Tom Landry, the greatest NFL coach who ever lived, the man whose trademark was that funny hat and the legend who created the legacy of “America’s Team,” coached the Dallas Cowboys from 1960-1989. That’s 29 seasons with the same team.
He was 0-11-1 in his inaugural season with Dallas, a year in which his only highlight came when the Cowboys managed to pull out a 31-31 tie against the New York Giants.
He followed up his coaching debut with four consecutive losing seasons from 1961-64, a span in which he posted a record of 18-45. Landry was rewarded for his efforts with a 10-year contract extension from the Cowboys, an act that he once referred to as “the greatest thing that ever happened to me.”
Six years after his contract extension, in 1972, Landry lead Dallas to their first Super Bowl title in franchise history. He delivered another world championship six years later when the Cowboys routed the Denver Broncos 27-10.
Landry never won another Super Bowl after 1978. He coached in the league for 11 more years before retiring after the 1989 season.
Back in the day when team pride meant more than simply throwing on a jersey and pledging allegiance to a city until free agency came around at the end of the season, the NFL was about loyalty and tradition. Long tenured coaches were the face of the league and the chemistry of each team resembled that of a tight-knit family.
Miami icon Don Shula coached the Dolphins for 25 seasons before calling it quits. Pittsburgh legend Chuck Noll paced the sidelines of Three Rivers Stadium for 22 years until giving way to old age. Former Vikings coach Bud Grant held the reins of Minnesota’s franchise for 18 years before giving in to the unwavering benefits of retirement.
However, a lot has changed since the golden era of professional football. Today’s longest tenured coach is Pittsburgh’s Bill Cowher, the man who succeeded Noll after the 1991 season. Cowher has been with the Steelers for 11 seasons now, but has never won a Super Bowl. Denver’s Mike Shanahan is next in line, coaching eight seasons with the Broncos.
No other coach in the league has been with its current team for longer than five years, which is merely the amount time spent by the average student on this campus. Landry coached the Cowboys when my father was a kid. He was still coaching them when I was a little kid.
Somewhere lost in the hustle and bustle for product endorsements, television contracts and Super Bowl rings is the loyalty, patience and tradition that once characterized the aura of the gridiron. In today’s league there is no place for a coach who doesn’t take their team to the Super Bowl in their first four years with the team. Division titles and playoff appearances are about as insignificant as a win in the Alamo Bowl and brilliant football minds are dropped by futile owners who will never fully understand what exactly it takes to win a title in the NFL: time.
Detroit Lions head coach Marty Mornhinweg was fired on Monday, making him the sixth coach to be canned since the end of the season — a season in which 31 teams did not win the Super Bowl. Granted, the fact that Mornhinweg’s 5-27 record was an embarrassment to football, his first two seasons with Detroit eerily paralleled Landry’s first two in Dallas. Imagine if the Cowboys had treated Landry the same way the Lions did Mornhinweg. They certainly wouldn’t be referred to as America’s Team, that’s for sure.
Not to underplay the importance of a head coach in the NFL, but lack of player personnel weighs far more heavily on the fate of a team than whether or not they have an emotional general delivering inspirational tirades in the locker room.
If the players aren’t there, then neither are the championships. A good coach can push a talented team over the threshold of a title, but only once the roster is properly equipped. Owners, presidents and general managers are far too jumpy when it comes to pulling the trigger on the fate of their coach’s future.
In a league with tight salary caps and career ending injuries, it is near impossible for a team to remain competitive for more than a five-year span. And for most teams it’s less than that, if at all. So when a team does finally near the end of an eventual rebuilding process, it’s the coach who just spent two losing seasons quietly helping turn the program around that is the first to go.
The Raiders shipped off Jon Gruden two years after he completely and single-handedly re-legitimized the normally proud franchise of Oakland. Steve Mariucci, coaching a salary cap stricken team, was ousted by the 49ers the same season he brought them the NFC West title and to a showdown in the playoffs with the would-be Super Bowl champion Buccaneers.
It’s not entirely former Bengals head coach Dick LeBeau’s fault that his front office is a family of dopes who have never had a successful draft day despite owning a top-five pick the last ten seasons.
Sometimes owners just aren’t willing to go out and spend the money to bring in the necessary players. Or other times inept, power-hungry team presidents simply bring in the wrong personnel. There are a dozen other reasons for a team’s incompetence than the man calling the plays.
Now I’m not naíve, either. Some coaches are just bad and the chemistries of teams do need to change every so often, but the complete overhauling of programs after every season is just ridiculous.
I want to start seeing long-tenured coaches in the NFL. Coaches with a passion for the team they are with, coaches that will still be coaching the same team when my kid is watching the games with his friends.
The NFL is not about brevity and short-term success; it’s about building tradition, pride and passion within a franchise and remaining loyal to the players and coaches and not selling out once things turn sour.
Tom Landry won two Super Bowls in his 29 years as head coach. That comes out to be about one title every 15 years. A track record like that in today’s league is almost laughable.
