San Francisco 49ers: Do Former Super Bowl Coaches Succeed on New Teams?
With Jed York’s assertion that the expectation for the next coach of the San Francisco 49ers will be “to win the Super Bowl,” and the statement that they “expect to win the Super Bowl every year,” a lot of the speculation on the 49ers' next coach has been to find a guy who has experience winning Super Bowls.
That’s one of the reasons Mike Shanahan is among the odds-on favorites to win the 49ers’ head coaching gig. Shanahan not only has a career winning percentage of .552, according to Pro-Football-Reference.com, one of the top 60 records in NFL history, but his Denver Broncos also won back-to-back Super Bowls in the mid-‘90s.
That level of success is sure to transfer over and help the 49ers turn the corner and win championships of their own.
Or is it? There is a common myth around the league that some players know how to win, and some don’t. It points to Joe Montana’s record in the postseason versus Dan Marino’s, or Tom Brady’s against Peyton Manning’s. Montana and Brady, it says, simply know how to win the big one, while Marino and Manning do not.
Leaving aside the fact that one player, even as important as the quarterback, can only have so much of an impact on a game, if that’s true for players, it must be doubly true for coaches, right?
A coach assembles his roster, coaches up the entire 53-man squad, calls the plays and organizes his troops, and imparts his personality on the team. A Super Bowl-winning coach knows what it takes to win Super Bowls by definition, and that knowledge will help his future team succeed.
That’s the theory, anyway, and the 49ers are far from the first team to think this way. But, would Shanahan bring his secret winner’s sauce to San Francisco, or is that really a myth? To answer that question, let’s take a quick look at the previous Super Bowl-winning head coaches to take on jobs with other teams.
Vince Lombardi
1 of 13
Super Bowls I and II
We have to start by going all the way back to the beginning, before the trophy was called the Lombardi Trophy and before the game was called the Super Bowl.
Lombardi’s Green Bay Packers dominated the 1960s, winning three NFL Championships before the Super Bowl was invented, and winning the first two “AFL-NFL World Championship Games” before they were called the Super Bowl. He has often been called the greatest head coach in NFL history. Lombardi stepped down as head coach after the 1967 season, staying on as general manager.
When the Washington Redskins offered him a position as both coach and shareholder, he took the opportunity for a new challenge. You certainly can’t blame Washington for wanting to bring in the greatest coach in NFL history to lead their franchise.
Sadly, Lombardi only coached Washington for one season, as he died of cancer early in 1970. In that one season, he led Washington to a 7-5-2 record—no Super Bowl, but their first winning season since 1955.
The players he brought in did eventually lead Washington back to the playoffs and even Super Bowl VII, where they lost to the Miami Dolphins. Even in a truncated reign, you’d have to call that a successful year for Lombardi and Washington, but they’d have to wait 13 seasons before they won the Super Bowl.
Successful Retread Count: 1
Running Super Bowl Count: 0
Hank Stram
2 of 13
Super Bowl IV
Hank Stram’s Kansas City Chiefs were not the first AFL team to win the Super Bowl, but they proved that the New York Jets’ win a year earlier was no fluke—that the AFL was on par with the NFL in general.
Stram’s Chiefs (and Dallas Texans, which they were known as originally) won two AFL Championships as well, losing Super Bowl I. He ended his Kansas City career with a 124-76-10 record, which would be enough to place him in the top 30 all time.
The Chiefs only made the playoffs one more time in Stram’s tenure after winning the Super Bowl, however, and he was eventually fired in 1974, after struggling to a 5-9 record, his first losing season in over a decade.
Stram didn’t stay out of work for long, however. In 1976, the New Orleans Saints named him their new head coach, with the hopes he would deliver their first winning season in franchise history. He didn’t. Stram’s team, admittedly hampered by an injury to starting quarterback Archie Manning, stumbled to a 7-21 record, and he was fired shortly after the 1977 season—a failure for both coach and team.
Successful Retread Count: 1
Running Super Bowl Count: 0
Don McCafferty
3 of 13
Super Bowl V
McCafferty might be the least accomplished coach to ever win the Super Bowl, inheriting Don Shula’s team—which had lost Super Bowl III just two years before—and immediately leading them to victory in one of the sloppiest Super Bowls ever played.
