Tag: Jimmy Johnson

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.

Jimmy Johnson defends Urban Meyer, says there was ‘backstabbing’ in Jags organization

The former Super Bowl-winning coach said that Meyer wasn’t able to get “his people” in Jacksonville.

When the Jacksonville Jaguars fired Urban Meyer a week ago, it felt like a long time coming. Meyer had embarrassed the team with his viral bar video in October, and he reportedly alienated his players and coaches with his managerial style. By the time the Tampa Bay Times released its report about Meyer kicking Josh Lambo during warmups in August, defenders of the national championship-winning coach were few and far between.

However, Meyer has found one relatively unsurprising ally in former Miami Hurricanes and Dallas Cowboys coach Jimmy Johnson. The two were colleagues and friends at Fox Sports, and like Meyer, Johnson attempted to navigate the NFL after a national championship college stint. Johnson was much more successful, though, winning two Super Bowls and eventually being inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

He came to Meyer’s defense, arguing that the coach wasn’t able to surround himself with “his people” in Jacksonville.

“Going to Jacksonville, just like when I went to Dallas, you knew you were gonna lose, you’re gonna have adversity,” Johnson told Pro Football Talk. “The difference is, in Dallas, I had my entire coaching staff from college. I had my administrative assistant, I had my P.R. director, I had my trainer. We were all on the same page when we had adversity. He didn’t have that in Jacksonville. There was a lot of backstabbing, one thing or the other, because he didn’t have his people.”

This is an interesting bone to pick considering the fact that Meyer selected his staff personally. If he was unhappy with the coaches and staffers surrounding him, he only has himself to blame. It’s not like the decision to hire a first-time defensive coordinator in Joe Cullen or an offensive coordinator with a hit-or-miss track record in Darrell Bevell wasn’t criticized at the time.

Besides, if the reports are true, the biggest problem wasn’t the people around Meyer. Instead, it was Meyer himself and the lack of respect with which he treated those who worked for him. It’s hard to read Johnson’s comments as anything other than defending his old friend from damning reports that no one involved in the situation except Meyer has denied.

FOX Sports’ Jimmy Johnson shares thoughts on the Dolphins’ 2021 season

The former Dolphin HC shares his thoughts.

When you start off a season underachieving, analysts around the league are going to start taking notice and playing coach to figure out what’s wrong with the organization.

For the Dolphins, this is exactly where they find themselves after losing five of their first six games of the 2021 campaign. They have been so poor at times that even their old coaches are being asked about their problems.

On Colin Cowherd’s “The Herd” on Fox Sports, former Dolphins coach Jimmy Johnson assessed the Dolphins’ performance against the Jaguars in Week 6 and their year as a whole.

“Yep, some very disappointing losses for the Dolphins fans down here,” Johnson said. “[There were] a couple of questionable challenges yesterday in the ball game cost them a couple of timeouts. [They have] an inconsistent running game. I really like what Brian Flores was doing a year ago, and this year things just haven’t fallen into place. Obviously, Tua [Tagovailoa] not being healthy, that probably hurt them a few games, and I think the jury is still out on just how good Tua is.”

Johnson has some of the very same questions that many of the fans are asking themselves right now. Is Tagovailoa the franchise quarterback? Is Brian Flores the right coach for this team?

These are important questions that need to be asked after losing that game to that team.

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Four Aces? DC Dan Quinn holds dangerous rush hand that waves to Cowboys’ past glory

As Cowboys’ fans start to wrap their minds around possibilities for 2021, a callback to the often unsung greatness of the 90s, the DL. The comparison isn’t as far off as one might think. @DailyGoonerRaf details.

It was a play that lacked highlight reel flash, but it screamed with importance. Early in the Dallas Cowboys win over the New York Giants this past Sunday, New York faced a third-and-short in its own territory.

Defensive coordinator Dan Quinn put in a seven-man front to counter the Giants power formation. It was a standard 5-2 look, with three linemen in a Bear front, covering the two guards and center.

At the snap, rookie defensive lineman Osa Odighizuwa crashed into the backfield and spilled the Giants’ running back short of the first-down marker. A punt resulted.

