 2004-07. With Daniel Snyder as the team's owner the 2nd time around, he couldn't do much. With Jack Kent Cooke as the owner the 1st time around, he took the team to 4 Super Bowls in 9 seasons. Even more remarkable, and this is something no other coach in NFL history can claim, he won 3 Super Bowls, each with a different quarterback. Won a Super Bowl against Shula's Dolphins and an NFC Championship Game against Landry's Cowboys, and split 2 NFC Championship Games against Walsh's 49ers.

7. Bill Parcells. New York Giants, 1983-90. New England Patriots, 1993-96. New York Jets, 1997-99. Dallas Cowboys, 2003-06. Coaching in New York magnified his personality, and made him seem better than he was. But he turned 3 different franchises from horrible losers into winners.

He led the Giants to 2 Super Bowl wins, he got the Patriots into a Super Bowl and saved them from being moved -- at least out of Massachusetts to Connecticut, and possibly out of New England entirely -- and, in what has got to be his greatest achievement, he got the Jets to within a half of a Super Bowl. (Okay, Walt Michael and Rex Ryan also did that, and Ewbank took them all the way. Still.)

6. Don Shula. Baltimore Colts, 1963-69. Miami Dolphins, 1970-95. He won more games than any other NFL coaches, both if you count only the regular season and if you also count the postseason. He built 4 strong defenses: With the Detroit Lions as an assistant coach, in Baltimore, and in Miami in the early 1970s and again in the early 1980s.

He won 15 Division titles, and reached 7 NFL championship games, including 6 Super Bowls. His record in those games was 2-5, and they included a game he never should have lost, Super Bowl III, to Ewbank's Jets. Also lost one each to Landry's Cowboys, Gibbs' Redskins and Walsh's 49ers. But they also included Super Bowls VII and VIII, and VII finished the only undefeated NFL season since the NFL began having playoffs in 1932.

5. George Halas. Chicago Bears, 1920-29, 1933-42, 1946-55, 1958-67. Most NFL Championships, 8. Okay, he was owner for 8 and general manager for 8, but head coach for "only 6." But he never had to cheat. His 324 wins were the record until Shula. Also, unlike the guy at Number 1, an innovator, as he created the modern passing game.

Of course, his greatest innovations were not on the sideline, but in the boardroom, and not just because he founded the damn league.

4. Bill Walsh. San Francisco 49ers, 1979-88. Took a 2-14 team, and made them Super Bowl winners in 2 years. Built maybe the greatest offense in football history. Won 3 Super Bowls and had the team in place that would win 2 more.

Won a Super Bowl against Shula's Dolphins, an NFC Championship Game against Landry's Cowboys, and a Divisional Playoff against Parcells' Giants. Split 2 NFC Championship Games against Gibbs' Redskins.

3. Chuck Noll. Pittsburgh Steelers, 1969-91. Took the worst team in the NFL -- not just at the time, but historically -- and, in 4 seasons, built them into a team that would reach the Playoffs 8 straight years, winning 7 Division titles, reaching 4 Super Bowls, and winning them all, 2 of them against Landry's Cowboys. His offense was as good as any the NFL has ever seen. His defense was even better than that. Split 2 Playoff meetings with Shula's Dolphins.

2. Paul Brown. Cleveland Browns, 1946-62. Cincinnati Bengals, 1968-90. Also, Ohio State, 1941-43. The 1st man ever to coach both an NCAA and an NFL Champion. Won the title in the All-American Football Conference in all 4 seasons of its existence. Won 3 NFL titles. Reached his league's title game 10 straight seasons.

The greatest offensive genius the sport has ever known. Worth noting that Ewbank, Shula, Noll and Walsh either played for him or were on his coaching staff.

1. Vince Lombardi. Green Bay Packers, 1959-67. Washington Redskins, 1969. In 1958, the Packers were 1-10-1. 1st year: Got them over .500. 2nd year; Division title. 3rd year: NFL Champions. 4th year: NFL Champions. 5th year: Missed Playoffs. 6th year: Missed Playoffs. 7th year: NFL Champions. 8th year: NFL and World Champions. 9th year; NFL and World Champions. To win those 8th and 9th year NFL Championships, had to beat Landry's Cowboys.

Took a year off, a year in which the Redskins were 5-9. 1st year: Got them over .500. Developed cancer and died before his 2nd year with Washington. In what would have been his 4th year, George Allen, a former Halas assistant, got them into the Super Bowl, and came closer than anyone expected to beating Shula's Dolphins.

Top that, Belichick, and do it without cheating. You can't. No one ever has.

January 16, 1972: The Dallas Cowboys Win the Big One

January 16, 1972, 50 years ago: The Dallas Cowboys, after some rough near-misses, finally win the big one.

An expansion team in 1960, they won the NFL Western Division title in 1966 and 1967, but lost the NFL Championship Game to the Green Bay Packers both times. They lost in the Divisional round in 1968 and 1969, both times to the Cleveland Browns.

In 1970, the 1st season after the full NFL-AFL merger, Tom Landry's Cowboys went 10-4, beat the Detroit Lions in the Divisional round, and beat the San Francisco 49ers in the 1st-ever NFC Championship Game. Quarterback Craig Morton, defensive tackle Bob Lilly, and the team that had lost a thriller at home on New Year's Day in 1967 and the Ice Bowl in Green Bay on New Year's Eve that same year was ready to take the final step.

They had advanced to Super Bowl V, against the Baltimore Colts, who were also seeking redemption, having lost Super Bowl III to the New York Jets, when they were favored by 18 points. It was a sloppy game, and the Colts won it, 16-13, on a field goal by Jim O'Brien with 5 seconds left.