McCafferty followed that up the very next season with a return to the AFC Championship Game but lost that to the Miami Dolphins. He was fired five games into the 1972 season after a fight with his general manager—he refused to bench Johnny Unitas and was let go because of that.
The very next year, the Detroit Lions opted to hire McCafferty to coach their team, but it turned out the Lions had no one as good as Unitas to bench. They stumbled to a 6-7-1 record, worse than the previous season. McCafferty tragically died of a heart attack before the 1974 season, so there’s no telling what he could have done in Detroit, but his one year there can’t be called a success.
Successful Retread Count: 1
Running Super Bowl Count: 0
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Tom Flores
4 of 13
Super Bowls XV and XVIII
Tom Flores is the only man to win Super Bowls for the same franchise in two different cities, picking up a championship as both the Oakland Raiders and Los Angeles Raiders. He’s also one of two men, along with Mike Ditka, to win a championship as a player, an assistant coach and a head coach, so his resume was quite impressive.
Flores’ first Super Bowl was in large part a holdover from the John Madden era, but by his win in Los Angeles, the team definitely had Flores’ stamp on it. Flores’ Raiders made the playoffs in five out of his nine seasons, and he eventually transitioned into a front-office role after the 1987 season with an 83-53 career record.
One year after that, however, he left the Raiders organization to become the president and general manager of the Seattle Seahawks, and after the team struggled with 7-9 and 9-7 seasons, decided to take over the reins himself.
It did not go well. The 1992 Seahawks were probably the worst team in the history of the franchise, excluding their expansion year, and things didn’t get better from there. Flores lasted three seasons as head coach, compiling a 14-34 record before being fired.
Successful Retread Count: 1
Running Super Bowl Count: 0
Joe Gibbs
5 of 13
Super Bowls XVII, XXII and XXVI
Joe Gibbs is the most unusual case among all the retread Super Bowl-winning coaches. After leading the Washington Redskins to three Super Bowls in the 1980s, Gibbs retired in 1993 "to spend more time with [his family]." Gibbs put together a fantastic 124-60 record in his 12 seasons as coach and rode off into the sunset as one of the greatest head coaches in history.
A full decade later, Gibbs finally got the urge to return to coaching. When Washington fired Steve Spurrier after the 2003 season, Gibbs decided to get the old band back together, hiring many of his old assistant coaches and players, and took over the coaching job once again.
Gibbs’ second stint was better than most of the other coaches on this list, but he was a pale shadow of what he was able to put up in the 1980s. Gibbs only went 30-34 in his four seasons in that second run, but the Redskins did manage to make the playoffs twice.
Washington hadn’t made the playoffs since 1999, and no coach had led the team to multiple playoffs berths since Gibbs had retired. Gibbs finished his regular-season career with four straight victories to bring Washington back to the playoffs, despite the death of Sean Taylor. It was referred to as "one of his finest months of coaching" by ex-Washington quarterback Joe Theismann, according to The New York Times' Judy Battista.
Gibbs retired after the 2007 season, in part due to health issues in his family. While not a fantastic run, I think Washington fans, overall, were satisfied with Gibbs’ second tenure, as it was the best run of any coach they’ve had since Gibbs retired for the first time.
Successful Retread Count: 2
Running Super Bowl Count: 0
Mike Ditka
6 of 13
Super Bowl XX
Mike Ditka coached what might be the greatest NFL team of all time in the 1985 Chicago Bears. Their dominating win in Super Bowl XX is still one of the biggest blowouts in Super Bowl history and might still be the greatest defense ever assembled.
Ditka wasn’t a one-season wonder, either—he made the playoffs seven times in Chicago and put together a 106-62 record and was twice named Coach of the Year. Ditka was fired after falling to a 5-11 record in 1992, only his third losing record as head coach, as the team wanted to find some “fresh ideas.”
Ditka’s apparently old, stale ideas were more than enough for the New Orleans Saints to hire him as head coach in 1997. Ditka’s reign in Chicago was known for excellence; his reign in New Orleans was known for trading all of his draft picks for Ricky Williams and appearing in one of the most memorable ESPN The Magazine covers of all time, as noted by The Times-Picayune's Bill Baker.
At the time, Ditka said that he was “probably the wrong guy for this job,” and the Saints eventually agreed. They fired Ditka after the 1999 season and a 15-33 record.
