Photos by Dennis Oda, Star-Bulletin
In just two seasons, Tom Coughlin, left, and Dom Capers
have made winners out of the Jaguars and Panthers.
When Dom Capers and Tom Coughlin took over the two National Football League expansion teams in 1995, they were about the only ones in the room who believed they could lead their teams to the Super Bowl before the end of the millennium.
This year's two Pro Bowl coaches came within one game of realizing those outlandish dreams, proving that an expansion franchise doesn't have to wait until the distant future to pay dividends.
Capers took the Carolina Panthers on a joy ride that included two wins over San Francisco, and a playoff victory over the defending champion Dallas Cowboys that put the Panthers in the NFC title game at Green Bay.
Coughlin did an equally admirable job with the Jacksonville Jaguars, who, as a wild card, had an even more difficult road in the postseason than division-winning Carolina.
The Jaguars were a mile high after upsetting Buffalo in the wild-card game, and proved it with another stunning road win over the Denver Broncos.
That victory put Jacksonville into the AFC title game with New England.
Granted, the new kids on the block were eliminated in their respective championship games, but these two Cinderella stories breathed some life into the normally predictable playoffs.
"We're very proud of what we accomplished this season in Carolina," Capers said yesterday. "I've spent some time with my staff this week discussing what it will take to get to the Super Bowl. We firmly believe we can get there with dedication and hard work."
Not everyone in the league believes that hard work alone got Coughlin and Capers to where they are today. There have been some rumblings that these two teams were given an unfair advantage over past expansion franchises - particularly in the draft and the quick fix of free agency.
But don't tell that to Capers or Coughlin. They believe the backbiting is just sour grapes.
"At the Pro Bowl two years ago, we had only 10 players under contract," Capers said. "We then went through the allocation draft, the free-agency period and the college draft.
"Of the 53 men on our roster this year, there are at least 30 of them who anyone else in the league could have signed. ... Guys we picked up off waivers cut by other teams, guys who were out on the street.
"I have a hard time understanding how we supposedly had such a tremendous advantage over some of the other recent expansion teams. We did have extra draft picks, but we didn't have a team. The key for us was signing players like Anthony Johnson and Pat Terrell, who both had been cut by the Jets, but contributed greatly to our success this season."
Coughlin feels the league didn't want two patsies that would take years to develop, so they were allowed to build quickly.
"We all went through the same process - expansion draft, free agency and the ability to draft college players," Coughlin said.
"We did draft high the last two years, but some of the players that we have were certainly available to everyone else in the league.
"I think we paid a great price to be in this position. I don't think it would have benefited anybody for these two teams to come in uncompetitive.
"It's difficult enough for our two owners to have a half-television package. But then to have that package and not have a competitive football team would have kept fans away. So that wouldn't have worked, either."
Like Capers, Coughlin is glad to be in Hawaii, not only to soak up the sun, but to be able to coach the best players the league has to offer as well.
"It's great to be here representing the Jaguars," Coughlin said. "But to be able to rub elbows with all these great players and to be able to bring our families over here, well, it's nice."
It's also nice for Coughlin to be able to coach Jacksonville's Mark Brunell at quarterback, Keenan McCardell at wide receiver and Tony Boselli at tackle.
"I think it's a tribute to our coaching staff and to our players that we went as far as we did," said Brunell, who was acquired in a trade with the Packers. "The management and coaches made the most of what the NFL offered when we came into the league."
Capers has linebackers Kevin Greene, Sam Mills and Lamar Lathon, kick returner Michael Bates, place-kicker John Kasay, cornerback Eric Davis and tight end Wesley Walls on his Pro Bowl team.
"Our coaches did an excellent job this season and deserve to be here," said Mills, who left New Orleans to sign a free-agent deal in March of 1995. "Coach Capers was looking for some veterans to help hold things together, and that's what we tried to do. He deserves much of the credit for what we did this season."
When: 3 p.m. Sunday