I pointed out earlier that Gibbs won 3 SB's with 3 average QB's that's a big reason he's so highly regarded. Lombardi, Landry, Shula, Noll, Walsh and Belichick all built HOF coaching careers with HOF QB's. Belichick flopped in Cleveland not having a great QB and was 5-11 his first year in NE with Bledsoe. He started off 0-2 his second season and everything changed when Bledsoe went down and Brady took over. There's been head coaches have one great season and win a championship with an average QB due to being led by a great defense but to win 3 SB's with 3 different insignificant QB's and do it with the strength of your team being on offense is pretty remarkable. Gibbs had some scary offenses led by 3 QB's who will never sniff the HOF. Some are trying to take away from his 2 SB wins during the strike seasons but those were probably the most difficult seasons to come away with a championship. When you have a labor dispute that puts your team at home and away from your facility for several weeks that can totally derail a season. It takes some real coaching to be able to regroup after a long stoppage in play and be the last team standing when it's all said and done.
It can be hard to get back on track after 7 weeks off which is what happened during the 82 season. In 87 everyone had to come up with a scab team to try and keep their season afloat. In both strike seasons Gibbs kept his teams together better than anyone else and that's a credit to him as a coach. Landry maintained championship caliber teams into the early 80's but the game was passing him by and the younger coaches like Vermeil, Gibbs and Walsh were out coaching him in championship games. Those 3 consecutive title game losses during the early 80's didn't help Landry's career especially the way the rest of the 80's ended up for him. The Cowboys started falling apart during that decade which led to some embarrassing losses including a 44-0 debacle to the 85 Bears. Landry ended up with a 3-13 team by 1988 and was fired. Two things that hurt Landry's career some was the way he handled the Staubach/Morton QB situation in the early 70's by having them rotate between plays and not being able to settle on one until the team called a meeting with him and demanded he pick a QB.
Even Staubach criticized how he handled that situation saying it made Landry look bad. Another thing that hurt Landry was his stubbornness on breaking away from his Flex defense that got eaten up by Bill Walsh's West coast offense in the 81 title game. Even his own players including Charlie Waters was trying to get him to drop that defense. Landry losing championship games to Lombardi twice, Noll twice, Gibbs and Walsh has many putting him behind those coaches because championships do matter and they matter a lot to a coaches legacy. Head coaches are judged by wins and championships. Lombardi tops most of the all-time coaching rankings and his name is engraved on the trophy that's handed out after the SB because his teams won 5 championships.