Successful Retread Count: 2
Running Super Bowl Count: 0
Bill Parcells
7 of 13
Super Bowls XXI and XXV
Bill Parcells was so successful as the New York Giants' head coach that he was rehired not once, not twice but three separate times by teams looking to get a quick turnaround.
Parcells retired from the Giants with two Super Bowls and a 77-49-1 record. That retirement lasted all of two seasons, as the New England Patriots brought him in in 1993. Parcells led the Patriots to the playoffs twice in four seasons, including a loss in Super Bowl XXXI, leaving with a 32-32 record after arguments about player acquisition. So far, so good.
Parcells immediately went to the New York Jets in a very odd series of moves, involving hiring Bill Belichick as head coach for a day and draft picks moving from the Jets to the Patriots.
Eventually, it was all cleared up, and Parcells coached the Jets for three seasons, leading them to a 29-19 record and one playoff berth, their first in seven seasons. He also gave them a winning record for the first time since 1988. He left after the 1999 season, retiring and vowing he would never coach football again.
That vow lasted all of three seasons before Jerry Jones lured him out of retirement to coach the Dallas Cowboys in 2003. Once again, Parcells only lasted four seasons in his new home, but he finished with a 34-30 record and two playoff berths. While hopes were higher for him there, he was still the first coach to leave Dallas with a winning record since Raymond Berry in 1989.
That’s Parcells’ argument for being one of the greatest head coaches ever. He was able to succeed in all four of his NFL stops, making him the greatest Super Bowl retread ever. Still, he never was able to win another Lombardi Trophy outside of New York.
Successful Retread Count: 5 (including all three Parcells reigns)
Running Super Bowl Count: 0
George Seifert
8 of 13
Super Bowls XXIV and XXIX
What 49ers fan can forget George Seifert? He took over Bill Walsh’s team and won Super Bowl XXIV and then oversaw the transition from the Joe Montana era to the Steve Young era and won Super Bowl XXIX. By the time he resigned in 1996, after a squabble with ownership, he held a 98-30 record which was, at the time, the best in modern NFL history.
Seifert left the team in part because the 49ers would not guarantee they would extend his contract past 1997. He left after the 1996 season rather than become a lame-duck coach and then was hired by the Carolina Panthers to be both coach and general manager.
It did not go well. After struggling to put up 8-8 and 7-9 seasons in his first two years, Carolina plummeted to a 1-15 record in Seifert’s final season, finishing the year on a 15-game losing streak. Seifert was unceremoniously fired—no talk about extending his contract there.
Successful Retread Count: 5
Running Super Bowl Count: 0
Jimmy Johnson
9 of 13
Super Bowls XXVII and XXVIII
How ‘bout them Cowboys? Jimmy Johnson belongs in that small category of hot-shot college coaches who then became hot-shot professional coaches when he took over the Dallas Cowboys in 1989.
Though it took him three seasons to really get going, he transformed the Cowboys from their sad-sack 1980s incarnation into the team of the 1990s. The showdowns between the Cowboys and 49ers in the early ‘90s really were the Super Bowl; the actual championship always felt anticlimactic.
After winning back-to-back Super Bowls, however, Johnson feuded with owner Jerry Jones and left town, with Jones saying that any coach could have won the Super Bowl with that roster.
Determined to prove Jones wrong, Johnson inherited Dan Marino and the Dolphins offense from legendary coach Don Shula in 1996. Johnson lasted four years in Miami and never had a losing record, finishing 36-28 and making the playoffs three out of four years.
It wasn’t the same winning percentage as Shula, of course, but he was able to keep the team rolling along. Suggesting he was burnt out, Johnson resigned after the 1999 season.
Successful Retread Count: 6
Running Super Bowl Count: 0
Mike Holmgren
10 of 13
Super Bowl XXXI
Mike Holmgren, a former 49ers offensive coordinator, found success in Green Bay, bringing the Packers back to world-champion status for the first time since Vince Lombardi, 30 years earlier. In seven years in Green Bay, Holmgren led the team to a phenomenal 75-37 record, winning the Super Bowl once and getting back there again the year after. All in all, they made the playoffs in all but one of Holmgren’s seasons.
Holmgren resigned from the Packers in 1998 to accept a more enticing job. The Seattle Seahawks offered him the head coaching, general manager and executive vice president jobs, so Holmgren would have complete control over the franchise. It was a relatively painless breakup—obviously, the Packers wanted him to stay, but there wasn’t a fight with management, as there were in so many other instances.
