All-time wins leader Shula led NFL’S only perfect team
Legendary Dolphins coach remembered as man who commanded players’ respect
In a thick Texas drawl that matched his signature Stetson and cowboy boots, Bum Phillips in the 1960s and ’70s alternately offered the same, unequalled homage to two of the best darned coaches to ever amble onto a football sideline: Bear Bryant and Don Shula:
“He can take his’n and beat your’n — and take your’n and beat his’n.”
Shula, who died peaceably at home on Monday at age 90, never got to prove that maxim. Through much of his nearly four-decade turn in coaching football, he probably indeed could have taken your players on your team and beaten his own.
That might be the only substantial pro football coaching accomplishment Shula won’t take to the grave.
After three years as an NFL assistant coach with the Detroit Lions from 1960-62, Shula became the NFL’S winningest head coach, and the only one in 100 seasons ever to lead his team to a perfect record including playoffs (17-0 in 1972).
Shula also is the only man ever to work as an NFL head coach in 33 consecutive seasons — from 1962-69 with the Baltimore Colts and more memorably from 197095 with the Miami Dolphins.
Just look at the list of legendary head coaches Shula faced over his long career, with the number of head-to-head wins he had against each in parentheses: George Halas (five), Vince Lombardi (four), Paul Brown (three), Tom Landry (five), Chuck Noll (nine), John Madden (three), Bill Walsh (two),
Joe Gibbs (three), Bill Parcells (four), Marv Levy (six), Jimmy Johnson (two) and, yes, even
Bill Belichick (two).
From Halas to Belichick. No other head coach in league history faced both those legends. Shula boasted winning records against both, as well as against Brown, Landry, Noll, Gibbs, Parcells and Johnson.
He and Walsh split four games, while only Lombardi (4-7), Madden (3-4) and Levy (6-17) got the better of him.
Similarly, Shula coached three Hall of Fame quarterbacks in the prime of their careers: Johnny Unitas, Bob Griese and Dan Marino.
Bottom line, he won more games than any other NFL coach (347, playoffs included) and still possesses the third best winning percentage ever (. 677).
What’s more, Shula took six teams to the Super Bowl (with five different quarterbacks), winning twice. He actually won a third NFL championship in 1968 with Baltimore, before the league’s merger with the AFL.
The last Super Bowl that Shula was alive for — and watched — took place just three months ago. In Miami.
Of course, as befits arguably the NFL’S most accomplished coach, plaudits poured in for Shula all day Monday. And deservedly so.
Pro Football Hall of Fame linebacker Joe Schmidt was one of the last living star players from the first three pro teams Shula helped coach, in Detroit from 1960-62.
Shula had just turned 30, after having played in the NFL as a defensive back in Cleveland, Baltimore and Washington from 1951-57.
“It was his first job in the NFL. He came right out of the box and he was a helluva coach and a helluva guy,” said Schmidt, an eight-time all-pro with the Lions from 1953-65, and the team’s head coach from 1967-72.
“I knew him previously, from being a player and so forth. I always said, and always believed, he would have been a great head coach for Detroit. Lions history would have been different.
“Don was a guy who had a rare ability to bring players together and make his knowledge of the game easy for them to understand, so he could get them to do what he wanted to accomplish.”
Few remember anymore, but those Lions defences of the early ’60s were spectacular. Behind Schmidt, three defensive backs eventually were voted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame: Dick (Night Train) Lane, Yale Lary and Dick Lebeau. In front of Schmidt, Alex Karras — who should be in the Pro Football
Hall of Fame — anchored a fierce defensive line.
Schmidt said in a phone call from his Florida home that while his memory, at age 88, is now foggy, he recalls that Shula didn’t try to reinvent the wheel schematically.
“He was just a good coach, and all the players had great respect for him. That’s a very important part of being a coach, is that players have respect for you, understand what you’re talking about, what your philosophy is about winning. And Don was very good at all that ...
“He had the ability to motivate players and teach them good, fundamental football.”