Joe Gibbs: The Greatest Coach of the Super Bowl Era?

(Photo by Chris Graythen/Getty Images)

I will admit it right from the start.

I love the Washington Redskins. 

I am probably a little biased. 

Although I am probably looking at Joe Gibbs through burgundy and gold colored glasses, please disregard my bias and seriously consider my arguments.

Now that I have gotten the disclaimer out of the way, let me get down to business.

There have been many great coaches in the Super Bowl era—coaches such as Vince Lombardi, Chuck Knoll, Don Shula, Tom Landry, Bill Walsh, and Bill Belichick. All of these men have created dynasties that have produced multiple Super Bowl wins and countless Hall of Famers.

Joe Gibbs has led just as many or more teams to the Super Bowl. The only coach in the Super Bowl era with more titles is Chuck Knoll.

But it is the path that Gibbs took that separates him from the others. 

If at the end of this article you still don’t consider him the best coach, you will at least understand that he was unique among his peers.

If you take a look at the coaches who have won multiple Super Bowls, they all have one thing in common.  They all have had the good fortune to have a franchise quarterback to guide their team throughout their triumphs. 

Each coach that I have mentioned had a quarterback who is either in the Hall of Fame or soon will be.

Vince Lombardi had Bart Starr as his field general.  Knoll had Terry Bradshaw.  Shula had Griese, Landry had Roger Staubach, Walsh had Montana, and Belichick has a guy named Tom Brady with whom a few of you may be familiar.

History has shown us that no matter how good a coach you are, you need a great quarterback to sustain championship success.

Joe Gibbs is different from these great coaches in that he didn’t have a marquee quarterback.  He won three Super Bowls with three different quarterbacks.  Only Bill Parcells has ever won even two Super Bowls with different quarterbacks.

I love Joe Theismann, Doug Williams, and Mark Rypien, but I have to be honest when I say that none of them will ever make the Hall of Fame.  Even Theismann, who led the Redskins to back-to-back Super Bowls and is the best of the three, has no reasonable shot at making it.  He only started seven full seasons and only played at a pro bowl level in three or four of them.

This reason alone separates Gibbs from his contemporaries. But there’s more.

You may bring up the valid point that Starr, Bradshaw, and Greise were game managers and it was the running game that mainly propelled their teams to greatness.

You would be correct in that assumption.  The Packers, Dolphins, and Steelers all had Hall of Fame caliber running backs to carry the ball.

Once again, Gibbs succeeded with three different running backs in three different Super Bowls.

John Riggins is without question a Hall of Fame running back and one of the main forces behind two Super Bowl Redskin teams.  But he retired after the ’85 season.

Gibbs continued what he had built with Riggins by clever drafting, great line play, and players considered past their prime by many in the NFL.  Earnest Byner (who was the starter for the 1991/92 championship team) was a very good running back.  But he was labeled as a fumbler and hounded out of Cleveland, where his untimely fumble cost them a Super Bowl berth against (guess who) the Redskins.

The running backs on the Redskin team Byner’s Browns would have faced consisted of journeyman Gerald Riggs, unheralded Kelvin Bryant, and rookie Timmy Smith, who had not started a game all season.

Due to injuries to starter Riggs, Gibbs decided to go with the rookie.  The result was the greatest single rushing performance in Super Bowl history.  Smith ran for 204 yards that day, breaking a record previously held by Larry Csonka, Franco Harris, and John Riggins.  Smith quickly faded into obscurity following his epic Super Bowl performance.

Many of the mighty dynasties of yesteryear also had great receivers to help them win their championships.  The Redskins did have a very good receiving corps, but only Art Monk among them has made it into the hall, and that only happened last year after years of being overlooked.

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