Has anyone ever won a Super Bowl as a player and a head coach?
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- Mike Vrabel can make history Sunday: a Patriots victory in Super Bowl LX would make him only the fifth head coach to win as both player and coach.
- As a Patriots linebacker, Vrabel won three Super Bowls; now as coach, he led New England back to the championship game.
New England Patriots coach Mike Vrabel has a chance to join an exclusive group when his team plays the Seattle Seahawks in Super Bowl LX.
If the Patriots are victorious, Vrabel will become only the fifth Super Bowl-winning head coach to have also won a Super Bowl as a player.
Tom Flores was the first person to achieve this distinction. While much of his playing career took place in the pre-Super Bowl era, Flores was a backup quarterback for the 1969 Kansas City Chiefs, winners of Super Bowl IV over the Minnesota Vikings. He was the Raiders’ receivers coach when they beat the Vikings in Super Bowl XI and won two more as the Raiders’ head coach — Super Bowl XV over the Philadelphia Eagles and Super Bowl XVIII over Washington.
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Mike Ditka was a tight end for the Chicago Bears when they won the NFL championship (in the pre-Super Bowl era) in 1963 and for the Dallas Cowboys when they won Super Bowl VI over the Miami Dolphins. He was an assistant coach for the Cowboys when they beat the Denver Broncos in Super Bowl XII and head coach of the Bears when they beat the Patriots in Super Bowl XX.
Tony Dungy was a defensive back for the Pittsburgh Steelers when they beat the Cowboys in Super Bowl XIII. During his Hall of Fame coaching career, Dungy led the Indianapolis Colts to victory over the Bears in Super Bowl XLI.
Doug Pederson was a backup quarterback for the Green Bay Packers when they defeated the Patriots in Super Bowl XXXI and was head coach of the Philadelphia Eagles when they beat New England in Super Bowl LII.
Vrabel is a former linebacker who spent eight of his 14 NFL seasons with the Patriots. During his time with New England, Vrabel played in four Super Bowls, winning three (XXXVI over the Rams, XXXVIII over the Carolina Panthers and XXXIX over the Eagles) and losing one (XLII to the New York Giants).
If the Patriots win Sunday in Santa Clara, Vrabel also will join Ditka and Gary Kubiak (Broncos) as the only head coaches to win a Super Bowl with one of their former teams as players. If New England loses, Vrabel will join Ron Rivera and Dan Reeves as Super Bowl-winning players who made it to the big game as a coach but lost.
Rivera, a member of the Super Bowl XX champion Bears, was coach of the Panthers when they lost Super Bowl 50 to the Kubiak-coached Broncos. Reeves won Super Bowl VI with the Cowboys and lost four Super Bowls as a coach (XXI, XXII and XXIV with the Broncos and XXXIII with the Atlanta Falcons).
