Good to see good things happen to good people.
Case in point: Mike Shanahan taking his team to Dallas to practice against Wade Phillips’ Cowboys.
If fate had taken a different turn in 1992, it’s a good bet neither would be on the same field today. It was 15 years ago, after Dan Reeves’ final season with the Broncos, that Shanahan could have been Reeves’ successor.
Pat Bowlen wanted to hire him, but Shanahan, after being fired by Reeves a year earlier for what Reeves termed “insubordination,” was uncomfortable with the perception his hiring might create.
And so it was that Shanahan stayed on as the 49ers’ offensive coordinator and Phillips, Reeves’ defensive coordinator, got the gig with the Broncos. The rest is history. Phillips was fired after two years. Shanahan won a Super Bowl in San Francisco and became the Broncos’ head coach in 1995, whereupon he won two Super Bowls in a span of four years.
Now for the happy ending. Phillips went on to become head coach of the Bills and eventually the Cowboys, a dream job for a boy from Texas. Shanahan? He got his dream job, too. He has always talked about Denver as unique among the 32 NFL markets, a big city with a college atmosphere.
Funny, isn’t it, how these things work out?
