For the record, even when his Broncos were winning Super Bowls, Mike Shanahan never did cozy up to those double-edged Mastermind references.
“I would say, ‘Hey, if you’re a genius, you surely wouldn’t be coaching football,”‘ he said this week.
Not that a genius is necessarily ordained to build rockets or dominate cable TV debate programming. Ivy League scholars will argue in the name of Oliver Wendell Holmes that one of the world’s brightest minds happens to be coaching the New England Patriots.
Bill Belichick is widely acclaimed as the NFL’s best coach, a mantle he yanked away from Shanahan by guiding the Patriots to three of the past four Super Bowls.
“When it comes to coaching, fans only care about what have you done today,” former NFL coach Jimmy Johnson said. “So if you’re evaluating the very best coach in the league, obviously you’d have to say Belichick.”
When the Broncos play Sunday against the Patriots at Invesco Field at Mile High, the most intriguing matchup may not be quarterbacks Tom Brady vs. Jake Plummer, Denver’s running back committee vs. Corey Dillon, or cornerback Champ Bailey against receiver Deion Branch.
The headliner is the Mastermind vs. the Genius. Like Shanahan, Belichick accepts his flattering moniker awkwardly.
“I appreciate a compliment, I’m not saying that,” Belichick said. “But what it comes down to is how our team performs against the opponent we’re playing against. There’s a lot of things in this game that I can’t do. There’s a lot of things in this game the players and other coaches can’t do, either. They just have to do their jobs, and collectively we have to do ours a little better than Denver is going to do theirs, and that’s a big challenge.”
Study the résumés of Shanahan and Belichick, and those critical of the Broncos’ six-year playoff victory slump may be stunned at the similarities. Both failed in their initial NFL head coaching experiences: Shanahan with the Los Angeles Raiders, Belichick with the Cleveland Browns. Each balked at a second chance: Shanahan initially turning down the Broncos’ job that went to Wade Phillips in 1993 and Belichick bowing out hours after taking the New York Jets’ job in 1997.
Each took advantage of a third chance by winning multiple Super Bowls: Shanahan in 1998-99 and Belichick in 2002, 2004 and 2005.
Each has evolved rather than stubbornly cling to their reputations. Shanahan is considered an offensive mind whose current team more closely resembles the Bill Parcells-like defense and ball-control philosophy. Belichick is considered a defensive guru whose current Patriots rank 29th in points allowed while their offense has become the “Air Brady” show.
“The biggest difference between the two is Belichick has Brady,” said Hall of Famer Mike Ditka, former Bears coach. “Brady’s a guy that can finish. Denver has a running game that can finish, and I’m not trying to take nothing away from Jake, but he’s not Brady.”
Coaches know glory is fleeting if not passed on. When the Patriots won their first Super Bowl in 2002, Brady was considered an average quarterback while Belichick was praised for his ingenious defensive game plan against the offensive powerhouse St. Louis Rams.
The day may come, however, when credit for the Patriots’ run shifts back to the quarterback. In the late 1990s, Shanahan earned his Mastermind tag by lifting John Elway from a great quarterback to a champion. Six years later, all Shanahan hears is how he can’t win a playoff game, much less a Super Bowl, without Elway.
“I can tell you from firsthand experience after winning a couple of Super Bowls, if you don’t win them, people don’t care,” Shanahan said. “You’ve got to win championships.”
Occasionally, coaches can be evaluated by going below the win-loss surface. Shanahan was considered to have the decisive, daring mind of a gunslinger while coaching Steve Young and Elway. Further respect from the coaching industry, however, came when Shanahan got 100-yard rushing games from seven running backs in the past eight years.
“And not always guys who are household names,” former NFL coach Jim Mora Sr said. “I mean, Mike Anderson, who would have thought when he joined the league that he would rush for as many yards as he has.”
With Belichick, it’s not just the three Super Bowls he’s won, but how he’s won them.
“When you can take a wide receiver and make him a nickel back,” former quarterback Joe Theismann said, referring to Troy Brown, “when you can take rookies and make them starters, when you can take free agents off the streets and win a world championship, that means the philosophy and the scheme is bigger than the players.”
Since the NFL started championship playoffs in 1933, Belichick is one of only nine coaches who has won three or more league titles. The other eight are in the Hall of Fame.
“I think Belichick, because of his mark alone in the last four years, he’s going to go into the Hall of Fame immediately and he’s going to be recognized as one of the best coaches of all time,” Ditka said.
If three world championships is the standard, doesn’t that mean Shanahan is one big year without Elway from Canton? Until then, first things first. The Patriots are here Sunday. And until somebody proves otherwise, the Patriots have the NFL’s best coach.
“Three Super Bowls in four years,” Shanahan said. “He’s won championships with key guys being hurt, playing wide receivers at corners and finding a way to win the big game. I think he should be considered the top guy.”
Staff writer Mike Klis can be reached at 303-820-5440 or mklis@denverpost.com.
