Tag: Bob Griese

Washington Super Bowl Coach stands alone

As Sean McVay and Zac Taylor look to win their first Super Bowl Sunday, we shall never forget Joe Gibbs won three Super Bowls with three different quarterbacks.

How is it that one coach stands out in contrast to all Super Bowl champion coaches?

Vince Lombardi won the first two Super Bowls with Bart Starr as the Green Bay Packers starting quarterback. Don Shula and Miami won two with Bob Griese. Tom Landry steered Dallas to two Super Bowl trophies with Roger Staubach at the helm. Chuck Noll and the Pittsburgh Steelers won four Super Bowls in the 1970s with Terry Bradshaw behind center.

Tom Flores and the Raiders won two with Jim Plunkett as the leader of the offense. Bill Walsh was the head coach with Joe Montana the field general for three Super Bowl crowns for the 49ers. The 49ers won two more with head coach George Seifert coaching and Montana and Steve Young as signal-callers.

Jimmy Johnson and Barry Switzer both coached the Cowboys to Super Bowl rings with Troy Aikman taking the snaps from center. Denver’s Mike Shanahan as head coach and John Elway in the pocket for the Broncos won it all twice.

Tom Coughlin’s NY Giants took the crown twice with Eli Manning the on-field general. Last but certainly not least, New England’s Bill Belichick won six rings with Tom Brady as the quarterback.

Seifert is the only one above to win a second Super Bowl with a second quarterback (Montana and Young).

There is also Marv Levy and the Bills who went to multiple Super Bowls with Jim Kelly under center — and lost. Likewise, Dan Reeves led Elway and the Broncos to three Super Bowl appearances — they also lost all three.

Yet, there is one other coach to win more than multiple Super Bowls with more than one quarterback, Joe Gibbs of the Washington Redskins. Gibbs not only won more than one Super Bowl with more than one quarterback, he accomplished the feat three times!

Gibbs led Washington to Super Bowl trophies with Joe Theismann, Doug Williams and Mark Rypien winning Super Bowls XVII, XXII and XXVI.

Starr, Griese, Staubach, Bradshaw, Montana, Young, Aikman and Elway are already in the Hall of Fame. Without question Brady will be in the HOF and Eli Manning a 2-time SB MVP is likely to be elected to the HOF. Only Jim Plunkett is likely to not make the HOF.

By contrast, Theismann was only an All-Pro once (1983), and Williams and Rypien were never All-Pro. Rypien had a great year only in 1991. Williams though never even a pro-bowler, was a veteran leader and had huge moments like the playoff win at Chicago (1987) and a nearly perfect 2nd quarter in Super Bowl XXII, earning the MVP.

Joe Gibbs is distinctive among Super Bowl coaches with multiple wins, doing so with three non-Hall of Fame quarterbacks.  Hats off to Coach Joe, who is remarkably now age 81. The Washington franchise and fans were certainly blessed to have enjoyed Joe Jackson Gibbs as head coach.

Watch: Joe Flacco perfectly replicates the longest negative play in Super Bowl history

How had are the Jets? They’re now copying Super Bowl history — in all the worst ways.

It’s getting difficult to keep track of all the ways in which the Jets are setting all-time marks for offensive incompetence, but here’s one historical note from Miami’s 24-0 Sunday blowout of Adam Gase’s Symphony of Destruction. With 9:28 left in the game, and the Jets with the ball at the Miami 29-yard line on third-and-4, quarterback Joe Flacco took the ball from center and dropped back… and back… and back… until he was sacked for a 28-yard loss by Dolphins lineman Emmanuel Ogbah.

“I think there’s a lot of … These guys like playing together, so when other guys make plays, whether it’s offense, defense, special teams, you see a lot of excitement, a lot of energy,” Dolphins head coach Brian Flores said after the game, about Ogbah’s teammates being happy that this play took the Jets out of field goal range and preserved the shutout. “Guys were excited for Ogbah to make a play. Guys were excited about the situation, of getting a stop and getting them out of field goal range, and they were excited about the potential to get a shutout. That’s what I like to see, guys enjoying kind of the process of working through the week, prep and preparing, walk throughs, meeting, practice, and then going out and executing on a Sunday afternoon. I think they’re just happy for each other and kind of reaping some of the fruits of their labor.”

