FMIA Week 11: Chiefs Stay Dominant With A Little Déjà Vu; Bills Survive the Storm With Help From "Squirrel" - ProFootballTalk
Peter King highlights the biggest NFL stories of Week 11, including the Bills digging out of the Buffalo snow and the Chiefs' familiar late-game heroics.
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"On Shula: Johnson had Shula’s son David on his Cowboys’ coaching staff when he took the job in 1989. In ’89 and ’90, David Shula was offensive coordinator and QB coach. In 1991, Johnson decided to hire Norv Turner as offensive coordinator and move David Shula to receivers coach. Out of professional courtesy, Johnson called Don Shula. In the book, Johnson writes: “Don was angry in a way that never left him.” In 1996, when Johnson succeeded Don Shula as Dolphins coach, he writes that in their first meeting after Shula retired, the ex-coach told Johnson, “You really f—ed up.” Shula told him he’d cut too many veterans like Troy Vincent, and Johnson told him he had little choice because he inherited a salary-cap mess.
Before his first season in Miami, Johnson said he knew he was supposed to talk about the great tradition of the Dolphins, and to pay tribute to those who’d laid the groundwork there. “Well, forget that,” he said. “I only care about one thing—the present. The people who are here to win now.”
Now you know why Don Shula, the winningest coach in NFL history, was no Johnson fan.
Archie Manning called Johnson before the ’98 draft to ask him to try to work a trade so Peyton would land in Miami. One insurmountable problem, as Johnson writes, was offering Miami’s entire draft to Indianapolis to move up. “We picked 19th,” Johnson said. “People say, well, what would you have done with Dan Marino there? Well, you know, Peyton would’ve been behind Dan. But the way it worked out, Dan missed games every year and so Peyton would’ve been thrown into the lineup.”
Added Johnson: “On top of that, Bill Belichick came that close to coming down and being my defensive coordinator. We could’ve had Peyton Manning as our quarterback and Bill Belichick as my defensive coordinator. But he had too much loyalty to Bill Parcells [on the Jets’ staff].”"