The Cowboys had gained a reputation as "the team that couldn't win the big one." The idea that they would ever become what they would call themselves by the end of the decade, "America's Team," was ludicrous.

Landry decided he'd had enough: As the Cowboys were moving into a new home, leaving the Cotton Bowl for Texas Stadium in suburban Irving, he got a new quarterback, benching Morton for Roger Staubach. His running backs included Dan Reeves (a future coach who got 2 different teams into the Super Bowl), Calvin Hill (an All-Pro whose son Grant would make the Basketball Hall of Fame), Walt Garrison, and Duane Thomas, a Dallas native long on both talent and complications.

Staubach's receivers included Bob Hayes, the Olympic sprinting Gold Medalist; and 2 men who would make the Pro Football Hall of Fame mainly for their achievements elsewhere, former San Diego Charger Lance Alworth and former Chicago Bear Mike Ditka. They offensive line including 2 Hall of Fame offensive tackles, Rayfield Wright and former Packer Forrest Gregg.

Landry had built what became known as the Doomsday Defense. Bob Lilly was a Hall of Fame tackle. The linebacking corps of Lee Roy Jordan, Chuck Howley, D.D. Lewis and former Packer Lee Roy Caffey was as good as any ever assembled. The backfield included another Packer, Hall-of-Famer Herb Adderley, plus Mel Renfro, Cornell Green, Cliff Harris and Charlie Waters.

They went 11-3 in the regular season. Their only losses were by 4 at home to the Washington Redskins, by 10 away to the New Orleans Saints, and by 4 away to the Chicago Bears. On Christmas Day, they beat the Minnesota Vikings in the Divisional Playoff, 20-12 at Metropolitan Stadium in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington, Minnesota. On January 2, 1972, in the 1st of 24 Playoff games that Texas Stadium would host, they won the NFC Championship by beating the San Francisco 49ers, 14-3.

They had advanced to Super Bowl VI, set for Tulane Stadium in New Orleans, home of Tulane University and the annual Sugar Bowl. Their opponents would be the Miami Dolphins. An even newer team, they had been founded in 1966, and had made the Playoffs the last 2 seasons. Their head coach was Don Shula, who had coached the Colts in their Super Bowl III loss. His team might not (yet) have needed redemption, but he sure did.

And so it was Landry and Shula, possibly the 1st 2 good defensive backs after the NFL went to two-platoon football, and of the 2 earliest great defensive coordinators, who both needed to cap their legacies with a championship, and needed it badly. But only one could get it in Super Bowl VI.

Also needing some kind of redemption was Cowboy running back Duane Thomas. Based on the shenanigans of later players like Terrell Owens and Antonio Brown, the things Thomas did and said now seem rather tame. But football observers had never seen anyone like him before.

Before the season, he wanted his 3-year contract rewritten. Cowboy management refused. He call team president Tex Schramm "deceitful," player personnel direct Gil Brandt "a liar," and Landry himself "a plastic man" and "no man at all."

And he refused to report to training camp. So the Cowboys traded him tot he New England Patriots. But he wouldn't report to them, either. NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle actually voided the trade. Thomas reported to Dallas, but announced that he wouldn't talk to his teammates, or to team management, or to the media.

It worked. He scored the 1st touchdown at Texas Stadium -- with some irony, against the Patriots. He led the NFL in touchdowns with 13, and in rushing touchdowns with 11. A reporter tried to get him to break his silence in the leadup to the Super Bowl, and succeeded: He asked Thomas about playing in "the ultimate game," and Thomas said, "If it's the ultimate, how come they're playing it again the next year?"

Dallas and Miami. Texas and Florida. It was the 1st time any sport's championship game down to 2 teams whose home States had both been on the Confederate side in the American Civil War. And it was being played in a former Confederate State, Louisiana. And yet, despite the American Southeast's reputation for heat, this was January, and the game was played outdoors, and the temperature at kickoff was 39 degrees. It remains the coldest Super Bowl ever, and the coldest NFL Championship Game under any name since the Ice Bowl in Green Bay in 1967.

Dolphin running back Larry Csonka had not fumbled all season long. But he fumbled in the 1st quarter, and the Cowboys recovered, eventually getting a field goal out of it. Later in the quarter, Lilly chased Dolphin quarterback Bob Griese back so far, he was sacked for a 29-yard loss, the longest loss of yardage from scrimmage, not counting turnovers, in the history of NFL championship games.

Despite this, the Dolphins were not yet out of the game. They got into Cowboy territory, and set up a 49-yard field goal attempt by Garo Yepremian. But it proved to be too long for him, and the Cowboys capitalized, with Staubach throwing a touchdown pass to Alworth to make it 10-0. Yepremian kicked a field goal late in the half, to give the Dolphins some hope.

The Cowboys' inside running game had worked very well in the 1st half. Shula decided to concentrate on that. But Landry guessed that Shula would do that, so he set up an outside running game for the 2nd half, and it worked: On their next drive, Thomas had 4 runs for 37 yards, capped by a 3-yard run for a touchdown. The Cowboys added a touchdown in the 4th quarter, Staubach passing to Ditka.

The final score was 24-3. Shula said the Doomsday Defense "destroyed" his offense. Not until Super Bowl XXXV, when the New York Giants got only a kickoff return touchdown against the Baltimore Ravens, would another team play a Super Bowl without an offensive touchdown. And not until Super Bowl LIII, when the Los Angeles Rams lost to the New England Patriots 13-3, would a team score so few points in a Super Bowl. Those 3 points remain the fewest scored in an NFL championship game, under any name, since 1964, when the Browns beat the Colts, 27-0.

