Okay, with the NFL preseason now fully in swing, it seems like an appropriate time to talk about NFL football again. And one subject that always fascinated me, personally, would be comparisons between Bill Parcells and Jimmy Johnson. Both were most famously head coaches of NFC East teams that enjoyed remarkable success during their coaching tenures. Parcells was the head coach of the New York Giants for eight seasons from 1983 until 1990, during which time he earned an overall record of 77-49-1. He led the team to five overall playoff appearances amassing an 8-3 postseason record during this time, with three division titles and two Super Bowl championships. Johnson was head coach of the Cowboys from 1989 until 1993, with an overall record of 44-36, leading Dallas to three playoff appearances, two division titles, and two Super Bowl titles.
However, both men also went on to coach other teams. Johnson only went to one other team, the Miami Dolphins, and coached them for four season, from 1996 until 1999. Parcells coached several teams, going to the New England Patriots from 1993 through 1996, to the New York Jets from 1997 until 1999, and finally to the Dallas Cowboys from 2003 until 2006.
Both men served as head coach of the Dallas Cowboys, albeit in different eras, and under very different circumstances. Jimmy Johnson came on as the new coach of the Dallas Cowboys at a time when that franchise was seriously struggling like never before. After decades of serious success under Tom Landry, the Cowboys sank to 3-13 in 1988, the worst record in the league. They were largely an old team of aging stars and a lack of cohesion for any obvious future direction.
It was at that point that Jerry Jones stepped in and bought the franchise, and hired Johnson to become the head coach. The first season was extremely challenging and difficult, as the Cowboys finished 1-15, avoiding a winless season by beating Washington on the road. But clearly, the team had hit the absolute bottom. It was at this point that the fortunes for the Cowboys began to really change.
Fast-forward a bit. Four years and change, to be precise. Jimmy Johnson has led the Cowboys from a horrible 0-2 start, to the top of the NFC, with a 12-4 record. The crushed Green Bay in the divisional round, and this time, they absolutely blow out the 49ers in the NFC title game, before surviving a tough challenge from the Buffalo Bills to win their second straight Super Bowl. The Cowboys are still one of the youngest teams in the league, and yet they are clearly a budding dynasty, well on their way to establishing themselves as the "Team of the Decade" for the nineties.
Jimmy Johnson took some chances, most famously by trading Dallas's highest profile player in Herschel Walker. The Vikings were a good team, and perhaps (probably, even) should have made a Super Bowl. But they are one key player away, and they feel that Walker is that player. So, they give up some good players, and a huge amount of draft picks, in order to obtain Walker. But Minnesota never makes the Super Bowl, while the Cowboys use those draft picks wisely, with Johnson doing most of the maneuvering. He comes across looking like a genius, and Dallas looks unbeatable.
Fast-forward again, just a few weeks later, this time. April, to be specific. The feud between Johnson and owner Jerry Jones, which has been simmering, suddenly reaches the boiling point. They part ways, and Dallas suddenly loses it's star coach. On his way out, Johnson states that he believes the Cowboys should win the Super Bowl again, putting all of the pressure on the 'Boys to repeat. But that season, with Barry Switzer now at the helm as coach, the Cowboys look like a significantly lesser team. They lose to the 49ers in the regular season, thus losing out to them with home field advantage. Then, in the NFC title game, they get blown away in the first quarter, falling behind 21-0 within the first few minutes behind a terrible sequence of events, and they never fully bounce back.
That was the story of Johnson in Dallas. It is an incomplete story, or at least, it feels incomplete. Johnson has named his fishing boat "Three Rings," but he in fact never gets his third Super Bowl ring. He coaches again, with the Miami Dolphins beginning in 1996. But there is no magical trade with a ton of draft picks for an arguably overrated player. Likewise, their is no dominance by Miami, as there had been in Big D. In fact, in Johnson's first season, the team actually takes a dip from their 9-7 record under legend Don Shula from the previous season. They miss the playoffs, but Johnson gets the team to be good enough to make the playoffs. Following a 9-7 mark in the 1997 regular season, the Fins get blown out in the wild card at New England. The Dolphins improve to 10-6 in 1998, their most successful season under Johnson. They beat Buffalo, 24-17 in the wild card, but then get blown out by Denver in the divisional round, 38-3. In 1999, Miami finished 9-7, but they again make the playoffs. They just edge the Seahawks, 20-17, on the road, but then get absolutely humiliated by Jacksonville, 62-7. It is the second most lopsided playoff game in NFL history to date. It is the last game that star quarterback Dan Marino ever plays, and it is also the last game that Jimmy Johnson ever coaches. Not exactly a great way to go out, and Johnson no longer looks like the unquestionable genius. Meanwhile, Dallas got their third ring in the 1995-96 season under Switzer, but they did not look anywhere near as dominant that season as they had in the two years under Johnson. Also, it is the last title that the Cowboys would win during that era (or since, for that matter), and also, there is a sense that they did not fulfill quite as much as they could have done. They still earn "Team of the Decade" honors, but their dynasty fades quicker than most expect. Some players, Aikman and Irving in particular, still shake their heads and tell each other that they could have won four or five during that era, but that third one ends it.
