Honestly, Reeves Never Expected This

MIAMI — It was all so simple and permanent. Dan Reeves was a 15-year-old high school football player. Pam White was a 14-year-old high school cheerleader. They were fixed up on a date, they clicked, they were married five years later and, after 40 years, they are still together.

If only coaching were so simple and the path to success so straight.

Reeves started as a part-time coach while still a running back with the Dallas Cowboys in 1970. He took over as head coach of the Denver Broncos in 1981, stayed there 12 years and made it to three Super Bowls, losing all three.

After the 1992 season, the environment poisoned by a bad relationship with quarterback John Elway and assistant coach Mike Shanahan, Reeves moved on to the New York Giants. After four seasons there, the last two marred by losing records, Reeves was gone again.

A Georgia native, Reeves was ready to come home when Atlanta Falcon owner Rankin Smith offered him not only the job of head coach, but total control of his team.

Reeves took the offer even though that elusive Super Bowl title looked further away than ever. After all, he was assuming control of a team that was coming off a 3-13 season, a team with a history of losing that had never made it higher than a wild-card spot and the second round in the postseason.

“Did I tell Rankin that we were going to be in the Super Bowl in two years?” Reeves said. “No, that wasn’t realistic. And I always try to be realistic.”

It didn’t appear that Reeves was going to make much of a difference at all, not when the Falcons got off to another typically poor start in his first season, losing seven of their first eight games.

Reeves remembers clearly a day a few weeks before the team hit rock bottom. Smith, who normally kept his distance from the team, came to visit. Reeves was prepared to apologize for the Falcons’ failings.

He never got the chance. It was Smith who did the talking, pointing out how close the losses had been, the injuries the team had suffered, how confident he was things were going to turn around.

Smith didn’t live to see the promise of his team realized. He died three days short of his 72nd birthday on Oct. 26, 1997, the day the Falcons fell to 1-7 by losing to the Carolina Panthers, 21-12.

The Falcons, who won the next week, won six of their final eight games, then stunned the football world this season by going 14-2 and beating the San Francisco 49ers and Minnesota Vikings to reach the Super Bowl for the first time.

What happened?

“The biggest thing when we were 1-7,” Reeves said, “was that we were still making the plays, still believing in what we were doing. We were not pointing fingers at one another. We came out and tried to get better every week. We started to win, and the whole attitude changed.”

How did Reeves turn around more than three decades of frustration in Atlanta, where the Falcons were formed in 1966, in only two years?

This wasn’t the kind of turnaround Bill Parcells is famous for, the kind where there is barely a familiar face on the team picture from one year to the next. Many of the key players on the Falcons were already there when Reeves arrived, from running back Jamal Anderson to linebacker Jessie Tuggle to kicker Morten Andersen.

Reeves made a couple of key moves. He traded for quarterback Chris Chandler, who had been with five other teams. Reeves traded for receiver Tony Martin, who would take the pressure off fellow receiver Terance Mathis. And Reeves remade the secondary, the key acquisitions being safety Eugene Robinson, who not only brought skill but also the experience of having been in the two previous Super Bowls as a member of the Green Bay Packers, and cornerback Ray Buchanan.

Then, with his pieces in place, Reeves worked to make sure they meshed.

“I tried to build an environment where it was fun to come to work every day,” Reeves said.

A meaningless cliche? Not to linebacker Cornelius Bennett, who has been in four Super Bowls with the Buffalo Bills and gives Reeves much of the credit for getting him back to football’s big show.

“It’s about being a family,” Bennett said. “It’s about looking each other in the eye and trusting each other. You have to feel you can say to your teammate, ‘Hey, man, I’m not feeling well today. You’re going to have to pick me up.’ And knowing he’ll do it. I think with all the years [Reeves] spent in Dallas, Tom Landry instilled that in him.”

Reeves also served as a source of inspiration for this team, though in a manner he would have preferred to avoid. He had quadruple-bypass surgery in December but was back in time for the playoffs.

“From his standpoint, Coach Reeves thought he was letting us down,” Robinson said. “He thought he was a distraction. The guy should be convalescing somewhere. But by coming back, he has given the guys another reason to play for.”

So get a team with a solid core, make a few key trades, have your owner inspire the team as one of his last acts, provide your own inspiration with major heart surgery and, voila, you are back in the Super Bowl.

It’s that simple.