On one sideline Monday night was a senior citizen in a golf hat and spectacles, his deep competitiveness as unmasked as ever.
No matter what they say in D.C. and those historic suburbs, Joe Gibbs isn’t God. His resemblance to George Burns playing God, however, grows because you don’t need to be Brett Favre to find the additional creases in his facial zone.
On the other sideline was a near-senior citizen, silver-haired and wearing silver and a blue-collar swagger.
If his sleeves were longer, he’d roll them up. Bill Parcells likes power, but done Jersey style. Few disputes can’t be settled with a bust in the mouth — figuratively on this side of the sideline, literally over on that side.
Cowboys vs. Redskins, starring Parcells vs. Gibbs.
Why does the matchup between two guys endangered only by bad pregame coffee fascinate?
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Maybe it’s because the great football coach remains America’s ultimate authority symbol. Parcells comes off the way many people remember their father — tough, sarcastic, loving somewhere underneath. Gibbs comes off as that smart uncle who always surprised you with knowledge you didn’t think he had.
Plus, these are two of the best left in the NFL. They’re the only ones with irrefragable championship success records spanning generations of players.
Denver’s Mike Shanahan? Bupkiss since Elway retired. New England’s Bill Belichick? The best now, but let’s see him do it with another franchise or after the Patriots have turned over their roster.
Gibbs’ four Super Bowl teams had three different quarterbacks and were, really, three different teams containing some similar parts. The same is true for Parcells’ 1986 and 1990 Giants’ Super Bowl winners. Throw in Parcells’ 1996 Super Bowl Patriots and you have the only guy besides Don Shula to coach two different teams to the Super Bowl.
You can debate how much the NFL head coach matters. But it’s amazing to look at the situations where Gibbs or Parcells was the variable.
In the years between V-J Day and Gibbs I, the Redskins’ biggest win was the 1972 NFC championship stomping of Dallas (of course). Washington fans still lullaby their children asleep by singing of that 26-3 brutalization that sent the Cowboys limping out of town.Between Gibbs I and Gibbs II, the Redskins won one division title and one playoff game. Gibbs’ record is good in September, and gets better as the season goes along. That’s a coach making a difference.
Irrelevance describes the Giants for 20 years before Parcells arrived and for the 13 seasons since he left, but for the erratic hiccups of competence that included one Super Bowl blowout loss.