In his fourth season as Dallas Cowboys' Head Coach, Mike McCarthy is looking to do something no one has done before. Win a Super Bowl as head coach for two different teams.
In the previous 57 Super Bowls played, only seven head coaches have even managed to lead two different teams to the championship game.
McCarthy can make it the Elite Eight if he can guide the Cowboys to the Super Bowl in his fourth year at the helm. A victory in Las Vegas on Feb. 11, 2024, and he would be the first to win two titles with two franchises.
Those That Came Before
The first coach to lead two different teams to the Super Bowl was Don Shula. He was the first NFL coach to lose to an AFL team in the championship game in 1968, a 16-7 loss to the Jets in Super Bowl III.
Shula followed that up by leading the Dolphins to Super Bowl VI in 1971. He ran into the Cowboys and Tom Landry in a 24-3 loss. Shula would win two of his next four Super Bowls, however.
It would be 25 years before the feat would be repeated. Bill Parcells won two Super Bowls with the New York Giants – XXI and XXV.
He would lead the New England Patriots to Super Bowl XXXI six years later. Parcells would lose to Mike Holmgren and the Green Bay Packers.
Parcells would attempt to be the first to take three franchises to the Super Bowl. But his four-year run with the Cowboys ended with a 34-30 record and no Super Bowl appearances.
Holmgren would go on to two more Super Bowls, a loss with the Packers the next year and a loss in Super Bowl XL to the Steelers with Seattle.
The .500 Club
Parcells holds the only winning record (2-1) among coaches with multiple Super Bowl appearances with more than one franchise.
Only two others are at .500. Andy Reid's second Super Bowl win in February with the Chiefs brought him to 2-2 overall. He's 2-1 in Kansas City, but was 0-1 in Philadelphia.
Dick Vermeil went 1-1 in his two appearances. He also has the biggest gap in years between his first and second Super Bowl appearance, as well as his first and final game.
Vermeil's Eagles lost Super Bowl XV to the Raiders. It took him 19 years to get back to the Super Bowl, a 23-16 win over the Titans in Super Bowl XXXIV.
The Lonesome Losers
The final two coaches not only took two franchises to the championship game, they failed to win any of them. John Fox lost his games with Carolina (Super Bowl XXXVIII) and with Denver (Super Bowl XLVIII).
But former Cowboys' player and assistant coach Dan Reeves holds the worst distinction. He took Denver to three Super Bowls and Atlanta to one.
He lost all four. Putting him in the same company as Bud Grant (Minnesota) and Marv Levy (Buffalo). Although, unlike Levy, at least Reeves didn't lose his in four straight years.
Jimmy's Bid Fell SHort
One other former Cowboys' coach made the attempt to get a second franchise to the big game. After back-to-back championships in Dallas, Jimmy Johnson spent four years trying to lead the Dolphins to a title.
Johnson, like Parcells' bid in Dallas, couldn't even get to the conference championship game.
McCarthy Has Company In His Chase
Entering his fourth year in Dallas, McCarthy brings a 30-20 record and high expectations of making it to Super Bowl LVIII. But he isn't the only head coach looking to join the club and possibly make history in Las Vegas.
Three other active head coaches have previously led a team to a Super Bowl and now coach with a new team. Sean Payton is in Denver, having won a title with New Orleans.
Doug Pedersen led the Eagles to a championship just six years ago and has Jacksonville looking like a contender. Washington's Ron Rivera lost a Super Bowl with Carolina. He'd like to get the Commanders to the Super Bowl and finally win one too.
Which sets up a couple of interesting, and history-making, matchup possibilities. A Dallas-Jacksonville or Dallas-Denver Super Bowl in February would ensure the first head coach to win Super Bowls with two different teams.
A Cowboys' Super Bowl win would end a nearly three-decade championship drought in Dallas as well as set McCarthy above all others.
Jerry Jones would love to see that. McCarthy would love to see that. And so would all the Cowboys' players and fans. Stephen A Smith? Not so much.
What more incentive is needed than that?