Odighizuwa has flashed big-play ability in this early season, against the run and the especially on passing downs, and has eased the blow of losing fellow tackle Neville Gallimore to injury in the preseason. What catches the eye is the manner in which Odighizuwa made his impact.

A normal 4-3 defensive tackle, Quinn had him standing up on this down, as one of the ends in his five-man front. This is a position versatility the rookie has not shown before, one that hints at bigger things for the Cowboys’ pass rush when Demarcus Lawrence returns from his broken foot some time after the bye week.

Quinn will then have four rush options he can deploy across his fronts on passing downs – Odighizuma, fellow rookie Micah Parsons, Lawrence and Randy Gregory. The quartet will give the Cowboys the best rush depth and versatility since their championship days of the early and mid 1990s. A comparison between the two units shows that while this bunch lacks the run stopping depth of those title lines, it’s comparable as a rushing force.

Lynch: Ignore the talk about ‘family’ — loyalty between PGA Tour players and caddies has its limits

In a sport where form is fleeting, every relationship is temporary.

As job security goes, PGA Tour caddies enjoy about as much of it as Kim Jong Un’s inner circle, and often alongside an equally capricious man with absolute authority. Only in the manner of their dismissal do caddies have an edge on the Pyongyang cognoscenti.

The attributes Tour players seek in a wingman are as personal as fingerprints. Some require only punctuality and an accurate yardage. Others need more — help reading putts or pulling clubs or being talked off a ledge. There are players who want a friend on the bag, or a proxy psychologist or simply someone to blame. Good caddies know what the boss wants and mold accordingly. And if they’re successful, they’ll gain a solid enough reputation to get another bag when he fires them.

“Not one of us would ever want a 9-to-5 job. We’re not built that way,” a veteran Tour looper told me. “I think caddies are quite an optimistic bunch. Our glass is always half-full. It depends on the player, obviously. We see them at their best and at their worst.”

The ever-shifting nature of player-caddie relationships was to the fore this week as two high-profile pros parted from their longtime sidekicks: Justin Thomas with Jimmy Johnson and Bubba Watson with Ted Scott. Each divorce has its particular motivating factors, from the straight-forward (grating personality differences) to the complex (disputes over a cut of the many bonuses now lavished on players). But whether a split was brewing or sudden — as when Tim Tucker left Bryson DeChambeau at the altar on the eve of the Rocket Mortgage Classic — it usually speaks to the prevailing circumstances of the player concerned.

Thomas was at pains to stress that he didn’t fire Johnson, who has been at his side since his rookie year in 2015. But good caddies are feral, with an innate sense of when it’s time to move on. Despite winning the Players Championship, Thomas had a disappointing year. That’s typically when a player thinks about a shake-up, which puts three constituencies in peril: swing coach, caddie and management.

Changing the latter is messy while dumping instructors entails a fresh start elsewhere. So you can see why so many caddies walk the plank. Thomas’s dad, Mike, is his swing coach and ain’t going anywhere. He also has good management. He had a fine caddie too, and still does. Thomas has lured Jim “Bones” Mackay out of TV, to which he had moved in 2017 after a 25-year run with Phil Mickelson. It’s an unsurprising call: Mackay is highly respected and one of the rare caddies whose counsel can be said to make players better.

The Watson-Scott split might not be as easily navigated with a new hire. Scott was on Watson’s bag for 15 years, 12 PGA Tour wins and two Masters. But Watson was frequently criticized for petulant outbursts directed at his caddie, who defended his boss every time. This parting, which surprised most observers, says something about Watson, but in a positive sense.

For most of his time as a Tour star, Watson has seemed ill at ease, in public, over the ball and in his own skin. Scott was as much crutch as caddie, someone who could help a quirky man navigate his peculiarities.

Watson admitted as much in a social media post announcing the news, writing: “Teddy deserves more credit than anyone can imagine for our success on the golf course, but I am just as grateful for his friendship and the way he has helped me grow as a person.”