The writers overcame their feelings about Thomas, and named him the game's Most Valuable Player. At the time, the Super Bowl MVP was announced by Sport magazine, and came with a new car, whose keys would be presented at a banquet in New York. But Larry Klein, the magazine's editor, didn't know how Thomas, black and with a record of insubordination, would act at the banquet. So he personally overrode the vote, and named Staubach, a white Navy veteran with a reputation for doing as he was told, as the MVP.

After the game, Tom Brookshier, the former Philadelphia Eagle defensive back working for CBS, tried to interview Thomas. Pointing out his speed, Brookshier, asked, "Are you that fast?" Thomas looked at him as if it was the dumbest question he'd ever heard, and said one word: "Evidently."

Thomas did not handle his fame to his team's satisfaction. So, in the next season's training camp, he was traded to the San Diego Chargers. He refused to report. He was suspended. He was played on the reserve list. He didn't play a down in 1972. They traded him to the Redskins -- the Cowboys' arch-rivals. For 2 years, he seemed to do all right there. But he refused to report to training camp in 1975, and was waived.

Desperate for fans as their rebel league was floundering, the World Football League offered Thomas a new chance. He was signed by the Honolulu Hawaiians -- with some irony, to replace his former Cowboy teammate, the injured Calvin Hill. But he was released right before the league folded. The Cowboys brought him back in 1976, but waived him before the season.

He briefly played for the British Columbia Lions of the Canadian Football League, and was briefly at training camp with the 1979 Packers. Despite having the kind of talent that later led Houston Chronicle writer David Barron to say, "Some running backs looked for the hole. To Thomas, the whole field was the hole," his career ended with 2,038 rushing yards and 21 touchdowns.

He later hosted a radio talk show, telling an interviewer, "A lot of people get a kick out of that." He has said, "The Super Bowl wasn't the ultimate to me. I was just getting started. I was having fun, and I thought management was trying to take the fun out of it." He also says he made peace with Landry before his death.

He collaborated with Sports Illustrated writer Paul Zimmerman on a book titled Duane Thomas and the Fall of America's Team. The Cowboys did not "fall" after Super Bowl VI. It is true that they needed 3 years to get back to the Super Bowl, and 2 more to win one. But that's because their team that had reached 4 NFL championship games was getting old, and they were in transition. Once that transition was completed, Landry, Brandt and Schramm had built a team that dominated the NFC East for another decade, winning Super Bowl XII, but losing Super Bowls X and XIII.

Do Mediocre Players Make the Best Coaches? NFL Edition

I just got a look at the NFL Playoff game between the Cincinnati Bengals and the Houston Texans. At this writing, it's the 3rd quarter, and the Texans lead, 17-10.

This was the 44th season for the Bengals, and only the 10th time they've made the Playoffs. This was the 10th season for the Texans, and the 1st time they've made it, having also won their first AFC South Division Championship. The last time a Houston team made the NFL Playoffs was the 1993 Houston Oilers, now the Tennessee Titans, 18 seasons ago.

The Bengals are coached by Marvin Lewis, who never played in the NFL. The Texans are coached by Gary Kubiak, best known as John Elway's backup on the Denver Bronco teams that won 3 AFC titles but no Super Bowls.

Like a lot of athletes who were good enough to make it to the major league level of their sport, but not good enough to excel at it, they put their love and knowledge of the game to work in coaching. Kubiak became a respecting quarterbacking coach and offensive coordinator before getting the Texans head job.

Lewis, undrafted out of Idaho State, returned to his alma mater as an assistant coach, and worked his way into the pros, becoming the defensive coordinator that built the Baltimore Ravens defense that led them to the 2000 NFL Championship and Super Bowl XXXV -- holding the Giants to 7 points, and those on a kickoff return, making them the only team with no "offensive points" in a Super Bowl. (Of course, by definition, all points are scored by the offense, even if you pick up a fumble or intercept a pass, at that moment, even if you're a 300-pound defensive end, your side becomes the offense.)

While it's not the lowest point total ever in a Super Bowl -- in SB VI, in 1972, the Dallas Cowboys held the Miami Dolphins to a field goal -- it is the lowest point total in an NFL championship game, under any name, since the Cleveland Browns shut out the Baltimore Colts in 1964.

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What about the other teams in the NFL Playoffs?

Giants: Tom Coughlin won Super Bowl XLII, and got the Jacksonville Jaguars to the AFC Championship Game in only the franchise's 2nd season. But while he set Syracuse University's pass-reception record on a team that had Larry Csonka and Floyd Little in its backfield, he went undrafted by the NFL. He coached at Syracuse, and made his name as Boston College's quarterbacks coach, turning a 5-foot-9-and-3/4 kid named Doug Flutie into a Heisman Trophy winner. He coached with Philadelphia and Green Bay before joining Bill Parcells' Giant staff, then became BC's head man before coaching the Jags and the Giants.

New England Patriots: Bill Belichick has won 3 Super Bowls -- perhaps by cheating -- but as a player, went right from college to working for a pro coach, Ted Marchibroda of the Baltimore Colts, and began his coaching rise that way, including coaching on Parcells' staff, along with Coughlin and some other names that became head coaches. I don't know what Coughlin learned from watching Belichick, but Belichick's been a head man in 4 Super Bowls, all of them close, and Coughlin's Giants are the only one to beat him.

Pittsburgh Steelers: Mike Tomlin, like Coughlin, set receiving records at his school, William & Mary, but went undrafted. He coached under Tony Dungy and Jon Gruden with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and when Bill Cowher left the Steelers they hired Tomlin, who has now led them to 2 AFC titles and a Super Bowl win.

New Orleans Saints: Sean Payton was one of the 1987 strikebreakers, playing 3 games for Chicago's "Spare Bears." Like Fox, he was on Jim Fassel's staff for the 2000 NFC Champion Giants, and led the Saints to their first Super Bowl appearance and win.

