Phil Sheridan: Assessing Andy Reid in context of his peers

January 24, 2009|By Phil Sheridan, Inquirer Columnist
  • Andy Reid now has the second longest tenure of head coaches in the NFL. Jeff Fisher is No. 1.

Here's a head coaching resume for you: In 11 years, coaching three franchises, this guy reached one Super Bowl and lost. After that, he had a 1-3 record in the years his teams made the playoffs.

The coach was Bill Parcells, a sure Hall of Famer for the two Super Bowls he won with the New York Giants - the most recent of which was almost two decades ago.

Then there's a guy who won a Super Bowl in his fifth season - his first with Tampa Bay - then failed to win another playoff game in his next six seasons before getting fired this month.

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That would be Jon Gruden, who joined Mike Shanahan and Rod Marinelli at the NFL coaches' unemployment office, which keeps its ceremonial offices in Mobile, Ala., site of the annual job fair otherwise known as the Senior Bowl.

As the sting fades from the Eagles' fifth tumble from near the top of the mountain, it's worth looking around the NFL to see what we can learn about Andy Reid and his prospects for defying the odds and eventually winning that elusive Super Bowl.

With the retirement of his mentor, Mike Holmgren, in Seattle, Reid stands alone as the second-longest-tenured head coach in the NFL. Tennessee's Jeff Fisher - zero championships, one Super Bowl appearance, 0-2 in the playoffs over the last five years - is No. 1. Fisher has coached the Houston/Tennessee franchise since 1994, through three cities and two team names.

Reid has a better winning percentage - regular season, postseason and overall - than Fisher. Except for the lack of that Lombardi Trophy (and that is a very big lack, to be sure), Reid has the best all-around resume of any active head coach except for New England's Bill Belichick.

Really.

A week from tomorrow, a coach with a lesser overall body of work than Reid will add a Super Bowl title to his resume. Arizona's Ken Whisenhunt and Pittsburgh's Mike Tomlin may go on to long-term greatness, but they're just as likely to go the one-hit-wonder way of Gruden and Brian Billick.

Some Eagles fans appreciate the year-in, year-out competitiveness of Reid's teams. Others would trade seven years of getting close for one championship surrounded by years of losing. It's a matter of personal preference, but really it's not something you can choose in advance.

The Detroit Lions might win a Super Bowl before the Eagles do. In that case, their 0-16 season and decades of futility might seem worthwhile to fans. Or the Lions just might continue to stink.

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