Mike Holmgren: The Forgotten Man
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In the 90s, Mike Holmgren was a sort-after coach. He was considered one of the best coaches during that era. However, it seems that as time went on, when there’s talk about the greatest coaches of all-time, I’ve noticed that his name is never mentioned.
Here is someone that came from the coaching tree of Bill Walsh, someone who is considered one of the greatest coaches of all-time — I’m looking to write about him in another post — he won three Super Bowls, two as an assistant, and one as a head coach, and he has made three Super Bowl appearances with two different quarterbacks (twice with Brett Favre, once with Matt Hasselbeck).
He has a coaching tree of his own — 11 of his former assistants moved on to become head coaches — most notably Andy Reid, who now has a deep coaching tree himself, and personally, now that I’m thinking about it, I think that’s where Andy learned to develop quarterbacks from.
In case you’re wondering who Holmgren developed, he assisted in the development of Steve Young, a Hall of Famer, he developed Brett Favre into a Hall of Fame quarterback, and Matt Hasselbeck into a solid, Pro Bowl quarterback.
To tell you the truth, I forgot about Holmgren until I saw him in an interview when the NFL Network chronicled Bill Walsh for their A Football Life documentary, and it made me wonder why he’s no longer mentioned among the best head coaches, and most importantly, why is he not in the Hall of Fame.
