Buddy Parker Chosen as Coach/Contributor Nominee for HOF Class of 2024

By John Turney 

In a mild surprise, Buddy Parker -- best known as coach of the 1950's Detroit Lions that beat Paul Brown's Cleveland Browns in back-to-back NFL title games -- is on the verge of joining the Pro Football Hall-of-Fame. He was chosen Tuesday as the Hall's coach/contributor finalist for the Class of 2024, with the announcement made Wednesday afternoon.

Parker, who also coached the Pittsburgh Steelers and Chicago Cardinals, was one of 12 candidates in a field that included seven head coaches -- and while he was considered a contender, he was not the favorite.

New England owner Robert Kraft was.

Parker will now be considered for election when the Hall's board of 50 selectors meets in January to choose next year's class. If he gains 80 percent of the vote ... a virtual certainty ... he will be enshrined in Canton.

Sixty years after he last coached.

"Of all the coaches I have seen in pro football history," said former NFL GM Upton Bell, son of Hall-of-Famer Bert Bell, "Buddy Parker was one of the greatest."

Remarkably, this is only the second occasion that Parker has been a Hall-of-Fame finalist. He was one of eight coaches considered for the Centennial Class of 2020 but was not chosen. Jimmy Johnson and Bill Cowher were. Parker was also one of 12 semifinalists last year in the first year of the coach/contributor category, but he didn't advance to the final four. 

His election marks the second consecutive upset in the newly created category. A year ago, former coach Don Coryell was chosen after Kraft was considered the favorite.

However, Parker's election is not surprising to those who study and follow NFL history. In fact, in two separate "Judge and Jury" columns from the Talk of Fame Two the past six months, seven historians were asked to pick the next coach for the Pro Football Hall of Fame. 

Five chose Parker.

Parker coached the Lions for six seasons (1951-56), going 50-24-2 (including playoffs) with Detroit winning the 1952 and 1953 NFL championships. Dating back to 1933, it marked only the third time in NFL history that a team won consecutive championships. And it was under the guidance of a head coach who took the team from Motor City to a third straight NFL title game a year later -- this time losing to the Browns.

It was his only loss to Cleveland and Paul Brown. He was 4-1 against them, including 2-1 in championship games.

"He's the one guy who had Paul Brown’s number,” said Bell, “and I consider Paul Brown the greatest innovator and coach of all time. “

Parker led the Lions from mediocrity to champions and vastly improved the Steelers in his time there. But he was one of the NFL's premier defensive innovators, too, utilizing zone defenses and nickel defenses in new ways in the 1950s. He also helped to popularize the 4-3 defense, moving Joe Schmidt from left linebacker to the middle.

The Lions went on to win the 1957 NFL title with George Wilson, Parker’s offensive coordinator, as head coach parlaying Parker's squad to a third championship in six years. While Wilson coached the team, it was Parker who built it -- acquiring quarterback Tobin Rote immediately prior to the season and just before Parker abruptly resigned.

Parker joined the Pittsburgh Steelers in 1957 and led them for eight seasons. He was 51-47-6 and never reached the playoffs, let's put that into context: His winning percentage for those eight years was .519; the winning percentage for the Steelers the previous eight years was .438, and for the eight years after, it was .335.

Parker made a difference.

While coaching the Steelers, he converted a dominant pursuit defensive tackle in "Big Daddy" Lipscomb into a dominant pass-rushing one -- seeing the potential the big man would have in disrupting NFL passers.

He had an overall NFL record of 107-76-9 and a winning percentage of .585 that exceeds Hall-of-Fame coaches Chuck Noll, Bill Parcells, Marv Levy, Hank Stram, Weeb Ewbank, Dick Vermeil, Sid Gillman, Don Coryell and Tom Flores.

The Texas native was an assistant coach in the NFL from 1944-48 and in 1950. As a player, he spent two seasons with the Lions (1935-36), where he won an NFL title, followed by seven seasons with the Cardinals.

Parker died in 1982 at the age of 68 in Kaufman, Texas.