The Bubba we have seen in 2021 appears changed. He showed up in Ohio to cheer the U.S. team at the Solheim Cup. He was the first player to support Matt Wolff when the young star revealed his mental health struggle, and spoke openly about his own issues. He is more comfortable with his idiosyncrasies, more self-aware about his shortcomings, more conscious of the power to do good that comes with a high profile.

In short, Watson is better equipped for life without Scott than might have been thought possible even recently. Still not an easy player to match with a caddie, but a lot easier than he used to be.

For all of the Hallmark sentiments peddled about friendships and “family” on Tour, the dynamic between player and caddie is no less precarious than any other employment contract, a reality that Johnson and Scott will have long understood. In a sport where form is fleeting, every relationship is temporary. Loyalty has its limits, on both sides.

A couple of years back, I chatted at TPC Sawgrass with the caddie for a popular major champion. His player was still relevant, money was coming in, and they were solid pals. Life was good for this Sherpa, who had been on the professional circuit for more than 20 years. Still, he cheerfully shared updates on an investment that, if it came to fruition, would net him a handsome profit.

“What happens if that ship comes in?” I asked him.

The caddie nodded in the direction of his employer. “Then he can carry his own f—-ing bag,” he said with a laugh.

Jimmy Johnson claims he and Dolphins could have landed Peyton Manning

Jimmy Johnson claims he and Dolphins could have landed Peyton Manning

Former Miami Dolphins head coach Jimmy Johnson has had quite the summer. Coach Johnson was immortalized in Canton, Ohio as a new member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame earlier this month, making him a member of one of the most exclusive clubs in all of sports. And now, with the dust settled and Johnson gearing up for another year of NFL coverage in his broadcast role, he’s apparently feeling in the mood to break Miami Dolphins fans everywhere.

Because Johnson, during a recent appearance on the Dan Le Batard show, claimed that he “could have” made a trade to secure quarterback Peyton Manning in the NFL draft while serving as the head coach of the Dolphins back in 1998.

“It would have taken my entire draft board, but I could have made a trade to move up to get Peyton Manning. In truth, I talked to Peyton and Archie about it this weekend,” said Johnson.

“That’s all the details I can give you. I probably gave you too much already.”

Maybe there’s fine print here that Johnson didn’t include. Maybe Manning would have had to fall to No. 2 overall and saw the Colts draft the “other” quarterback from that year’s class first, Ryan Leaf. But if, in reality, Miami did not end up acquiring Manning in 1998 when Johnson and the team had the opportunity to do so, it isn’t someone Johnson should be so ready to admit. It certainly wouldn’t fit into the “highlights” chapter of his Hall of Fame resume to have passed on making the deal.

What the Dolphins ended up doing with those assets only amplifies the egregiousness of Johnson not making the trade if he really could have: the team nailed Patrick Surtain in the 2nd-round but used their top pick at No. 29 overall to secure running back John Avery.

So for Johnson’s sake, we certainly hope there was a stipulation required to make the trade that didn’t materialize for Miami and prevented a deal. Because otherwise Johnson just revealed he and the Dolphins tore out some chapters from his Hall of Fame career; ones that might have been his most impressive of all had the early 2000s Dolphins had Manning in the fold.

‘We did it:’ Jimmy Johnson thanks Cowboys owner Jerry Jones in Hall of Fame speech

The emotional Dallas coach thanked plenty, but also spoke about relationships, believing instead of dreaming, and using your time wisely.

When Cowboys owner Jerry Jones and coach Jimmy Johnson went through their “little transition” in 1994, famously parting ways after consecutive Super Bowl wins and a whirlwind turnaround for the league’s laughingstock, the football world waited for the two men to patch things up and recognize the other’s contributions to the rebirth of the Dallas dynasty they created.

Johnson had to wait 27 years for Jones to tell him he would at long last make the franchise’s Ring of Honor.

On Saturday night in Canton as he was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, Johnson got his thank you to Jones out of the way 35 seconds after stepping to the mic.

“I guess you’re wanting to know what I’m going to say about Jerry Jones,” the 78-year-old Johnson said, after his opening remarks touched on the relationships that the sport tends to foster.

