Playoff bridesmaids look for big moment
Denver Coach Mike Shanahan hasn’t won a playoff game since John Elway retired.
Philadelphia has lost three consecutive NFC championship games under Andy Reid.
In the last decade under Bill Cowher, Pittsburgh has lost three AFC title games on its home turf.
Seattle Coach Mike Holmgren hasn’t won a playoff game since his days in Green Bay.
Mike Tice’s last two teams in Minnesota have finished the regular season with identical 3-7 slides.
Delve deeply enough into the history of any NFL coach and you’ll find losses that are disappointing, humiliating, lopsided and inexplicable. But this season’s playoff field has an unusually high number of coaches defined as much by their losses as their victories.
“All the criticism, if you’re a man it bothers you,” Tice said. “Yeah, it bothers me. (I’d be lying) if I said, ‘Oh, no, that doesn’t bother me. It doesn’t bother me that I’m called Coach Collapse. It doesn’t bother me that we’re making mistakes on offense.’
“But what are we going to do about it? That’s the key, and until we do something about it, it’s going to be there. That’s just reality, whether I like it or not.”
There’s enough reality to go around.
Tony Dungy? His Tampa Bay Buccaneers won the Super Bowl the season he became coach of the Indianapolis Colts.
Mike Sherman? It was under his watch that Green Bay suffered its first playoff defeat at Lambeau Field.
Mike Martz? His St. Louis Rams helped launch Tom Brady’s career when the New England quarterback directed the game-winning drive in the Super Bowl three years ago.
Then there’s San Diego coach Marty Schottenheimer, whose Chargers play host to the New York Jets in a wild-card game today. His Cleveland Browns lost championship games by a combined eight points to Denver in 1986 and ‘87, and he was 3-7 in the playoffs as coach of the Kansas City Chiefs.
“My approach to it is that you can’t hide from it,” Schottenheimer said of his 5-11 record in career postseason games. “It is what it is. We have not been nearly as effective in the playoffs as I would like to have been. But again, there’s no redo’s. We lost some close ones, some tough ones.”
In the next month, Schottenheimer and others have a chance to redefine their careers, to wrap their hands around the Lombardi Trophy that has eluded them so long. Yes, Holmgren already has won a Super Bowl, and Shanahan has won two. Great coaches and players have retired without a ring. Buffalo’s Marv Levy, a four-time Super Bowl loser, “choked” all the way to the Hall of Fame, and he’ll soon be joined there by quarterback Dan Marino, who never reached the NFL mountaintop.
But in at least one city this season, nothing short of a Super Bowl victory will do. After watching their team fall three consecutive times in the conference title game, Philadelphia fans are fed up with the Eagles’ warning-track power. It’s win the Super Bowl, or else.
“The coach understands that, and we understand that as players that the only important thing for this organization is to go to the Super Bowl,” Philadelphia cornerback Sheldon Brown said. “Anything else and this has not been a good season for this team. We understand that.”
The Eagles are the first team in league history to host the conference title game in consecutive seasons and fail to reach the Super Bowl. Almost as a testament to the pressure he must be feeling, Reid decided to rest his best players for the final two games of the regular season, absorbing the losses that came as a result.
The great debate in Philadelphia now is: Did Reid do the right thing, or have his Eagles lost critical momentum heading into the do-or-die stretch of the season? At least Reid had the comfort of knowing his team plays in a watered-down conference in which two 8-8 teams – St. Louis and Minnesota – made the playoffs.
Shanahan doesn’t have that luxury. His Broncos play at Indianapolis on Sunday and face Most Valuable Player quarterback Peyton Manning, who scorched them with five touchdown passes in a wild-card game at the RCA dome last season.