We like ESPN columnist Bill Simmons. He's a funny, smart writer, and became the first notable sports columnist to make his name solely on the Internet.
And how’s this for an “it’s a small world” story? The Chief Troll’s roommate in his cardboard box in college was roommates with Simmons in prep school. That and a $2 bill will get you
a lap dance at the Pleasure Dome, our favorite BYOB gentletroll’s club.
OK. That's the good news.
Here's the bad news: Simmons is not averse to bending the Cold, Hard Football Facts to support his thesis du jour. And you all know how the Cold, Hard Football Facts feel about bending … or any other form of exercise.
In this case, his thesis du jour is that NFL coaches lose their fastball after age 55.
Using mostly anecdotal evidence and his observations of Bill Parcells, Simmons makes a giant logistical leap and a phenomenally misleading and one-sided case for his point – something that will definitely land you in the Cold, Hard Football Facts dungeon for a nasty stint of Pigskin Detention.
Say “hi” to Pete Prisco when you’re down there, Bill … Better yet, just speak to him in a language he understands: Grunt twice and point to some cave drawings.
Simmons: … That's why, in Parcells' honor, I'm introducing the Speed Limit Coaching Corollary. If the coach of your favorite team is older than 55, or if your team is about to hire someone who's older than 55, there's a good chance you should start preparing for a frustrating stretch of football.
Cold, Hard Football Facts: Guess this means Simmons, who worships at the altar of Bill Belichick, should find a new binky: The New England coach turns 55 in April. Parcells, meanwhile, was 55 when he took Simmons’s favorite team, the Patriots, to the Super Bowl. When Parcells was 57, he led the Jets to the AFC title game two years after the team went 1-15.
Simmons: If you picked the best 2006 coaching jobs strictly in terms of "maximizing the talent on hand," any unbiased person would go with Sean Payton, Bill Belichick,
Eric Mangini, Jeff Fisher, Lovie Smith and Brian Billick in some order. I would also include Mike McCarthy and Mike Nolan for overachieving with crummy teams, and we probably should include Andy Reid to be safe (even though he's overrated by the media and a notoriously bad clock-management guy). Anyway, every coach we just mentioned is younger than 55 years old; everyone but Billick and Belichick is younger than 50. There isn't a geezer on the list.
Cold, Hard Football Facts: Maybe Simmons is forgetting about the coach who had the best record in football this year. Or maybe he glossed over Marty Schottenheimer because, at 63 years old, the San Diego coach refutes the entire "Speed Limit" theory. All Schottenheimer did was take a team picked by the “pundits” as No. 2 or 3 in the AFC West and lead it to a 14-2 record and a No. 1 seed in the brutally competitive AFC. He was also one of four coaches to get votes for Coach of the Year, along with Payton, Mangini and Fisher. The 14-2 mark is the best ever for Schottenheimer, who first became a head coach in the NFL at age 41, well below the Simmons “Speed Limit.” Schottenheimer, in other words, baldly flies in the face of the useless and factless “Speed Limit” thesis.
Simmons: In the past three decades, seven famous 55-plus coaches were lured out of retirement or college and bombed miserably: Mike Ditka (Saints), Buddy Ryan (Cards), Tom Flores (Seahawks), Chuck Knox (Rams), George Seifert (Panthers), Steve Spurrier (Redskins) and Hank Stram (Saints). Three others acquitted themselves much better: Jim Mora (a 13-win season with the Colts), Dick Vermeil (a Super Bowl with the Rams) and Marty Schottenheimer (currently presiding over the Super Bowl favorite). Does a 30-percent success rate sound enticing to you?
Cold, Hard Football Facts: First, Chuck Knox went directly from the Seahawks (1991) to the Rams (1992), so that doesn’t exactly qualify as being lured “out of retirement.” Ditka and Stram both went to an organization, New Orleans, that (until this year) lost like clockwork with coaches young and old alike. Same for Buddy Ryan, who went to the pathetic Cardinals. NFL history, meanwhile, is littered with young coaches who failed. David Shula was 32 when he was hired by the Bengals. He went 19-52 over 4½ seasons. Gregg Williams was 43 when pegged to lead Buffalo. He went 17-31 over three seasons. And certainly young newcomer coaches Payton and Mangini impressed this year. But several sub-55 newcomer coaches did not, including Brad Childress, who was 50 when he was hired and went 6-10, Gary Kubiak (45 and 6-10 ) and Scott Linehan (42 and 8-8).
Simmons: Respected coaches like Tom Landry, Bud Grant, Don Coryell, Chuck Noll, Dan Reeves and Don Shula hung on with their longtime teams for 3-8 years too long (depending on the coach) before finally packing it in.
Cold, Hard Football Facts: "Respected" coaches, Bill? Lovie Smith is a respected coach. Four of these five guys are Hall of Fame coaches. In any case, Don Coryell made “Air Coryell” into a household name with the Chargers and went 33-15 from 1979 to 1981. He was 55 at the start of this run and 58 by the time it ended. Tom Landry made the playoffs every year from the age of 55 to 59. Don Shula coached 11 years at age 55 or older, won 101 games, brought five teams to the playoffs and fielded just one club with a losing record.
Simmons: All of them reached that "hanging on too long" point after hitting the 55-year mark.
Cold, Hard Football Facts: Is this a shock? How many people are washed up BEFORE the age of 55?
By the way, 11 of the 40 Super Bowls – better than one quarter of them – featured a coach who was 55 years of age or older. One of them, former Jets coach (and before that, Colts coach) Weeb Ewbank, was responsible for the greatest upset in NFL history.
Super Bowl coaches at 55-plus
Super Bowl III: Weeb Ewbank, 61 (won)
Super Bowl XXIII: Bill Walsh, 57 (won)
Super Bowl XXV: Marv Levy, 65 (lost)
Super Bowl XXVI: Levy, 66 (lost)
Super Bowl XXVII: Levy, 67 (lost)
Super Bowl XXVIII Levy, 68 (won … just kidding … lost)
Super Bowl XXIX: Bobby Ross, 58 (lost)
Super Bowl XXX: Barry Switzer, 58 (won)
Super Bowl XXXI: Bill Parcells, 55 (lost)
Super Bowl XXXIII : Dan Reeves, 55 (lost)
Super Bowl XXXIV: Dick Vermeil, 63 (won)
Here are a few more Cold, Hard Football Facts Simmons should have considered before authoring a "theory" that's now been factually strip-searched and humiliated with our anal probe of pigskin data. No fewer than 10 coaches won 60 NFL games after the age of 55. Three coaches won more than 100 games after the age of 55.
Not bad for a bunch of guys who, if Simmons had his way, would have been booted out of the league.
Most NFL coaching wins at 55 and over (includes season when they turned 55)
1. Marv Levy, 132 (91 losses)
2. George Halas, 107-84
3. Don Shula, 101-74
4. Tom Landry, 89-63
5. Jim Mora Sr., 87-81
6. Weeb Ewbank 78-84
7. Bill Parcells 74-54
8. Bobby Ross 74-63
9. Dick Vermeil 66-62
10. Don Coryell 61-52
Simmons easily could have written a story saying that “Bill Parcells is past his prime” and cited plenty of evidence to support his case:
- Parcells is just 42-38 since reaching the AFC championship game with the Jets back in 1998.
- He has lost both his playoff games since then, too.
- He hasn’t won a Super Bowl in 16 years. That was so long ago that three different NFL “dynasties” have come and/or gone since.
But he stretched the evidence way too far. It’s like renting Howard the Duck instead of Shawshank Redemption and telling us Tim Robbins will never amount to anything as an actor.
