1. Welcome to SportsJournalists.com, a friendly forum for discussing all things sports and journalism.

    Your voice is missing! You will need to register for a free account to get access to the following site features:
    • Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
    • Access to private conversations with other members.
    • Fewer ads.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!

What's the criteria for an NFL HC to be in the HOF?

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by heyabbott, Oct 15, 2013.

  1. 3_Octave_Fart

    3_Octave_Fart Well-Known Member

    Flores had a strange coaching career.
    Inherited key players from the Madden era, but with a lot of turnover at the same time.
    The 1980 Raiders and '83 Raiders had very few Madden holdovers - these were Flores' teams.
    Just a .527 winning percentage, with bad playoff losses in 1982 and 1985.
    Completely flamed out in Seattle.
     
  2. heyabbott

    heyabbott Well-Known Member

    Is Dungy going to be the Tony Perez/ Kirby Puckett of football? Lowering the bar to such a point that others, by comparison, are now worthy candidates when before were on the other side of the borderline.
    Once Dungy gets in, a losing record in the playoffs and multiple 1 and dones (some at home) gets over looked for 1 title and multiple years of regular season excellence?
     
  3. 3_Octave_Fart

    3_Octave_Fart Well-Known Member

    Dungy is less worthy than Blanton Collier.
     
  4. Della9250

    Della9250 Well-Known Member

    There are a couple major differences here though -- Allen's winning percentage is .712. Only two guys coached at least 10 seasons and won a higher percentage of games in Madden and Lombardi. No NFL coach with at least 12 seasons has won as many games. Shotty's is .613. Allen also has the edge in coach of the year awards 2-1.

    And Allen got to a Super Bowl. And to while he lost that Super Bowl, it was by a touchdown to the only undefeated team in history, so I don't think it is held against him as much as it would in other situations.

    The BIGGEST difference of all, however, is that George Allen was a senior committee inductee. He had been a regular finalist in 1988 and then waited until 1998 to get back into the room. He was a finalist again the next year before he got the senior nod in 2002. It's not like the voters were clamoring to put him in.

    So if you want to compare him to Schottenheimer, then the path to induction would be to make it as a finalist in 2017 and eventually be selected in 2033.
     
  5. heyabbott

    heyabbott Well-Known Member

    Collier was the last coach to win a Championship for the Browns, 1964. Maybe there should be a rotation for Browns coaches, if you win a Championship, you're automatically in until the someone else wins one in Cleveland and they replace you. The odds are good that Collier will be replaced before Derrick Rose comes back.

    BTW Allen's Redskins, for whatever reason, were favored to beat the undefeated Dolphins in SB VII.
     
  6. Della9250

    Della9250 Well-Known Member

    Another quick point on Allen -- in six one and dones, three times he was beaten by the eventual conference champion and only once did he lose to a team with a worse record. I count the time he was 9-4-1 and lost to a 9-5 team as an even matchup.

    I can't totally fault a guy who leads a team to a 10-4 mark and has to start the playoffs against an 11-2-1 or go 11-3 and lose by a field goal to a 12-2 team or lose by four as a 10-4 team to a 12-2 team. That's just a really good team losing to another really good team in a match-up of the top four teams in the conference.

    It's not comparable to some of Schottenheimer or Dungy's playoff failures.
     
  7. Mizzougrad96

    Mizzougrad96 Active Member

    I would put Holmgren in the HOF over Dungy without even thinking about it.

    Holmgren took two teams from the bottom to the Super Bowl. I also don't think Brett Favre becomes the player he was without Holmgren. He also developed Hasselbeck into a multi-time Pro Bowler.
     
  8. 3_Octave_Fart

    3_Octave_Fart Well-Known Member

    Jim Caldwell proved a coach of a P. Manning-helmed team can spend a season with his thumb up his butt, with no negligible effect.
    John Fox is proving that again this season.
    Dungy wasn't some shaman in Indy.
     
  9. Mizzougrad96

    Mizzougrad96 Active Member

    Shanahan can take credit for some of Elway's success. Mike McCarthy can take credit for some of Aaron Rodgers' success. Holmgren can take some credit for Favre and Hasselbeck. Sean Payton can take some credit for Brees.

    Tony Dungy can take ZERO credit for Manning's success.
     
  10. 3_Octave_Fart

    3_Octave_Fart Well-Known Member

    Big Jim Mora was a better coach than Dungy.
     
  11. exmediahack

    exmediahack Well-Known Member

    Jim Mora should get into the Pro Football Hall of Fame for winning two titles with Chuck Fusina as his quarterback.
     
  12. joe king

    joe king Active Member

    The thing about George Allen is his case goes way beyond wins and losses (though his regular season record is remarkable) and playoff performance. He's in the Hall just as much as an innovator and a guy who changed the way football teams operate.

    Before he ever became a head coach, he was credited with creating some of the most innovative defensive schemes in the game as George Halas' defensive coach (I believe that was before they were called coordinators) with the Bears, using zone coverages that were practically unheard of at the time. When Chicago won the 1963 NFL title game by forcing five Giants turnovers, the defense awarded Allen the game ball (sort of in the Buddy Ryan vein). He is widely credited with helping develop Doug Atkins, Bill George and Stan Jones into the Hall of Fame players they became.

    Halas also gave Allen control of the Chicago draft, and in an era when a lot of teams still barely researched prospects, he focused his famous attention to detail on the draft, helping launch the increased emphasis on the draft and scouting throughout the league. He was responsible for selecting Mike Ditka, Gale Sayers and Dick Butkus.

    As a head coach, he was the first guy to stress special teams as a major part of the game -- he hired the first special teams coach in league history (Vermeil, as pointed out earlier). He hired the first team security director (mostly because he was paranoid about opponents spying on his practices). He was the benchmark for a whole breed of workaholic coaches, working late nights and early mornings, forcing others to step up their commitment to keep up (that might not be a good thing, but it did change the game).

    Allen is credited as a pioneer in the use of sophisticated playbooks and game plans. He was one of the first coaches (if not the first) to extensively use players as situation specialists, such as the nickel defense. He was a master motivator. When Allen was fired by Rams owner Dan Reeves (not that one) after going 10-3-1 in 1968, 38 players came out and said they wanted to be traded or would retire if Allen was gone. Reeves later called a press conference to introduce his new coach -- George Allen. And I don't know if he single-handedly created the Redskins-Cowboys rivalry, but he sure played a huge part in doing so.

    Just sayin.'
     
Draft saved Draft deleted

Share This Page