Holmgren actually coached the Seahawks longer than he ever did the Packers, lasting 10 seasons in the Pacific Northwest (although he was fired from the general manager role after 2002).
His 86-74 record in Seattle isn’t as impressive as his Green Bay record, but it included five straight postseason appearances and a Super Bowl loss. Holmgren led the Seahawks to their first playoff berths since 1988, successful by any measure. He chose to leave at the end of his contract in 2008.
Successful Retread Count: 7
Running Super Bowl Count: 0
Mike Shanahan
11 of 13
Super Bowls XXXII and XXXIII
The 49ers’ possible choice for head coach has been a retread once before.
Shanahan’s run in Denver was actually the second head-coaching gig of his career, after a two-year stint with the Los Angeles Raiders, but it was by far his most successful. Yes, Shanahan had John Elway on his side, but Elway had managed to lose three Super Bowls before Shanahan’s arrival. With Shanahan in tow, the Broncos won back-to-back titles and made the playoffs in seven of Shanahan’s 14 seasons.
Shanahan never matched his success with the team once Elway retired, though the Broncos still made the playoffs frequently. He was fired after three straight seasons missing the playoffs, compiling a record of 138-86.
After one season off, Dan Snyder lured Shanahan to the Washington Redskins as coach and vice president in charge of football operations. As general manager, Shanahan’s lasting legacy is orchestrating the massive trade which brought Robert Griffin III to Washington. As a head coach, his lasting legacy is keeping Griffin in after he hurt himself in the 2012 playoffs. Shanahan was fired after four seasons and a 24-40 record.
Successful Retread Count: 7
Running Super Bowl Count: 0
Dick Vermeil
12 of 13
Super Bowl XXXIV
The last coach to win a Super Bowl and be rehired later is Dick Vermeil, who led the "Greatest Show on Turf" St. Louis Rams to their one and only Super Bowl title in 1999. It was Vermiel’s second Super Bowl appearance, having lost one with the Philadelphia Eagles almost 20 years prior.
That makes Vermiel one of the few coaches to succeed after such a long layoff. Vermiel was a commentator for 15 years before the St. Louis Rams brought him out of retirement. The first two seasons were horrible, with a best record of 5-11, but everything clicked into place in 1999 with Kurt Warner’s magical run. On top of the world, Vermeil walked away from coaching with a Super Bowl title.
However, after only one season away, Vermiel returned as the coach of the Kansas City Chiefs. In five seasons in Kansas City, Vermiel only went to the playoffs one time, but his teams were pretty darn good.
They missed the playoffs in his final season in 2005, despite a 10-6 record, winning the dubious honor of being one of the best teams to ever miss the playoffs. They never finished worse than 6-10, and the offense he put together is the best in Kansas City history, with Trent Green, Priest Holmes and Larry Johnson running the show. He retired at the conclusion of the 2005 season.
Successful Retread Count: 8
Running Super Bowl Count: 0
Conclusions
13 of 13
Hiring an ex-Super Bowl-winning coach isn’t the key to winning the Super Bowl. In fact, so far it seems to be the key to not winning the Super Bowl, as none of the 12 men who moved on to a different team ever managed the feat. Bill Parcells and Mike Holmgren came close, but none of them could bring a Super Bowl trophy to a second city. With Jed York’s “Super Bowl or bust” mentality, that makes all 12 coaches failures.
That’s not to say retreads never work. Half of the coaches did go on to have various degrees of success in their new homes. A good coach is a good coach, regardless of whether the coach wins championships or not.
The danger, however, in hiring retread coaches is the possibility that the game has passed them by. This is what happed to Mike Ditka and Tom Flores, to just name two.
The NFL is constantly changing, with new offenses coming in and dominating the league and then new defenses being developed to countermand those offenses. Sometimes, what worked for a coach when winning championships has been figured out by the time the coach comes back. Those coaches who can adapt do well, and those coaches who can’t, don’t.
Can Shanahan coach in the modern NFL? He struggled to do so in Washington, and it’s been 15 years since he last won a Super Bowl. He has missed the playoffs in six of his last seven seasons as a head coach. I think there are more signs that Shanahan’s era is over than there are signs that he’d be the one to return the 49ers to winning championships.
Bryan Knowles is a featured columnist for Bleacher Report, covering the San Francisco 49ers. Follow him @BryKno on Twitter.
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