Green Bay Packers: Mike McCarthy went to Baker University, an NAIA school in Kansas -- there's the NCAA Football Bowl Subdivision (formerly known as Division I-A), there's the NCAA Football Championship Subdivision (formerly Division I-AA), there's NCAA Division II, there's NCAA Division III... and then there's the NAIA. But McCarthy made his way to the nearby Kansas City Chiefs, where he was on a staff that got them to the 1993-94 AFC Championship Game, the closest the franchise has gotten to the Super Bowl since 1969-70. Maybe some of the Chiefs' veteran quarterback, Joe Montana, rubbed off on him. He became a well-regarded quarterbacks coach and then offensive coordinator before getting the Pack head job, and in the past 2 seasons has led them to a Super Bowl win and a 15-1 season which makes them the favorites to do it again.

Denver Broncos: Jon Fox played at San Diego State, where he was a teammate of Herman "You play to win the game!" Edwards, but went undrafted. Prior to his current job, his jobs including defensive coordinator for the Giants under Jim Fassel and the head job with the Carolina Panthers, whom he led to the 2003 NFC Championship before losing Super Bowl XXXVIII to Belichick's Pats.

Atlanta Falcons: Mike Smith was the defensive MVP at East Tennessee State University, but 1 year in Canada was the limit of his pro playing experience. Like Marvin Lewis, he was on Brian Billick's Ravens staff before being hired in Atlanta. He has taken a franchise that was a horror show after the Michael Vick fiasco and turned it into a very respectable unit again.

San Francisco 49ers: Jim Harbaugh is almost an exception to what I'm suggesting is a rule. The son of Jack Harbaugh, an assistant coach to Bo Schembechler at the University of Michigan, he became Michigan's quarterback, got the Bears into the Playoffs a couple of times, and got the Indianapolis Colts to the 1995 AFC Championship Game. He was a member of the Oakland Raiders staff that won the 2002 AFC Championship, then was named head coach at the University of San Diego and Stanford University before being named Niners head man earlier this year. He seems to have singlehandedly turned Alex Smith from one of the biggest first-pick-in-the-draft busts ever into a Playoff quarterback.

Baltimore Ravens: Jim's older brother John Harbaugh never played in the NFL, having been a defensive back at Miami University of Ohio. The brothers' father, Jack Harbaugh, was an assistant to University of Michigan coach Bo Schembechler, who had played at Miami and recommended John to the school. He spent 10 years on Andy Reid's Philadelphia Eagles staff before getting the Ravens job.

Detroit Lions: Jim Schwartz played at Georgetown University, the Washington, D.C.-based school far better known for its basketball team. He was a Titans assistant under Jeff Fisher and helped them win the 1999 AFC Title and make more Playoff appearances in the 2000s. After the Lions bottomed out with their 2008 0-16 season, he was brought in, and has made them a Playoff team in just 3 years. Considering that this is his first head job, and what he had to work with at the start, this may be the most amazing NFL coaching job in a long time.

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"Okay, Mike," I can hear you say, "this theory of yours makes sense for the moment. But is it historically true?"

Let's see. First, let's start counting from 1933 onward. Why? Two reasons: First, it was the 1st season in which there was an official NFL Championship Game; second, we're now getting out of the era of player-coaches, men who were playing and coaching at the same time.

1933 Chicago Bears: George Halas. Good player, not a great one. In the Pro Football Hall of Fame as a coach and owner, much more than as a player.

1934 New York Giants: Steve Owen. Good player, not a great one. In the Hall of Fame as a coach, not a player.

1935 Detroit Lions: George "Potsy" Clark. I can't find much information about his playing career, which suggests he was, at best, ordinary.

1936 Green Bay Packers: Earl "Curly" Lambeau. Good player, not a great one. In the Hall of Fame as a coach, not a player.

1937 Washington Redskins: Ray Flaherty. An exceptional player, helping the Giants win the 1927 NFL Championship (in the pre-title game era). His Number 1 is, by some sources, the 1st uniform number to be retired by any team in any sport. In the Hall as a player.

1938 Giants: Owen.

1939 Packers: Lambeau.

1940 Bears: Halas.

1941 Bears: Halas.

1942 Redskins: Flaherty.

1943 Bears: Heartley "Hunk" Anderson, a former Notre Dame star, and Luke Johnsos (not "Johnson") were co-head coaches while Halas was a Navy officer during World War II. Although Anderson was a very good collegiate player, neither had starred in the NFL.

1944 Packers: Lambeau.

1945 Cleveland Rams: Adam Walsh. Not to be confused with the boy of the same name, whose kidnapping and murder inspired his father John Walsh to start the TV show America's Most Wanted, this Adam Walsh was one of the linemen known as the "Seven Mules," blocking for the "Four Horsemen," that helped Notre Dame win the 1924 National Championship. But he never played in the pros -- although by the standards of the time he would have been considered an excellent prospect. Despite winning the title, the Rams did not draw well in Cleveland, and became the only team in North American major league sports history to win a "world championship" and then move for the next season, to Los Angeles.

1946 Bears: Halas.

1947 Chicago Cardinals: Jimmy Conzelman was one of the NFL's 1st stars, and was player-coach of the 1928 NFL Champions, the Providence Steam Roller. (Officially, the name had no S on the end -- why, I don't know. But most people just called them the Steam Rollers, anyway, and some surviving artifacts of the team such as banners and game programs have the S on the end. The franchise went bust in 1933 due to the Depression.) Conzelman is in the Hall of Fame, mainly as a player.

1948 Philadelphia Eagles: Earle "Greasy" Neale was a very good baseball player, the starting right fielder for the 1919 Cincinnati Reds. He played both Major League Baseball and pro football with Jim Thorpe (albeit in the pre-NFL era). As a football player, he wasn't as good as he was at baseball.

