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FOREWORD

by Dick Vermeil

Sometimes it’s not about who were or are the best NFL coaches; sometimes it’s more about who has coached a winning Super Bowl team. People know Vince Lombardi’s name because the NFL media continues to promote Vince Lombardi, as it should! He was one of our best. Paul Brown’s name is still remembered because he not only coached teams, he owned one as well. But sometimes the National Football League media does very little to promote those coaches who contributed even more than a Super Bowl win, such as Sid Gillman.

Sid Gillman never won a Super Bowl, and that is one of the reasons why many people, especially the younger generation of NFL fans, don’t even know who he was, let alone talk about him in the same vein as a Lombardi or a Brown. I was fortunate to work with Sid. I got to know him very well and one of his greatest assets, that transcended his technical and offensive scheme brilliance, was his teaching ability. Sid broke down and analyzed the fundamentals of all of the offensive positions better than had ever been done before, and his success may not have been duplicated since. Let me explain.

Before I hired Sid in 1979 to come and help coach me and my offensive coaches in Philadelphia, I called around and visited with people with whom he had worked or coached to see how they felt about me bringing him out of retirement at 68 years old. All but two people told me to stay away from him, stating that he was way too opinionated and stubborn. Only Al Davis and Jack Pardee said hire him! Realizing I was also very opinionated and stubborn, I knew we would make a good team. Here is what he did for me, and here is what he did for my offensive staff. He made us all better coaches, better teachers. He challenged our thinking in every phase of offensive football, especially the fundamental technique side of the game. Over his career, Sid had built a film library of all the truly great offensive players executing their specific techniques at game-day speed. Those films directly related to each specific position and each individual thing a player would have to do to execute the fundamental techniques at the highest level. Not only did he challenge us to open up our minds and evaluate the techniques we were all teaching, he taught us a better way to teach these fundamental techniques.

These action film clips of all these great players executing their specific techniques at a Pro Bowl level were great teaching aids as well as a great way to convince us there was a better way to do some of the things we were teaching. From there, Sid proceeded to show us how to better utilize the skills within the offensive scheme.

We had been to the playoffs in 1978—the first playoff appearance of an Eagles team in 18 seasons—so we were going in the right direction. But I really felt that hiring Sid would help us all get to where we wanted to go much faster. There is no substitute for the wisdom that only years of research and experience can bring, and believe me when I say, Sid brought wisdom to my staff that I doubt anyone else could have, even if that other coach had already won a Super Bowl.

Sid was what I needed, Sid was what my staff needed, and I’m sincere in saying I don’t think we would have won the 1980 NFC Championship and advanced to Super Bowl XV without Sid’s guidance. As a result of all the time we spent together, we became very close friends. It was like working with my father. We shared a lot of time outside the office, off the field, doing what good friends do together. We shared great home-cooked meals, backed and supported by good wines, though I must say Sid was not a wine connoisseur. I’ll never forget watching Sid mix different varieties of red wine in the same glass. Wine was about the only thing he didn’t know a lot about. What a piece of work!

The only mistake I made was not filming and/or recording our meetings. I felt like I was in graduate school, working toward a PhD in offensive theory, concepts, schemes, and game fundamentals, all being taught by the leading professor of his time. Wow, what a difference from my first exposure to NFL coaches. Now, I’m not trying to be critical by inserting a direct opposite impression when I insert my Stanford experience. While working as a young assistant coach at Stanford in the mid-1960s, I, along with the rest of the staff, was invited to lunch with a visiting pro staff that was in Palo Alto preparing to play the San Francisco 49ers on the following Sunday. It was midweek, so it was an obvious preparation day, but it didn’t stop the pro staff from drinking martinis along with their lunch before heading back into staff meetings. Not a Sid Gillman approach in any way!

I realize everybody has a different personality as to how they approach the game. I was my own worst enemy; way too intense, way too emotional, and too much of a workaholic. Sid used to tell me all the time, “Vermeil, you work too damn hard trying to make four yards. No matter how many hours you study opponent films, there’s only going to be 11 players on the other side of the line of scrimmage. You would be better off getting more sleep.” Sid was smart enough to know when to turn off the projectors and get some rest.

Sid was always looking for or trying to create something for the offense that hadn’t been done. He loved to be the first coach to do something new, something creative. If he got a good idea from someone else, with very little effort he would improve on it, install it in one of his packages, and begin teaching it as soon as possible. He never lost his thirst for knowledge. He was continually working on expanding his offensive concepts and packages, even after he retired for the last time.

Sid taught us all: the Bill Walshes, the Don Coryells, and many of the other great coaches of that era and beyond. Sid’s greatness isn’t all based on his wins and losses; no, it is more about his overall contributions to the hows, whys, whens, and wheres of the game. He researched what to teach like a mad scientist, then broke it down and defined what to teach, how to teach it, and when to teach it. From there, he proceeded to coach coaches how to best coach it themselves, how to fit it into their scheme and get it executed at the highest level on game day.

You really had to be there to appreciate Sid. You had to be with him. Sid Gillman touched the entire National Football League, just like Vince Lombardi did with his leadership greatness and his Green Bay Sweep. The concepts, schemes, and techniques are ingrained somewhere within the 32 offenses running in the NFL today, though there are only a handful of us left who can watch a game on Sunday and recognize where that specific concept originally came from. The 18-yard comebacks, the shifting, motion, the multiple formation packages, all either were originated by Sid Gillman or came across his desk for improvement. It all started with Sid!

Like any great scientist, his mind never rested. He was still thinking X’s & O’s the very last time I talked to him on the phone a couple of weeks before he passed away. Thank God he is in a place of honor, in Canton, Ohio’s NFL Hall of Fame, among so many NFL greats whose careers were enhanced by Sid Gillman’s contributions to the game they all loved to play and/or coach.