It seems that Johnson was given most of the credit, perhaps deservedly, for the dominance that Dallas enjoyed in the early nineties. There was a buzz around them starting round the 1990 season, when they were making moves and surprising quite a few teams with a more successful season than most had expected from them. They finished 7-9, but a loss in their regular season finale, coupled with a New Orleans win on the final Monday Night game, is all that separates Dallas from the playoffs. In 1991, the 'Boys really look solid, finishing 11-5, beating the Bears in Chicago in the wildcard, before getting bounced by Detroit. By 1992, the Cowboys storm to a franchise best 13-3 mark to win the NFC East, bounce Philly in the divisional round, and handle the 49ers in an epic NFC Championship Game that marks a changing of the guard. They destroy Buffalo 52-17 in the Super Bowl. They do it all again in 1993, finishing 12-4 and repeating, looking dominant in the process.
If you compare that resume, those five seasons for Johnson, from the miserable 1-15 start, to the dominant two titles in a row, and you compare the time that Parcells was coach of the Cowboys, it would definitely go in favor of Johnson. But the situations are completely different, and a better comparison might be the tenure of Parcells with the New York Giants. Like Johnson, he also falters in his first season, as the Giants finish 3-12-1. He expected to be fired, but the Giants keep him on, and give him another chance. He rewards them, as the team finishes 9-7 in 1984, then beat the Rams in Los Angeles in the wild card, before bowing to the eventual Super Bowl champion San Francisco 49ers, who had gone 15-1 that season. The next year, the Giants go 10-6, and beat the 49ers in the wild card, but fall to the eventual Super Bowl champions, the 15-1 Chicago Bears, a team that many experts consider the best ever. By 1986, the Giants are ready to go all the way under Parcells. They finish 14-2, and look dominant particularly in the final three games of the regular season, catching fire. They win their first division title in over two decades, and then destroy San Francisco, 49-3, in the divisional round, before shutting Washington out, 17-0, in the NFC title. They have a tough time at first against Denver, but score 30 points in the second half to whip the Broncos, 39-20, for their first ever Super Bowl title, and the first championship for the Giants in 30 years.
In 1987, the Giants fall, and fall hard. It is a bizarre season, to be fair, with a strike that shortened the season, and with three games played by scab players. Arguably, the Giants scabs might be the worst in the league, losing all three of their games. The Giants finish that season 6-9, but the regular players actually went 6-6. Not a losing record for them, but nowhere near the level that they had played at during the 1986 championship season. New York bounces back in 1988, going 10-5, and on the cusp of securing a playoff bye and the number two seed when they get shocked in the final game of the regular season. Instead of 11-5 and the second seed, they finish 10-6 and miss the playoffs outright. Parcells decides to make some changes, and 1989 appears to be a rebuilding season. But what a rebuilding season! That year, some feel, was the finest ever by Parcells, as the team goes 12-4, winning the NFC East again, and earning the second seed. But they lose their first and only playoff game to the Rams. But in 1990, the Giants are ready to contend. They sprint to a 10-0 undefeated start, the best in franchise history. But Parcells reminds everyone that it is not a sprint, it's a marathon. The Giants lose their first by blowout in Philly, then lose a huge showdown at San Francisco. Then, they lose two weeks later at home against Buffalo, and starting quarterback Phil Simms is out for the remainder of the season with a serious leg injury. Everyone thinks that the Giants are done, that a promising season was wasted. The Giants win their final two regular season games in lackluster fashion to finish 13-3, but it is still good enough to earn the second seed. In the divisional round, they meet the Chicago Bears, and some are predicting that the Bears will pull off the win. But the Giants look dynamic on offense behind backup quarterback Jeff Hostetler, and the Giants win, 31-3. In an epic NFC Championship showdown against the 49ers in San Francisco, New York wins on the final play, 15-13. They then hold off heavily favored Buffalo in the Super Bowl, aided by that famous wide right field goal, and win their second title in five seasons.