1949 Eagles: Neale.

1950 Cleveland Browns: Paul Brown was one of the greatest minds the game of football has ever produced, but he never played in the pros.

1951 Los Angeles Rams: Joe Stydahar played on Halas' 1940 "Monsters of the Midway" and is legitimately in the Hall as a player.

1952 Detroit Lions: Raymond "Buddy" Parker played on the Lions' 1935 title team, but wasn't a great player.

1953 Lions: Parker.

1954 Browns: Brown.

1955 Browns: Brown.

1956 Giants: Jim Lee Howell played 10 years for the Giants and was a member of their 1938 title team, but was not particularly noteworthy as a player. As a head coach, he's remembered less for leading the Giants to this title than for his assistants: Offensive coordinator Vince Lombardi and defensive coordinator Tom Landry.

1957 Lions: George Wilson played for Halas' 1940 Bears, like Stydahar; unlike Stydahar, he was an unremarkable player. But he did lead the Lions to what, for the moment, remains their last title, after Parker quit in a huff in the preceding off-season. Wilson was also the first head coach of the Dolphins. He should not be confused with George "Wildcat" Wilson who in the 1920s starred at the University of Washington and then played under Conzelman on the 1928 Champion Steam Roller. Oddly, I know a pair of brothers named George and Merle Wilson -- but Merle is the Dolphin fan, while that George likes the Redskins.

1958 Baltimore Colts: Wilbur "Weeb" Ewbank is the only man to be head coach of both an NFL Champion and an AFL Champion, the 1968-69 Jets. But he never played pro ball.

1959 Colts: Ewbank.

1960 Philadelphia Eagles: Lawrence "Buck" Shaw was a teammate of Hunk Anderson on Knute Rockne's 1920 Notre Dame team that won the National Championship, but he never played pro ball.

1961 Packers: Vince Lombardi was a member of the "Seven Blocks of Granite" team that made Fordham University a formidable side in the late 1930s, but he never played in the pros.

1962 Packers: Lombardi.

1963 Bears: Halas.

1964 Browns: Blanton Collier is the most recent man to lead a Northern Ohio-based team to a World Championship, but he never played pro ball.

1965 Packers: Lombardi.

1966 Packers: Lombardi.

1967 Packers: Lombardi.

1968 New York Jets: Ewbank.

1969 Kansas City Chiefs: Hank Stram was an exceptional all-around athlete in high school, but World War II interrupted his college days and he went right into coaching in peacetime.

1970 Baltimore Colts: Don McCafferty played only 1 season of pro ball.

1971 Dallas Cowboys: Tom Landry was a very good player, a 2-way star for the University of Texas in the late 1940s, with Bobby Layne of the 1950s Lions as his quarterback. When the NFL went 2-platoon in the early '50s, he was the first player to make his mark as purely a defensive back. He became one of the great defensive minds in the game's history, building the unit that became the 1st one to lead fans to chant "De-FENSE!" as the Giants won the 1956 NFL Championship. He became the Cowboys' first head coach in 1960 and was their only one until 1988. He's in the Hall as a coach, but could have been elected as a player.

1972 Miami Dolphins: Don Shula was a good defensive back for the Colts, but not a great one.

1973 Dolphins: Shula.

1974 Pittsburgh Steelers: Chuck Noll was a very good 2-way lineman for Paul Brown's Cleveland Browns, but not a great one.

1975 Steelers: Noll.

1976 Oakland Raiders: John Madden was drafted by the Philadelphia Eagles in 1959, but wrecked his knee in training camp and never played a pro down. But that worked out wonderfully for him because Eagle quarterback Norm Van Brocklin was studying game film in the locker room and called him over, and taught Madden how to analyze game film. Madden couldn't play on the Eagles' 1960 NFL Champions, but he became an assistant in the AFL with the San Diego Chargers and then the Raiders, and was one of the few coaches in the era before the 16-game schedule to win 100 regular-season games in 10 years.

1977 Cowboys: Landry.

1978 Steelers: Noll.

1979 Steelers: Noll.

1980 Oakland Raiders: Tom Flores was the 1st-ever starting quarterback for the Raiders, but was an ordinary player, unlike later Raider signal-callers Daryle Lamonica, George Blanda, Ken Stabler, Jim Plunkett, Jay Schroeder and Rich Gannon.

1981 San Francisco 49ers: Although Bill Walsh he played football and boxed at San Jose State University, and served as a worthy assistant to Paul Brown with the original Cincinnati Bengals, he never played a down in the pros.

1982 Washington Redskins: Joe Gibbs went right into coaching after graduating from San Diego State, and never played a down in the pros.

1983 Los Angeles Raiders: Flores.

1984 49ers: Walsh.

1985 Chicago Bears: Mike Ditka is in the Hall as a player, and justifiably so, as he was the 1st offensive end to be a modern tight end, and helped Halas win his last title with the 1963 Bears and Landry his 1st with the 1971 Cowboys.

1986 Giants: Bill Parcells was drafted by the Detroit Lions but cut before the season started, and never played in the NFL.

1987 Redskins: Gibbs.

1988 49ers: Walsh.

1989 49ers: George Seifert never played in the pros.

1990 Giants: Parcells.

1991 Redskins: Gibbs.

1992 Cowboys: Jimmy Johnson played for the University of Arkansas' 1964 team that won a split National Championship, but never played in the pros. He made his name coaching at Oklahoma State and the University of Miami (the one in Florida, not the one in Ohio). His college teammate, Jerry Jones, bought the Cowboys, fired Landry, and hired Johnson, enabling him to become the 1st man to be head coach of both a college National Champion and a Super Bowl winner. But Jones drove Johnson nuts (not a long drive), Johnson quit, and Jones hired legendary University of Oklahoma coach Barry Switzer, who preceded them both as an Arkansas player, and then became the 2nd such coach.

