Joe Seahawk
12-01-2004, 10:17 PM
I thought it was interesting, and I agree about the Free agency thing..
Q: This season we've seen historically successful coaches like Parcells, Gibbs, and Vermeil struggling a bit.
Holmgren: “Those guys, the fellas you mentioned, I would defer to all three of those guys. I was an assistant coach when Bill and Dick and, I might have been coaching in high school when they were head coaches in this league. But some things have changed. In the organizations, when Bill was with the Giants or Joe was with Washington, when Dick Vermeil was first, you had players with you a long time. The idea of a team being a family was really true. The player, right or wrong, the player didn't have an option of not doing what you wanted him to do and then you said, hey, I'm going to play out my contract and go over here because I don't like it here. Those things didn't exist and so you had a little different feeling that way. You could really mold your team and build your team exactly the way you wanted it and you weren't worried about losing a key guy because of some sort of salary-cap issue. That's one thing. The idea of quarterback depth, in San Francisco at one point we had Montana, Young, you had these guys and they weren't going anywhere. They were there. That's about as good as you can get. We had Steve Bono and some other guys as the third quarterback that you had, if you got injured at quarterback, you had a chance to have a really good one come in and play for you. But the salary cap and free agency has changed some of that. Also, most coaches don't have the time, aren't given the time to maybe develop something. And then once you think you're there, then something crazy happens. You get injured or you lose a key guy. I can remember with Bill Parcells, the last game he coached (with the Jets) was against us in New York on new year's day. The last game he coached for the Jets. And that year, and we talked before the game and he said, you know, he hadn't announced it yet, he said, I'm stepping down, I'm retiring. And I said really? And he said yeah. He goes, this year this team, I had a Super Bowl team. He had been to the playoffs the year before and he had a Super Bowl team, he felt. And (Vinny) Testaverde blew his achilles out in the preseason, like game three of the preseason. I don't remember exactly what they finished but they were like 6-10. It was tough. They didn't have a quarterback. He had every other piece of the puzzle but he didn't have the quarterback, in his mind. And he just goes, ‘I can't’. At that time he said I can't deal with that, he's too much of a perfectionist. I think there are a lot of things that have changed but if given the time, if given the time, you know, and nothing catastrophic happens, you should have a good chance to one, improve your team greatly, and then to get to the Super Bowl and to win a Super Bowl, you need a lot of luck. You need a lot of things to happen, to go your way. And I think you should be able to, and I've always said this: to become a playoff caliber team, I think that's reasonable. And those guys (Parcells, Gibbs, Vermeil), they're my idols. Those are my mentors. Those are the guys I looked up to when I got into the league. I will always say that. They're the best.”
Q: This season we've seen historically successful coaches like Parcells, Gibbs, and Vermeil struggling a bit.
Holmgren: “Those guys, the fellas you mentioned, I would defer to all three of those guys. I was an assistant coach when Bill and Dick and, I might have been coaching in high school when they were head coaches in this league. But some things have changed. In the organizations, when Bill was with the Giants or Joe was with Washington, when Dick Vermeil was first, you had players with you a long time. The idea of a team being a family was really true. The player, right or wrong, the player didn't have an option of not doing what you wanted him to do and then you said, hey, I'm going to play out my contract and go over here because I don't like it here. Those things didn't exist and so you had a little different feeling that way. You could really mold your team and build your team exactly the way you wanted it and you weren't worried about losing a key guy because of some sort of salary-cap issue. That's one thing. The idea of quarterback depth, in San Francisco at one point we had Montana, Young, you had these guys and they weren't going anywhere. They were there. That's about as good as you can get. We had Steve Bono and some other guys as the third quarterback that you had, if you got injured at quarterback, you had a chance to have a really good one come in and play for you. But the salary cap and free agency has changed some of that. Also, most coaches don't have the time, aren't given the time to maybe develop something. And then once you think you're there, then something crazy happens. You get injured or you lose a key guy. I can remember with Bill Parcells, the last game he coached (with the Jets) was against us in New York on new year's day. The last game he coached for the Jets. And that year, and we talked before the game and he said, you know, he hadn't announced it yet, he said, I'm stepping down, I'm retiring. And I said really? And he said yeah. He goes, this year this team, I had a Super Bowl team. He had been to the playoffs the year before and he had a Super Bowl team, he felt. And (Vinny) Testaverde blew his achilles out in the preseason, like game three of the preseason. I don't remember exactly what they finished but they were like 6-10. It was tough. They didn't have a quarterback. He had every other piece of the puzzle but he didn't have the quarterback, in his mind. And he just goes, ‘I can't’. At that time he said I can't deal with that, he's too much of a perfectionist. I think there are a lot of things that have changed but if given the time, if given the time, you know, and nothing catastrophic happens, you should have a good chance to one, improve your team greatly, and then to get to the Super Bowl and to win a Super Bowl, you need a lot of luck. You need a lot of things to happen, to go your way. And I think you should be able to, and I've always said this: to become a playoff caliber team, I think that's reasonable. And those guys (Parcells, Gibbs, Vermeil), they're my idols. Those are my mentors. Those are the guys I looked up to when I got into the league. I will always say that. They're the best.”