First coach to be double-teamed?

~ Seattle's Holmgren could become the only coach to lead two different teams to Super Bowl titles

Bill Parcells failed. Dan Reeves, Dick Vermeil and Don Shula never had the chance.

Now Mike Holmgren has taken a second franchise to a Super Bowl. Can he become the only coach to win with more than one team?

In nearly four decades of Super Bowls, only Parcells managed to win in his first try, then come back with another club. But after victories with the Giants in 1987 and 1991, Parcells' Patriots were beaten in 1997 by the Packers.

Green Bay's coach that season: Holmgren.

Reeves went three times in four years with the Denver Broncos and John Elway, but flopped against Parcells in '87, against Joe Gibbs and the Redskins the next year, and to George Seifert and the 49ers in 1990. He also lost to Denver in 1999 while coaching Atlanta.

Vermeil was a Super Bowl loser with the Eagles in 1981 to the Raiders, then won with St. Louis in 2000. Shula, pro football's winningest coach, fell in 1969 with the Colts to the Jets, then won twice with Miami (1973, 1974).

Holmgren knows the history. He's trying to ignore it, but hoping he can change it.

"I think both the players that have gone through Super Bowl games and the coaches that have been there, that helps," says Holmgren, whose Packers lost to the Broncos -- by then coached by Mike Shanahan but still with Elway at quarterback -- in 1998.

"Because the more you can talk about it, kind of explain, kind of pave the way for them ... they won't believe what's happening to them. It's different. So we kind of pave the way for them a little bit."

It seems odd that only one of the previous coaches to take different franchises to the big game has had an opportunity for double victories. Shula, Reeves and Vermeil are among the most successful coaches ever. But Reeves was 0-4 in Super Bowls, and Shula went 2-4, losing his first two.

Vermeil was 1-1, but the loss came first, and he, like Shula and Reeves, now is retired.

Parcells, now with Dallas, could even have the distinction of getting to the Super Bowl with three franchises. He came close in the 1998 season when his Jets lost at Denver for the AFC championship.

In Parcells' Super Bowl trip with the Patriots, his team was a 14-point underdog to Green Bay. Brett Favre was at his peak then and Reggie White was anchoring a big-play defense.

New England rallied from an early 10-0 hole and led 14-10 at the end of a quarter. Then Favre hit Antonio Freeman with an 81-yard TD pass and Green Bay scored 17 second-quarter points.

The Pats got to 27-21 on Curtis Martin's TD run, but Desmond Howard returned the ensuing kickoff 99 yards to clinch it.

"It's very draining when you put in all that work and it comes down to losing the last game," Parcells said back then. "You just hope for another opportunity."

Now Holmgren gets a shot at the very special double no one has attained.

He tends to talk more about the loss to Denver in 1998 then the championship victory over New England. Then again, NFL coaches seem to harp on big defeats more than they celebrate huge wins.

"It was a great football game," Holmgren says of the 31-24 loss to Denver, "but I thought that game, it was very difficult for me ... to get my guys to believe that the game would be really a tough football game. I couldn't get them to believe it, and I tried everything.

"I tried being nice. I tried kicking them in the rear end. I tried everything I could think of. And we had a veteran team. They'd had a great year, very dominant year. We went into the game ... our head wasn't right."

And who gets the blame for that? The head coach, naturally.

"I thought I kind of failed the team because I couldn't get them to realize what we were up against," he says. "I usually bounce back a little bit better, but that was a tough one."

Holmgren is confident that won't happen with the Seahawks. He's seen the way they've responded to every challenge this season, and he likes the chemistry that has developed.

Besides, there will be no comfort zone. The franchise is a Super Bowl novice, while the Steelers are making their sixth trip. Pittsburgh has been overpowering in three road wins and is a four-point favorite. Detroit will be loaded with Steelers fans making the drive from Pittsburgh.

So the complacency Holmgren now sees as a reason for the 1998 loss isn't likely to be a factor in this, his fifth Super Bowl, including twice as an assistant coach with the 49ers.

"I've been through it a couple of times, and then, all of a sudden, when you go through it and there's been a bit of a lapse between ... you kind of think about that," he says. "I didn't think about or enjoy enough the last time I did this. So if I was ever given the chance again, I'm going to soak it in a little more."