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If you were a close follower of the Patriots in 1999, could you have ever envisioned this sort of Super Bowl coaching matchup 15 seasons later?
To fully appreciate the meaning of the coaching matchup in Super Bowl XLIX, we need to take you back a few decades to re-acquaint you with the state of affairs with your favorite football team at the time. The Patriots were going through what Charles Dickens might categorize as "the best of times, the worst of times". Then commissioner Paul Tagliabue was kept plenty busy in mediating disputes between the Patriots and the underhanded shenanigans of one of their division rivals.
Bill Parcells put the Patriots back on the NFL map, led them to Super Bowl XXXI, but along the way became disenchanted with Bob Kraft for meddling and ordering him to draft players he didn't want to draft. Parcells played footsie with the woebegone Jets in the months before the Super Bowl and even during the week of the event in New Orleans. The Packers beat the Patriots, Parcells flew back to New England separately from the team, and resigned a few days later with his now-famous "shop for the groceries" farewell address.
Tagliabue had to eventually step in and broker a deal where Parcells could leave the Patriots for the Jets in return for a huge draft compensation package. To replace Parcells as head coach, Kraft tabbed San Francisco defensive coordinator Pete Carroll, who was also a former Jet head coach. Carroll was known throughout the league as one of the best defensive minds in the game, but not necessarily a good head coach. His one-year tenure in the Meadowlands was not nearly as putrid as his successor, Rich Kotite, but it was mediocre at best (his team finished 6-10; Kotite was 4-28 in his two seasons as Jet coach).
 Pete Carroll was Patriot head coach from 1997 to 1999 before giving way to Bill Belichick. He is now the head coach of the Super Bowl champion Seattle Seahawks. (USA TODAY Images) |
Carroll came to New England for the 1997 season. He led the Patriots to the division title that year, clinching on the final Monday night of the season at Miami. The Dolphins turned around and came to Foxborough the following week for Wild Card weekend, and the Patriots squished the Fish again, 17-3, completing an NFL rarity by sweeping all three games against Miami that season.
The Patriots then went to Pittsburgh and held Kordell Stewart and the Steelers to only seven points. Carroll was missing many of his top offensive weapons, including tight end Ben Coates and running back Curtis Martin, and the Patriots could only manage two Adam Vinatieri field goals. This game remains one of the finest one-game defensive performances in team history, and the 1997 Patriots could be arguably the finest one-season defensive team in history.
Carroll's tenure as Patriot head coach went downhill from there. He lost a 1998 Wild Card game at Jacksonville, and his Patriots did not make the playoffs in 1999. Carroll was saddled with all sorts of problems, like lousy drafting, players breaching the chain of command, and most of all, Carroll's inability to work through all the problems and keep his house in order.
Kraft fired Carroll after the 1999 season, then resorted to some underhanded tactics to help pry Jet defensive coordinator Bill Belichick from his contract. With Tagliabue again providing intervention, Belichick came to the Patriots for the 2000 season. Carroll surfaced at USC, and enjoyed great success with the Trojans despite several wins being vacated later due to NCAA sanctions involving Reggie Bush. Belichick won three Super Bowls and is now poised to take his Patriots to their sixth Super Bowl during his tenure. Carroll returned to the NFL in 2010 with the Seattle Seahawks, and most everyone wondered why in the world a coach so perfect in college and so imperfect in the NFL would have another go in the pros.
Then in 2013, Carroll ascended to the top of the football world by leading his Seahawks to a 43-8 win over Denver in Super Bowl XLVIII. Carroll's defense is now the best in the NFL, and his Seahawks are now in a position to win their second Super Bowl in a row if he can beat the team that did it last.
So here we are. Belichick versus Carroll. The last two Patriot head coaches will do battle in two weeks in Glendale, Arizona. Smart alecks would refer to this as Little Bill versus Aunty Pete. NFL experts might see this as one of the finest coaching matchups in Super Bowl history.
The Patriot perspective on Carroll is quite a bit different from USC and the Seahawks. He is revered in the Pacific Northwest, and at Exposition Boulevard and Figueroa Street in Los Angeles, he is held in the highest regard by those who don't hold him responsible for what the university was punished for. It is not clear how he is regarded in the Meadowlands, given how bad Kotite was. In Foxborough and all of New England, he was regarded as soft, not authoritative, a coach who lost control of his clubhouse, and a rah-rah guy who belonged with younger players.
Last year was one of supreme redemption for Carroll, winning last year's Super Bowl. What would this year be for Carroll, beating the team that fired him for Belichick?
Carroll's reputation as a defensive master should be unchallenged. There is no question that Carroll knows defense, and knows it well. The Seahawks are being softly mentioned as one of the best defenses in Super Bowl history. Everything he was supposed to have been in New England in the late 1990s, he was.
He has help in Seattle to manage things better, but there is no question that he was undercut quite a bit in Foxborough. Players went over his head to talk to then director of personnel Bobby Grier. Every draft pick the Patriots received for Parcells and Martin, who bolted the Patriots for the Jets after the 1997 season, turned out to be a bust, and Carroll wasn't the one making them. Carroll's team got thinner and thinner as his three-year coaching stint went on, and he was made to be a scapegoat in a situation he really had no chance to succeed in. Taking over for Parcells was hard enough, but the deck was really stacked against Carroll as Patriot head coach.
Many Seahawks will have chips on their shoulders in this Super Bowl, even though they are defending champs. The Seattle wideouts are torqued off, Richard Sherman will make Julian Edelman the next Michael Crabtree, and Marshawn Lynch will recall his days as a Buffalo Bill when his team could never beat the Patriots. But Carroll might have the biggest chip of them all.
Carroll will exhort his team all during these two weeks. He might not make with the "win one for the gipper" mantra, but don't shocked if his zeal to beat his former team dominates his preparation of his team to repeat as Super Bowl champs. Beat the team that dumped him, beat the coach who took his place.
Little Bill. Aunty Pete. Wiseguys need to shut up. This may be one of the best Super Bowl matchups in history, and it starts at the top.
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