The crowd at Tom Benson Hall of Fame Stadium applauded, laughed, got quiet again… and maybe even braced themselves just a little for what might come next.

“Well… Jerry?” Johnson stalled before launching into a story.

But as he started, emotion seemed to get the best of him as he made an early stumble.

“You told me. You said, ‘We’re going to make sports history,’ before we ever bought the Cowboys–”

Quickly realizing he misspoke, Johnson poke a little fun at his goof.

“–before you bought the Cowboys, because I didn’t pay a damn cent!”

The moment broke the tension beautifully, if accidentally. The crowd’s easy laughter allowed the coach to snap back into a more relaxed storyteller mode.

“And you know what? We. We did make sports history. But not only for the Dallas Cowboys, but for the NFL. To go from the worst team in the league two years in a row to winning back-to-back Super Bowls and building a heck of a football team, we did it. And let me tell you, from the bottom of my heart, thank you, Jerry. Thank you for giving me the opportunity.”

Keeping himself on the evening’s tight schedule for speeches, Johnson chose not to list everyone that made his legendary career possible, but he emphasized that football success is always a group project. He recalled being enshrined in the College Football Hall of Fame thanks to great assistant coaches and players. He painted his inclusion in the Broadcasting Hall of Fame as inevitable only because of his producers and the other legends he shares the TV desk with.

Johnson’s football life has certainly been filled with some of the best names in the business at every level. But the man knows a thing or two about identifying talent and bringing out the best in those around him, to be sure.

“Looking back, I went and counted them up,” Johnson shared. “I coached, recruited, or drafted 13 players in the Pro Football Hall of Fame… And on top of that, I coached or broadcasted with 14 more Hall of Famers. I think I know what one looks like.”

But still pulling for the greatness of others to be fully realized, Johnson used even that humble brag to tout the Canton credentials of two former stars who have yet to get the call.

“Zach Thomas belongs up here. Darren Woodson belongs up here.”

Ever the coach, always shooting for the next plateau, the next accomplishment, the next success, the next win.

“I never really dreamed. I wasn’t a dreamer. You know, dreaming is hoping. I believed. I really believed. People say, ‘What made you think, when you were at Miami, you were going to take these inner-city kids and they were going to get an education? What made you say that you were going to get them a college degree?’ Because that’s what I talked about. I believed they were. And 90 percent of them got their college degree. That’s what I was proud of. ‘What made you think you were going to win a Super Bowl when you were 1-15?’ I didn’t dream about it; I believed that we were going to win a Super Bowl. When you believe it, I think it has something with the way you act and how you deal with people: your expectation, and you put expectations on them. Treat a person as he is, he’s going to stay as he is. Treat a person as if he were what he could be or should be, he’ll become what he could be and should be. I didn’t dream. I believed we were going to do it.”

But Johnson admitted that his unfailing belief came at a cost. His two adult sons both played football growing up; Johnson revealed he “never saw them play a down. And that’s a shame.”

In closing his remarks, Johnson referenced an idea that Wayne Huizenga once shared with him. The late Dolphins owner called it QTL.

“Quality Time Left. Think about that. I’m 78 years old, and I think about QTL all the time,” Johnson explained. “The people that you love, like my family right over there, appreciate those people. Because there will come a day you’re not going to be able to appreciate them because you’re not going to be around.”

Johnson and Jones have finally gotten back to appreciating each other, too. Seeing them together this week in Canton and knowing they’ll be together once again when Johnson’s name is hung in the palace that Jones built, maybe it’s a new chapter for the two men whose legacies will always be intertwined. Maybe now it’s destined that they’ll ride off into the sunset as friends once again, wearing their matching gold jackets.

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Jimmy Johnson talks coaching in NFL and his Hall of Fame career

USA Today Sports’ Jarrett Bell breaks down his conversation with Hall of Fame coach Jimmy Johnson ahead of being inducted into the NFL HOF.

USA Today Sports’ Jarrett Bell breaks down his conversation with Hall of Fame coach Jimmy Johnson ahead of being inducted into the NFL HOF.