1993 Cowboys: Johnson.

1994 49ers: Seifert.

1995 Cowboys: Barry Switzer played at Arkansas, but went right into the U.S. Army and then into coaching after his discharge.

1996 Packers: Mike Holmgren has been called the best high school quarterback the City of San Francisco has ever produced -- hard to imagine, considering how fat he was by the time he became an NFL head coach -- and was a backup on the 1967 University of Southern California team that won a National Championship, thanks to another San Franciscan, O.J. Simpson. Holmgren was drafted by the St. Louis Cardinals, but washed out with both them and the Jets before the season began, and never played in the pros.

1997 Denver Broncos: Mike Shanahan was a quarterback at Eastern Illinois University, but a freak injury in practice ruptured a kidney, nearly killing him and ending his chances at a pro career. He was 2-0 in Super Bowls with the Broncos, the 2nd win coming at the expense of the Atlanta Falcons, coached by Dan Reeves -- who had a good pro career with Landry's Cowboys, first as a running back (SB VI) and then as an assistant coach (SB XII -- same with Ditka), but was 0-3 in Super Bowls as Bronco head man.

1998 Broncos: Shanahan.

1999 St. Louis Rams: Dick Vermeil was a backup quarterback at San Jose State, and never had a chance to play pro ball. But he's been named a Coach of the Year in high school, junior college, Division I-A (leading UCLA to win a Pacific Eight title and a Rose Bowl) and the NFL, getting the Eagles to their first Championship Game appearance in 20 years (losing Super Bowl XV) and getting the Rams to their first World Championship in 49 years (winning Super Bowl XXXIV).

2000 Baltimore Ravens: Brian Billick was drafted by the 49ers but was cut by them and the Cowboys and never played pro ball.

2001 New England Patriots: Belichick, as I said, never played pro ball.

2002 Tampa Bay Buccaneers: Jon Gruden was a backup quarterback at Ohio's University of Dayton and never had much of a chance to play in the NFL.

2003 Patriots: Belichick.

2004 Patriots: Belichick.

2005 Steelers: Bill Cowher ends a 20-year run of Super Bowl-winning coaches who never played so much as a single down in the NFL. A linebacker, he wasn't a great player, but he did help the Browns' "Kardiac Kids" dethrone their arch-rivals, the Steelers, as AFC Central Division Champions in 1980.

2006 Indianapolis Colts: Tony Dungy was a defensive back who didn't play long in the NFL, but did get a ring with the 1978 Steelers. He then became a boy-wonder coach, serving under Noll on the Steelers, Marty Schottenheimer on the Chiefs and Dennis Green on the Minnesota Vikings before getting the Bucs' job. Fired right before they could take the last step, he was quickly hired by the Colts, and led them to their 1st title since moving from Baltimore.

2007 Giants: Coughlin, as I said, never played pro ball.

2008 Steelers: Tomlin, as I said, never played pro ball.

2009 Saints: Payton, as I said, was a strikebreaker, but otherwise never played pro ball.

2010 Packers: McCarthy, as I said, never played pro ball.

2011 To Be Determined.

*

So, counting multiple winners multiple times, counting the 1943 Anderson/Johnsos entry as one player, and counting coaches who didn't play pro ball at all as "mediocre players":

Great players: 7
Good players: 20
Mediocre players: 50

Being charitable, the only "great players" to have become title-winning NFL coaches in the last 60 years are Tom Landry and his former player and assistant Mike Ditka. Being more specific, the only Hall of Fame player to have become a title-winning NFL coach in the last 60 years is Ditka.

Consider some of the Hall of Fame players who have become NFL head coaches from 1951 onward: Sammy Baugh, Tom Fears, Norm Van Brocklin, Otto Graham, Joe Schmidt, Bart Starr, Mike Singletary.

But since Stydahar coached the '51 Rams to the title, the only other HOF players to be head coaches of teams that even got into the NFL Championship Game (1952-65) or the Super Bowl (1966 season through 2010) is Forrest Gregg, who played on Lombardi's 5 Packer titles and Landry's 1st Cowboy title. (So did Herb Adderley, who's never been an NFL head coach. He and Gregg are the only NFL players to have played on 6 title-winning teams.)

I'm not the only person to think about this idea. It's long been suggested that great players, when they become coaches, get frustrated with players under them who aren't as good as they were, and even more so with players who are good but don't put up the kind of effort the coach once did.

I'll look at the other major sports in subsequent entries.

Oh, and it's a final from Reliant Stadium in Houston: Texans 31, Bengals 10. This is the 1st time since December 29, 1991 -- 19 years and 9 days -- since a Houston team has won an NFL Playoff game. That time? At the Astrodome, the Oilers won 17-10 over... the Jets.

My Most Hated Opponents -- Non-Players Edition

A few weeks ago, I listed "My Most Hated Opponents -- Players." I said I would do it for non-players, and finally I have.

I have 2 eligibility rules: I will only consider post-high school figures, and only individuals who've been actively involved for at least 5 full seasons since I began watching sports on TV in 1977.

The no-high-school rule lets out Bob DeMarco, the head football coach at Old Bridge High School, arch-rivals of my Alma Mater, East Brunswick. Besides, DeMarco is a decent guy, and I find it easy to believe it was his players, not him, who chose to run up the score in certain meetings back when the school was still known as Madison Central. And his brother, former E.B. wrestling coach Greg DeMarco, is one of the most decent people ever involved in high school sports in Middlesex County, New Jersey.