This maladjusted piece of offense immediately brought another play to mind involving the Dolphins. In Super Bowl VI on January 16, 1972, the Cowboys brought their long championship drought to an end with a commanding 24-3 win over Miami. Perhaps the spotlight play of that game was a 29-yard sack of Dolphins Hall of Fame quarterback Bob Griese by Cowboys Hall of Fame defensive lineman Bob Lilly. It is still the longest negative play in Super Bowl history, and the similarities are striking.

It was a long way for the then 11-year veteran to run, as he said after the game.

“I never thought I would ever catch him. I must have scrambled 100 yards, and defensive tackles aren’t supposed to do that.”

The 1972 Dolphins recovered from that loss to become the only perfect team in NFL history, and they won the next two Super Bowls. We do not expect the Jets to present a similar transformative result.

Tua Tagovailoa gets important advice from Hall of Fame QB Bob Griese

While telling tales of his time under Shula he offered some advice to the next Miami quarterback, Tagovailoa. Griese made his point clear…

Former Alabama quarterback Tua Tagovailoa was selected by the Miami Dolphins with the No. 5 pick in the 2020 NFL draft. While this selection was a moment of celebration for Dolphins fans, news struck just two weeks later that legendary head coach Don Shula passed away.

One of Shula’s former players, Bob Griese, came out to tell of his time with the coach.

Griese was a quarterback on the 1972 Dolphins, the only team in NFL history to have an undefeated finish. While telling tales of his time under Shula he offered some advice to the next Miami quarterback, Tagovailoa.

“Everybody says that the offensive line that Marino had was a great offensive line,” Griese said. “Some of those guys were great, but he never got sacked hardly and I smile when I talk to Marino about this. Marino just got rid of it.”

Holding onto the ball was a blessing and a curse for Tagovailoa while at Alabama. Sometimes plays would develop over time, or it would lead to a sack that put him at a high risk for injury.

“If there wasn’t anybody open and there was a guy coming at him right down the middle, Marino would get rid of that football,” said Griese. “That was a great trait to have. That’s a great coaching point. If you don’t see anybody, don’t take the sack and get rid of the ball.”

Griese made his point clear. Tua is better off losing the down than losing yards and points off of his health.

He then continues that coaching will help, but watching what Dan Marino did in his time with the Dolphins will help greatly.

“That’s going to be one of the great things that the Dolphins are probably going to tell Tua when he gets in here is look at Marino,” said Griese. “Look at some films of Marino.”

Dolphins fans will likely have to wait until the 2021 season to claim Tua as their starting quarterback. The team still has Ryan Fitzpatrick under contract through the 2020 season and will look to have the Alabama product heal fully on the sidelines and get to know the playbook.

This was some crucial advice that Tagovailoa ought to consider and take to heart, especially considering the legend it came from. He joins some elite company as a Dolphins quarterback – not as of late – and will hope to have his name last in South Florida as long as Marino’s and Griese’s.

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Dolphins HOF QB Bob Griese recalls his most unique feature

Miami Dolphins Hall of Fame quarterback Bob Griese recalls how he came to wear his notorious glasses on game days.

When people mention the phrase “Miami Dolphins Hall of Fame quarterback”, the first name that comes to mind is Dan Marino. But Marino was the second Dolphins quarterback to be immortalized in Canton, Ohio at the Pro Football Hall of Fame. The first? Bob Griese, who commandeered the Dolphins offense throughout the majority of the team’s dynasty run in the early 1970s.

Griese, who would go on to find success as a commentator in life after his playing days, was one of the more unique personalities on the football field back then — not because of anything he said or how he played, but rather for what he wore. Griese sported glasses on the gridiron, a pretty uncommon feature for pro football players back in the day.

And now, we hear from Griese how those glasses came to be. Griese joined Peyton Manning for the ESPN+ “Peyton’s Places” series and recalled how he became one of the first pro football players to wear glasses — and how he used to cheat at his grade school eye exams to allow his vision issues to slide under the radar for so long.

All things considered, Griese did pretty darn well for himself without the glasses. Griese would go on to finish his career with two Super Bowl rings, 8 Pro Bowl appearances, 192 touchdown passes, 25,000 passing yards and a bust in Canton.

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