Building the Detroit Lions monument to Super Bowl success

We’ll start with the head coaching position.

Detroit has not exactly been a breeding ground for successful head coaches. I should say, head coaches that have been the top man for the Lions. Consider this; coaching legends like Don Shula, Chuck Knox and even Bill Belichick spent some time as assistants on the Lions sidelines, but were overlooked by the organization and lost to move up the chain to coaching stardom elsewhere.

Meanwhile the Lions Have been led by an assortment of men that some think were cursed by the franchise or just weren’t very good.

In the Super Bowl era, there has been only one head coach in the Lions less than illustrious history that was given another head coaching job in the NFL after his tenure with the Lions.

That would be George Wilson who became the first head coach in the history of the Miami Dolphins. Ironically enough, it didn’t work out for him there either.

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The usual pattern of most Lions head coaches was to get the job, fail miserably, get fired and live out his life in obscurity. Oh sure there have been some, especially in recent history, that have been given opportunities as assistant coaches around the league, but that couldn’t be considered normal for the discards this franchise has tossed away.

They have run the gambit from confused to unlucky to just not being any good.

Men like Tommy Hudspeth, Harry Gilmer, Darryl Rogers, Marty Mornhinweg and Rod Marinelli who all seemed to be punch lines for a joke. Then Monte Clark, Joe Schmidt and Steve Mariucci who all lacked a top notch quarterback to help lead their teams on a true championship chase.

Finally there was Wayne Fontes, Jim Schwartz and Jim Caldwell all of who took this team as far as they were able to under the circumstances they were given before they were sent packing for either underachieving or going postal.

Just to put a punctuation mark on the point, in 1973 Don McCafferty was given the job of rebuilding this team and as optimism built after his first season at the helm he then passed away. It was almost as if the heavens themselves had declared that the Lions would not be allowed a successful head coach.

So while the task of choosing one who could legitimately be put on the Lions Super Bowl Mount Rushmore seems impossible, it’s actually very easy. Representing the head coaching phase of the winning formula will be Buddy Parker.

Parker coached the Lions to back to back championships in 1952-53 and built the 1957 team which represents the last time the Lions won a world championship although Parker resigned before the season began. George Wilson then took over the head coaching position and rode Parker’s team to a title.

Parker’s biggest innovation was the two-minute offense which allowed the Lions to complete many late game heroics.

Since Parker actually has a championship resume, that makes him the easy choice.