I don't have a problem with Bob. It's his team I hate. I'm not sure I can even adapt, as British soccer fans have, the Monkees' song "Daydream Believer" to fit him: It doesn't feel right to sing, "Cheer up, Bobby D! Oh, what can it mean to a... sad purple bastard and a... shit football team!" He may wear purple and black, but he's not sad and he's not a bastard. As for his team, well, I've seen them win championships, but they'll always be shit to me.

The longevity rule lets out Walter O'Malley, the greatest villain in the history of baseball, because by the time I was old enough to start watching, the man who owned the Dodgers, in Brooklyn and then in Los Angeles, in part since 1942 and fully since 1950, was already a dying man, and his son Peter was pretty much running the team. Walter Francis O'Malley died in 1979, and would top the list if I were just a few years older. He gets a Lifetime Bereavement Award.

However, unlike with my Most Hated Opponents – Players edition, collegiate coaches are allowed. I couldn't make this list without one in particular.

10. Bobby Valentine, New York Mets. The only man ever to manage The Other Team to back-to-back postseason appearances, and along with Davey Johnson (whom we’ll see later) one of only two to manage them to more than one at all. He was funny sometimes, but he was such an arrogant little bastard. When did he earn that arrogance?

Still, Bobby V never really hurt the Yankees, so he's at the bottom of this list.

UPDATE: Bobby V went on to manage the Boston Red Sox in 2012, which might have lifted him higher on this list, if that season hadn't been such a train wreck for the Sox, and so much fun for Yankee Fans to watch. And Terry Collins managed the Mets to back-to-back postseason appearances in 2015 and '16.

9. Earl Weaver, Baltimore Orioles. A genius, but also a raging egomaniac and a very nasty little man. Much like the Yankees' own Billy Martin, except fat rather than scrawny.

I'll never forget him conveeeeniently forgetting to put the tarp down at Memorial Stadium in that game in '78, when the Yanks were desperately trying to claw back into the race. And the '79 team that outdistanced the Yankees – took me 20 years to realize that Ken Singleton was a good guy.

But he didn't hurt the Yanks that much while I was old enough to watch. If I'd been around for his entire managerial run, 1968 to 1982 and again briefly in '85 and '86, maybe he'd be higher on this list.

8. Bobby Cox, Toronto Blue Jays and Atlanta Braves. Despite the Yanks winning 8 straight World Series games against him in 1996 and '99, this is really more for what he did as Jays manager, particularly in that 1985 AL East duel. I was 15, and I don't think I've yet gotten over losing that race.

Still, it was sickening to see those unworthy Braves win the NL East year after year after year… Beats having the Mets do it, though, and hating Cox is one of the few people both Yankee Fans and the Flushing Heathen can agree on. That and his "Rain Man" pitching coach Leo Mazzone. Yeah. Yeah.

7. Bob Clarke, Philadelphia Flyers. There had to be at least one hockey opponent here, but what Ranger? Mike Keenan may have coached them for their only Stanley Cup win since FDR's 2nd term, but it was only for that 1 season. It's hard to bring up any feelings toward then-GM Neil Smith. Glen Sather? Nah, it's not like he was Jaromir Jagr, or Sean Avery, or his bald pal from Edmonton and The Garden, Mark Messier.

But Clarke, while undeniably a great and courageous player, was also first the leader of the Broad Street Bullies, the Flyers who beat up everybody including the early Devils; and then the GM of the Flyer teams that gave the Devils such fits from 1995 to 2004.

And, as Flyer fans will tell you, it was easy to root for "Bobby" Clarke the player, who is up there in the Philly pantheon with Connie Mack, Richie Ashburn, Mike Schmidt, Chuck Bednarik, Wilt Chamberlain, Julius "Dr. J" Erving, Tom Gola and Rollie Massimino; but it's a lot harder to root for "Bob" Clarke the GM, who made the Flyer roster respectable again, but made the Flyer front office unworthy of respect.

Granted, the Lindros family – Eric, Carl and Bonnie – weren't angels, but Clarke could have handled it much better. You didn't have to like Lindros to dislike Clarke. But I can't have him all that high on this list, simply because his greatest era of potential harm came before I was old enough to really understand hockey.

6. Dual entry: Jim Calhoun and Geno Auriemma, University of Connecticut basketball. Their successes cannot be denied, but neither can their arrogances. They do like to rub it into the faces of their opponents, especially Geno to his 2 main rivals, Pat Summitt at the University of Tennessee and Vivian Stringer at Rutgers. The fact that both Calhoun and Auriemma are also big-time Red Sox fans is enough to induce vomiting.

Calhoun

Some people think of UConn as a New York-area school because Connecticut is part of the New York Tri-State Area. But it's also part of New England, and the Huskies' Gampel Pavilion is 86 miles from Boston's Downtown Crossing as opposed to 139 miles from New York's Times Square.

Auriemma

5. Jimmy Johnson and…

4. Tom Landry, Dallas Cowboys. They both had to be on here. At least Johnson wasn't a hypocrite: He knew he and his team were a bunch of, to put it charitably, rogues. Landry was a sanctimonious hypocrite who looked the other way as his crew claimed to be "America's Team," all the while looking more like "South America's Team" (because of certain players' copious consumption of drugs) or "America's Most Wanted" (other crimes), which got worse in the Johnson era.

This is why Landry is higher on the list: Because he gave off an aura of knowing better, but chose to look the other way for his criminals. Why separate entries for them, while I combined the UConn coaches into one? Because the UConn coaches coached (and still do) at the same time, while these Cowboy coaches were in 2 different eras.

3. Pat Riley, New York Knicks. Yes, he won 4 titles with the Los Angeles Lakers and 1 with the Miami Heat. But I liked him with the Lakers because, like most people with taste, I hated the Boston Celtics. And I excused him with the Heat, because I was a Nets fan, and he wasn't really the Nets' problem.

