Interesting Coach Lombardi Comparison

[Galaril]

I just heard on the local sports radio station here in the Boston area(WEEI) which is a great station but this kind of caught my ear. They have been discussing that Bill Belichick is in the same class with Vince Lombardi. This is debatable but maybe true. However, they were saying Lombardi and Belichick are in a complete seperate class from ALL the present AND past coaches.This I don't agree with.He is a great coach but to others think he is overated or what?

[clintl]

Belichick is going to be a Hall of Famer unless he screws up from this point on, but I don't see a case to be made that he is in a class above the other great coaches of recent times, let alone of all time.

[BishopMVP]

Let's see how he does without Weis and Crennel. A little bit of Parcells' luster gets removed when you see that he never had the same success as Belichick once Belichick left his side, so let's at least see how good Belichick is without his coordinators before anointing him next to Lombardi.

[kcchief19]

He's 89-71 in the regular season as a head coach. Lombardi was 96-34-6. As wins and losses go, Belichick isn't even the best coach named Bill. If the discussion is best playoff coaches, then I guess you could say it's Lombardi and Belichick because they have the best records.

I think what he's done the last two seasons has been extraordinary. I don't completely discount 2001, but that was just a team that caught lightining in a bottle. They were one of those 8-8 type teams that if they catch a few breaks they go 11-5 and if the world collapses they go 5-11. Then they caught a couple of breaks in the playoffs (The Tuck, Mike Martz beginning his slow descent into dementia) and bam.

If they put up winning seasons the next three years and win another Super Bowl, I'll put him in Lombardi's category. Right now, he's a two notches below along with guys like Walsh, Shula, Landry, Stram and the bunch. I think guys like Hallas, Allen, Madden and Gibbs (current reign not included) are in that group that's a notch below Lombardi.

[Leonidas]

Dr Z on Sports Illustrated frequently brings up an interesting way to look at the legacy of coaches through the coaches they beget. Seems like damn near the entire coaching tree of the last 40 years runs through Paul Brown (Walsh and all of his disciples, Shula, etc) while Lombardi did not beget any significant pupils. Move fast forward and you can see the Jimmie Johnson tree has pretty well fallen flat on its face, and the Joe Gibbs tree has had problems. Belechik is still a work in progress as his first coaching offspring are just starting out right now with Weiss, Crennel, and Saban. Will be interesting to see how these guys make out and how it reflects on Belechik's legacy.