Think of it as a supersized Mount Rushmore. With an awfully heavy presence from America’s Team.
CBS Sports has revealed its list of the 20 greatest head coaches in NFL history, with three of them- 15% of the entire collection- having roamed the Cowboys sidelines during their legendary careers.
The list goes all the way back into the league’s 100-plus-year history with notable figures like Curly Lambeau, George Halas, and Paul Brown, and will even lead plenty of today’s fans scrambling for Google to discover who Guy Chamberlain was. The NFL’s golden age of the late 1950s-to-1960s is also well-represented with names like Weeb Ewbank, Hank Stram, and- of course- Vince Lombardi. But plenty of modern-era coaches have recently put indelible marks on the game, too: Tony Dungy, Mike Shanahan, Andy Reid, and Bill Belichick, who tops the rankings at No. 1.
As for the Cowboys? Tom Landry, Jimmy Johnson, and Bill Parcells account for a whopping 328 combined regular-season wins. That’s 57% of the total regular-season wins for the franchise across its entire history. And to further drive home how significant these men were to the organization, their 27 postseason victories comprise 75% of the Cowboys’ all-time playoff wins (and that’s just Landry and Johnson; Parcells never notched a postseason win while in Dallas).
Here’s how each of the three placed in the CBS rankings.
14. Jimmy Johnson
“Few coaches have been as impactful in the NFL’s modern era as Johnson, who, in just three years,” CBS notes, “took the Cowboys from 1-15 to Super Bowl champions.” That’s obviously just part of Johnson’s legacy. His story can’t be told without also bringing up the Super Bowl repeat in 1993… and how it all came after he orchestrated a total roster rebuild unlike any that had ever been seen.
From the Herschel Walker trade to creating the revolutionary draft value chart that is still used in some form by every team today to managing a locker room full of some of the most outspoken, colorful, and even notorious characters to ever play the game, Johnson built a dynasty and changed the sport, all with no prior NFL experience whatsoever.
Two of the six CBS writers who created the list had Johnson ranked 14th, two had him at No. 15, one placed him 17th, and one left him off the list entirely.
13. Bill Parcells
“If you need a coach to jumpstart your franchise,” CBS suggests, “Bill Parcells is your guy. Four times during his Hall of Fame career, Parcells turned a struggling team into a contender in short order.”
That’s precisely what happened in 2003, when Jerry Jones convinced Parcells to come out of retirement to take over a Cowboys team that had turned in three consecutive five-win seasons under Dave Campo. In his first year wearing the star, Parcells finished 10-6 and took the team back to the playoffs.
But it’s his stints with the Giants and Patriots, both of whom he took to the Super Bowl (not to mention a close call with the Jets), that really put Parcells at No. 13 on this list. Despite a no-doubt gold-jacket résumé, Parcells’s winning percentage with Dallas- while still above .500- is lower than every Cowboys head coach not named Campo or Brian Schottenheimer.
10. Tom Landry
It’s sometimes easy to forget that the man in the hat started his legendary coaching career with a winless season and didn’t get over the .500 mark until his seventh year. That is a streak that would never occur in today’s NFL, nor would Landry’s overall 29-year tenure as head coach.
But few men have had such an impact on the game beyond just wins and losses and longevity. “Dallas’s success,” points out CBS, “was a byproduct of the Cowboys’ innovative scouting department and Landry’s innovative mind that often put his players in advantageous situations. While his offense was among the first to use the shotgun consistently, Landry’s real coaching legacy is the creation of the 4-3 ‘flex’ defense that wreaked havoc on opposing offenses.”
That Landry’s teams won only two Super Bowls is misleading, as they lost their three other appearances under him by a combined 11 points. And that doesn’t count the additional seven times they came up just short in conference-game losses.
Three CBS writers ranked Landry 8th overall for their list. He also got one vote each at No. 9, No. 10, and No. 13.
Todd is on X at @ToddBrock24f7. Also, follow Cowboys Wire on Facebook to join in on the conversation with fellow fans!
This article originally appeared on Cowboys Wire: 3 Cowboys coaches make CBS list of 20 all-time greatest
Reporting by Todd Brock, Cowboys Wire / Cowboys Wire
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Todd Brock, Cowboys Wire | USA TODAY Network
