Professional Football Researchers Association Forum

NWebster wrote:I like to think of them in categories Brown and Walsh are the Innovators, Lombardi and Parcels are the Motivators, Landry and Shula feel more like the disciplinarians.

I can't agree with Landry as a "disciplinarian." I'd say he was one of the most innovative of coaches. The Flex defense, all that motion on offense, bringing back the shotgun ... Only a handful of coaches have that kind of resume.

I just wish Brady would retire to see if Belichick could sustain the run without him or would he turn into a Paul Brown without Otto Graham.

I don't think Graham was the only HOF player that the Browns lost around the time that he retired.

Andrew McKillop wrote:When ranking the all-time head coaches I wouldn't factor in their coaching trees. If anything a better coaching tree could be indicative of a head coach that found success partly because of his assistant coaches (i.e. Jim Fassel, Mike Ditka, and Jim Lee Howell come to mind). I don't think that's the case with any of the all-time greats, but a lack of a coaching tree like in Lombardi's case shouldn't be factored as a negative.

The coaching tree is the legacy, the assistants who take the system the source (Paul Brown, Landry) has created to other teams and run it there. In some of those cases, like Mike Holmgren, a Walsh disciple, he was such a passing guru that he created his own tree beneath him, guys like Jon Gruden, Steve Mariucci and Andy Reid.

However, not all coaches have trees, or small trees. Lombardi is one. In his case, because of his uniquely strong personality, and because so much of his success was due to using his personality to motivate his players, it's not a coaching style his assistants could carry on to other teams. Lombardi was a born salesman and a born leader of men, he was destined to be very successful no matter what line of line of work he chose due to his personality. Had he opted for a career in the military, I have no doubt he would have wound up a General or an Admiral. If he would have gone into business, he would have been a CEO of a major corporation. I wish you could bottle that essence Lombardi had because it is a skill set that cannot be taught.

Lombardi did have a few of his players wind up coaching, the most successful was Forrest Gregg, but Starr and Ringo also coached in the NFL. Again, none of them attempted to imitate Vince's style as a coach because Vince had a style all his own.

The short coaching career worked against Lombardi developing a coaching tree just as it worked against John Madden developing a substantial coaching tree. Life isn't fair sometimes. On the other hand, Lombardi and Madden have the highest career winning percentages of any coach with over 100 games coached.

Chuck Noll is another one of the all time greats who doesn't have much of a coaching tree. This always struck me as odd because of the number of years Noll was a coach, and the success of the Steelers in the 70's. These days, a Super Bowl winning team usually has to worry about having their offensive and/or defensive coordinators going to the front of the new head coach carousel, but Bud Carson and George Perles were as far as I know never considered for head coaching positions during the Steelers Super Bowl era.

I think a coaching tree is important, it is a legacy a coach leaves behind, and when looking at the coaching career of Chuck Noll, I am dumbfounded as to why there weren't a lot of his assistants who were successful on their own in the NFL, especially given the length of his career and the number of assistants and players who were under him. Tony Dungy was certainly the most successful assistant or player who ever worked for Noll. A google image search for "Chuck Noll Coaching Tree" came up totally empty. (There are a lot of coaching trees that people have created that can be found by a google search; they make for interesting viewing.) Noll always had this mystique about him, he rarely if ever gave interviews, and when you did hear about him you heard about his being a private pilot, or being a wine connoisseur, or playing the guitar. As much as I hate to do it, I have to drop Chuck Noll a little in my coaching rankings due to the lack of legacy.

Coaching trees and lack of drafting acumen have nothing to do with how great a head coach is. Just win, baby.

Belichick, Lombardi, Paul Brown and George Halas are on Mount Rushmore.

Lombardi, Brown, Halas, Noll, Gibbs, Walsh, Belichick, Landry, Shula and Ewbank.

Bob Gill wrote:

NWebster wrote:I like to think of them in categories Brown and Walsh are the Innovators, Lombardi and Parcels are the Motivators, Landry and Shula feel more like the disciplinarians.

I can't agree with Landry as a "disciplinarian." I'd say he was one of the most innovative of coaches. The Flex defense, all that motion on offense, bringing back the shotgun ... Only a handful of coaches have that kind of resume.

Bob I know your football knowledge far exceeds mine, but watching film of the late 50's Colts you can see them "flexing" Tackles, which went so far as to have people say Lipscomb was playing LB. Now, for Landry to make it a core of his defense was unique, but I'd say in 57-59 the Colts did this - of the games view-able on film - probably half the time. The motion and OL standing to hide it - truly unique - truly Landry, as far as I can tell. The shotgun seems to me to be Red Hickey's, though Sammy Baugh used it on occasion. Maybe I'm being too purest and Landry was great at taking things others did occasionally and making it a core tenant of his game. I don't think LeBeau invented the zone blitz, it was Arnsparger, except the Cards did it in the 60's when before Arnsparger as well. Maybe Landry was great at identifying novel ideas that could be made fundamental parts of a scheme.

