In the 1970s, when the Super Bowl grew from being another league championship game into one of the planet’s biggest events, there were some coaches like the Seattle Seahawks’ Mike Macdonald. That is to say, there were highly successful head coaches who focused on the defensive side of the ball.
For nearly an entire decade, from Dallas’ Tom Landry in 1971 to Pittsburgh’s Chuck Noll in 1979, the Super Bowl was won by a team with a defensive-minded head coach. Old timers recall it fondly as the last era in which teams prioritized running the ball and defensive lines got nicknames.