But as coach of the Knicks, he A, got in the Nets' way when they put up their best team between the 1976 ABA crown and the 2002 Eastern Conference Title; and B. practically ruined the NBA with his thuggish defenses, turning a game of 110-100 scores into a game of 84-78 scores. Fans want scoring. You think we give a damn that Chamberlain holds the record of 55 rebounds in a game? No, we talk about him scoring 100 points.

The player who symbolized Lakers-era Pat Riley was Magic Johnson.

The player who symbolized Lakers-era Pat Riley was John Starks.

The difference is the difference between 1980s and 1990s NBA.

It's one of the great ironies of sports that Riles won titles with the '80s Lakers, the ultimate fast-break team, the team known as "Showtime"; then, when Patrick Ewing could have been his Kareem, Charles Oakley could have been his James Worthy, and while he didn't have a Magic Johnson type (how many of those have there been? Very few), he could still have played fun basketball. Instead, he brought the mid-1980s Big East (all those cheap shots from John Thompson's Georgetown and Louie "the Sweater" Carnescca's St. John's) to the NBA Atlantic Division.

I wonder if it dawned on him that he didn't win another World Championship until he had another Kareem (Shaq) and another player who almost resembled Magic in style (Dwyane Wade)?

2. Davey Johnson, New York Mets and Baltimore Orioles. Although he's managed other teams, this is for his management of the Mets at their 1984-90 peak, when they were the most arrogant team in the history of New York baseball. Even John McGraw's old New York Giants, they of "the look of eagles," were modest compared to these bastards.

But if Davey was any damn good at managing, how come they only won the 1 World Series – and only the 1 Pennant? And only reached the Playoffs 1 other time?

Then, of course, there was Davey's O's, who tried a different drug from the one that the '80s Mets seemed to enjoy: Steroids. And yet, he had an unholy hissyfit when Derek Jeter hit that home run in Game 1 of the 1996 ALCS. As if it was Jeter's intention to "cheat." Davey, you insufferable snot, you lost all 3 games at Camden Yards in that series. If you can't defend your home field in the Playoffs, don't whine about some kid in the stands.

In fact, with the '86 and '88 Mets, the '95 Reds, the '96 and '97 O's, here is Davey's record at home in postseason play: 10-13. At home. This is not the mark of a good manager. (UPDATE: After managing the Washington Nationals to the 2012 NL East title, but choking in the NLDS, his home postseason record stands at 11-15.)

Yet he always thought the umps were against him. No, Davey, what was against you was your own ineptitude. The Mets won it all in '86 in spite of you, not because of you. A good manager would've gotten that team at least 1 more Pennant, and possibly as many as 4 more. (Then again, maybe they weren't really that great.)

But, as they say in the Highlander franchise, In the end, there can be only one.

1. Joe Paterno, Pennsylvania State University football. Ol' Ratface spent the better part of 30 years picking on the teams now in the Big East Conference, then went to the Big Ten. Penn State fans whine about how, with undefeated teams in 1969, 1970, 1973 and 1994, the Nittany Lions were not awarded the National Championship.

Admit it: He does look like a rat.

Maybe it's karma for Paterno running up the score on weaker Eastern opponents, thus inflating his team's record. And also for poaching players from other territories. Two of his best players -- Franco Harris of Mount Holly and Rancocas Valley High, and Kenny Jackson of South River -- were among the many he has poached from New Jersey, and whose first choice could have been Rutgers. He's taken New Yorkers away from Syracuse, New Englanders away from Boston College, and Chesapeake Valley players away from Maryland, Virginia, Virginia Tech and West Virginia.

The last time Penn State played Rutgers, at Giants Stadium in 1995, Penn State was leading 52-34, and Paterno had his quarterback pass. With an 18-point lead near the end of the game. Touchdown, 59-34. When it was over, Rutgers coach Doug Graber -- whose job was in jeopardy and was indeed fired after the season, though he has returned to RU as a radio broadcaster -- did not shake Paterno's hand afterward, instead telling him what a classless SOB he is. Well, that may not have been Graber's exact phrase, but it might as well have been.

And this great patriotic conservative Christian known as "Saint Joseph" among his fans, he cursed right back. Later, he apologized to the press for his profanity -- but not for his classless coaching, saying, "I should not have to apologize for (my quarterback) doing what he has been coached to do." (I won't name that quarterback here: He's a henchman, not the villain.)

Now that Rutgers is a consistent winner, that cowardly old bastard won't play us. Come on, Ratface, you deserve one last lesson in manners before you head off to that great press box in the... core of the Earth.

Among Rutgers' football opponents, there is no Number 2. Princeton? The last time Princeton football mattered at what we would now call the Division I-A level, I wasn't born yet, and besides, how can I hate Princeton? They have done nothing to upset me.

Syracuse? Nah, aside from their ugly uniforms, and that horrid carpet that passes for a field at the Carrier Dome, there's nothing truly offensive about them. Pitt? Well, Jackie Sherrill… Nah, he didn't piss me off enough. UConn? In football? Forget it. Probably the closest is Bobby Petrino from his Louisville days, but that was a brief interlude, much like the Mets-Braves "rivalry."

Paterno is eternal. An eternal evil. When he finally dies, the Shittany Lions will probably mummify him and turn the Beaver Stadium press box into their own version of Lenin's Tomb. They already call the stadium "Saint Joe Paterno Cathedral."

For longevity, for amount of defeats, for size of defeats, for style of defeats, for arrogance, and, yes, for ugliness (he really does look like a rat), Joe Paterno tops the list.

Congratulations, Penn State: You are Number 1. You dirty bastards.

UPDATE: You'll notice I wrote this 2 years before the scandal that brought him down, and probably ended his life months or years before it otherwise would have ended.