Rupert Patrick wrote:

Andrew McKillop wrote:When ranking the all-time head coaches I wouldn't factor in their coaching trees. If anything a better coaching tree could be indicative of a head coach that found success partly because of his assistant coaches (i.e. Jim Fassel, Mike Ditka, and Jim Lee Howell come to mind). I don't think that's the case with any of the all-time greats, but a lack of a coaching tree like in Lombardi's case shouldn't be factored as a negative.

The coaching tree is the legacy, the assistants who take the system the source (Paul Brown, Landry) has created to other teams and run it there. In some of those cases, like Mike Holmgren, a Walsh disciple, he was such a passing guru that he created his own tree beneath him, guys like Jon Gruden, Steve Mariucci and Andy Reid.

However, not all coaches have trees, or small trees. Lombardi is one. In his case, because of his uniquely strong personality, and because so much of his success was due to using his personality to motivate his players, it's not a coaching style his assistants could carry on to other teams. Lombardi was a born salesman and a born leader of men, he was destined to be very successful no matter what line of line of work he chose due to his personality. Had he opted for a career in the military, I have no doubt he would have wound up a General or an Admiral. If he would have gone into business, he would have been a CEO of a major corporation. I wish you could bottle that essence Lombardi had because it is a skill set that cannot be taught.

Lombardi did have a few of his players wind up coaching, the most successful was Forrest Gregg, but Starr and Ringo also coached in the NFL. Again, none of them attempted to imitate Vince's style as a coach because Vince had a style all his own.

The short coaching career worked against Lombardi developing a coaching tree just as it worked against John Madden developing a substantial coaching tree. Life isn't fair sometimes. On the other hand, Lombardi and Madden have the highest career winning percentages of any coach with over 100 games coached.

Chuck Noll is another one of the all time greats who doesn't have much of a coaching tree. This always struck me as odd because of the number of years Noll was a coach, and the success of the Steelers in the 70's. These days, a Super Bowl winning team usually has to worry about having their offensive and/or defensive coordinators going to the front of the new head coach carousel, but Bud Carson and George Perles were as far as I know never considered for head coaching positions during the Steelers Super Bowl era.

I think a coaching tree is important, it is a legacy a coach leaves behind, and when looking at the coaching career of Chuck Noll, I am dumbfounded as to why there weren't a lot of his assistants who were successful on their own in the NFL, especially given the length of his career and the number of assistants and players who were under him. Tony Dungy was certainly the most successful assistant or player who ever worked for Noll. A google image search for "Chuck Noll Coaching Tree" came up totally empty. (There are a lot of coaching trees that people have created that can be found by a google search; they make for interesting viewing.) Noll always had this mystique about him, he rarely if ever gave interviews, and when you did hear about him you heard about his being a private pilot, or being a wine connoisseur, or playing the guitar. As much as I hate to do it, I have to drop Chuck Noll a little in my coaching rankings due to the lack of legacy.

Lots of great points here. The motivator coach may have trouble having as much of a tree. Noll is an interesting one, I almost think of Dungy as part of his tree . . . . of should that be the Bud Carson tree????

To me Lombardi was a great teacher and motivator, while his tree of coaches leaves something to be desired, the post-Football success of many of his players in other fields speaks to that. He had many players who made millions in business due to his ability to instill in them discipline, motivation and the value of hard work.

Eagles One wrote:Lombardi, Brown, Halas, Noll, Gibbs, Walsh, Belichick, Landry, Shula and Ewbank.

I'm a Steeler fan, cannot put Noll ahead of Belichick, what makes him better? Lower winning percentage, Shorter period of sustained excellence, operated in an environment when controlling player turnover was much easier, will by a great margin likely have fewer core individual players make the HOF (Brady, Law (boy I hope he gets in), Moss (not core), Seau (not core), Seymour (borderline). I don't know.

^Gronkowski too

But, yeah, it'll be a smaller number than the Noll players in the Hall of Fame.

JWL wrote:^Gronkowski too

But, yeah, it'll be a smaller number than the Noll players in the Hall of Fame.

I think that is due to two things (1) the aforementioned control that teams had over an entire player's career in the pre-free agency era, and (2) I think it is slightly more difficult to get into the HOF now than it was 50 years ago due to the increased number of teams (and players) and the HOF not increasing the maximum number of people who can be voted in each year by the selectors. I'm leaving out the seniors selections and the selections for executives and guys like Ed Sabol, but in 1970 there were 26 teams, and in 2018 there are 32 teams, a 24 percent increase. Doesn't it stand to reason that it would be 24 percent more difficult for a player today to make the HOF today as opposed to a player from 1970? This is a theory, but I think it is tougher to get in nowadays than in the past.