In 1966, former San Francisco 49er and Hall of Fame coach, Bill Walsh was working for the Oakland Raiders as their running back coach, his first job in the NFL. Throughout his career, Walsh credited Raider owner Al Davis for fueling his football knowledge, helping him understand the details of great coaching. The night before their big game against the Chargers, Walsh was sitting in his hotel room flipping channels. Back in 1966, there wasn’t much flipping to do, it was more back and forth—minus any remote. Walsh finds the Sid Gillman show on the local channel and becomes mesmerized.
Gillman, the head coach of the Chargers, loved to teach, and on his show, he didn’t hold back. Walsh knew Gilman was the architect of the passing game and the founding father of the Raider offense. What he came to understand from watching the show was the depth and knowledge Gilman possessed. This show piqued his curiosity and changed him as a coach. From that moment, Walsh understood success doesn’t care which road you take to get to its doorstep. He was going to be innovative and divergent in his approach. Taking a strange road often can prove successful. Just examine the final four teams.
For all of us, instead of watching the Sid Gillman show, we can watch the NFL’s version of the Final Four this weekend and learn more about what makes great teams great. Al Davis thought it was vitally important to study the final four teams in every area—players, coaches and scheme. He was obsessed with knowing what the common thread was—if there was one—about these four teams and what his team was lacking.
At times, there is an outlier that enters this round, like Tennessee in 2019, but for the most part, this game features the best the NFL has to offer. We know it takes great quarterbacking with an offense in the top ten of points per play, plus a defense that can rush the passer and is outstanding in all the situational aspects of the game. Even though this round is the best of the best, you must go back to 1997, when Kyle Shanahan was 18 years old, traveling to Pittsburgh with his father Mike, then the head coach of the Denver Broncos, to watch his father’s #4-seed team play the #2-seed Steelers. The betting line for each game was under the sacred 3 points. San Francisco hosted Green Bay and was a 2.5-point favorite. The Steelers hosted the Broncos as a 2.5-point favorite, and guess what? The dogs won outright. Will that happen this year? Not sure.