Of course, it is ultimately impossible to give an exact comparison between the two men. The situations were very different. While both men started off coaching losing franchises and converted them to winning, they did so in different eras, and under different circumstances. Parcells slowly turned the Giants around by building them up in strength and size, making them overpowering. Johnson took over the worst team in the league in Dallas in 1989, but solid drafting and an unbelievable, once in a lifetime trade allowed the Cowboys to get very, very good, very, very fast. They both won the Super Bowl in their fourth seasons, but the aftermath was completely different for the two men. When Johnson's Cowboys own Super Bowl XXVII, they essentially rose to be the new overpowering dynasty. It seemed that the Giants might be that as well when they won Super Bowl XXI, but the following season was a strange one, as it was shortened by a strike, and also had scab players on the field in Giants uniforms for three games. The Giants were bad that season, and it took them years to recover back to being a legitimate playoff contender. While Johnson won his second Super Bowl the very next season after taking his first one, it took Parcells another four years to bring another championship to New York. He had success with both the Patriots and the Jets, and even had some success with Dallas, but none of those tenures were as successful as his time with the Giants. Johnson had modest success in Miami, but many felt that his time there actually undermined his status as some kind of an NFL head coaching genius.
In short, however, there is simply no way to know which man had the more impressive success or resume. After all, Parcells managed to build a team that won two Super Bowl titles, and then led the New England Patriots to a Super Bowl appearance (but not a victory), and led the Jets to the AFC title game, but lost. He coached the Cowboys to the playoffs after several losing seasons, but never got past the Wildcard round. Johnson managed to build a dynasty in Dallas, and many credit him for all three titles that the Cowboys won, even though he was only officially coach for the first two. In Miami, his success was much more modest, and the Dolphins never even reached an AFC title game. So, while Parcells enjoyed much more success with teams other than the Giants than Johnson did with Miami, but you could make an argument that Johnson did such an astonishing job making Dallas a historical level powerhouse, that he gets the nod. Then again, Parcells did not have the kind of once in a lifetime deal that Johnson managed to pull of with the Minnesota Vikings, which really accelerated the ability of the Cowboys to become that incredibly dominant and talented powerhouse.
One way or the other, there are parallels, and so I added some stats between the two men, as well as quotes from the one player who played under both men while in Dallas.
Here are some interesting stats between Parcells and Johnson when they met head to head:
Parcells won first six meetings, 1988-1990 6-0, Parcells 1996 – 1-1 (both won home games) 7-1, Parcells 1997 – Johnson won both 7-3, Parcells 1998 – Parcells won both 9-3, Parcells 1999 –Parcells won both 11-3, Parcells
Here are some quotes from Darren Woodson, who played for the Dallas Cowboys during the tenures of both Johnson and Parcells. He won two of his three overall Super Bowl rings with Dallas while Johnson was the coach. Woodson was still a member of the Cowboys by the time that Parcells got there, and had this to say regarding how different they were, and what the strengths were for both men:
“Jimmy was a guy who was a CEO-type,” said Woodson. “He led by putting pieces and parts together. Whether it be an offensive coordinator like Norv Turner – a great coach back then — or (former offensive line coach) Tony Wise. A lot of good coaches on the offensive side of the ball that handled their business. And on the defensive side of the ball, we had Dave Wannstedt, Butch Davis, Dave Campo – coaches who went on to be head coaches in the league that came from his tree.
“Jimmy did a great job of putting these coaches together and of being able to control the attitude and personalities in the locker room. The only guy who could have ever done that was Jimmy, (and) he did it with a forceful hand. He did it with an extremely heavy hand on players … and did it out of fear. Fear was a part of it. If you were late for a meeting you may get cut. And that was the way Jimmy led his team.”
Woodson was not there for nearly as long under Parcells, yet he gave a rather glowing review of what he did learn under "The Tuna," as Parcells is often affectionately known:
“With Parcells, it was much different, in that Parcells was much more personable as a coach. (He was) hard on you. He treated you like a man, but he expected you to treat him with respect and treat your teammates with a lot of respect the same way.
“I can tell you one thing about Bill Parcells: I learned in two years (under him) more than I learned in my entire career. And I tell him all the time.
“I ended up getting hurt in my second year with him — I wasn’t able to play that second year he had been with the Cowboys — but the growth that I had under him … I felt I could’ve grown so much more if I had met him early on in my career. I would’ve been so much better of a football player all-around. Parcells was a guy who wanted me to stop covering the slot as much … and the tight end … and wanted me to play a true safety spot.
“So, to me, there was a lot of affection. He was like a father figure to me. He taught me so much about the game … and life.”
Quotes by Woodson taken from this article:
THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN JIMMY AND PARCELLS? DARREN WOODSON KNOWS by Clark Judge, 2015:
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