Wade Phillips has long been considered one of the best defensive coordinators in professional football.
His track record as a head coach, though, hasn’t been looked on as kindly — especially when it comes to the postseason
Phillips has a chance to get an elusive championship ring in that role on Sunday in St. Louis, where his San Antonio Brahmas will take on the Birmingham Stallions in the title game of the inaugural season for the United Football League, which came from a merger of the United States Football League and the XFL. Kickoff is set for 5 p.m. Eastern on Fox.
“Obviously, it would be great. I’d feel great for the players. They deserve where they are now,” Phillips said. “I think they deserve a championship, but they have to play and win it.”
A UFL title would also be a great early birthday present for Phillips, who turns 77 next Friday.
He was fired by the NFL’s Los Angeles Rams after the 2019 season, having served as their defensive coordinator since 2017. It could have been the end of a coaching career that has spanned seven decades and started when he was a graduate assistant at the University of Houston in 1969.
Instead, after a break, Phillips returned to coach that same Texas city’s XFL franchise in 2023. The Houston Roughnecks were 7-3 and made the playoffs last year, but they lost to eventual champion Arlington in the South Division final.
After the USFL and XFL merged over the winter, Phillips moved over to San Antonio this season. Not much was expected, especially with 30 new players on the roster. The Brahmas bucked the odds by going 7-3 in the regular season, and last weekend they upset the favored St. Louis Battlehawks in the XFL Conference final and advanced to the UFL championship game.
“I believe we’ve been the underdogs in almost every game,” Phillips said. “So we like playing that role.”
As an NFL head coach, Phillips had an 82-64 regular-season record with six teams, but he was 1-5 in the playoffs. He won a championship ring as the defensive coordinator for the Denver Broncos in the 2015 season, which they capped with a 24-10 victory over the Carolina Panthers at Super Bowl 50.
While Phillips enjoyed plenty of attention leading the Dallas Cowboys for three-plus seasons from 2007-10, he said there isn’t that much difference coaching the Brahmas.
Well, there is one major difference.
“Money. Yeah. Jerry (Jones) paid me a lot more money,” Phillips said with a smile, referring to the longtime owner of the Cowboys. “But it’s not different. It’s organization, and when you’re the head coach, everything comes to you.
“It’s coaching. That’s what I do. I’m probably not good at anything else. I like being around the players, the strategy of the game, and the reward for winning is a neat feeling.”
AP file photo by Butch Dill / Birmingham Stallions coach Skip Holtz led his team to the USFL Conference championship last weekend to set up Sunday’s UFL title game against the San Antonio Brahmas in St. Louis.Skip Holtz — who is trying to lead Birmingham to its third straight title after winning it all in both seasons the USFL was its own league — has also experienced a career renaissance of his own after 17 seasons as a college head coach. Holtz and Phillips did not have any interactions before the UFL, but Holtz said he has looked up to Phillips.
“It is very difficult to be a head football coach,” Holtz said. “I think it’s even more difficult to be a head football coach with his type of length and tenure. With the success that he’s had year in and year out, I think he does a great job. He’s done it with character.”
Over the past three seasons, the Stallions are 32-4 in the regular season and playoffs. Their most recent loss was on May 25 at San Antonio.
Birmingham has the league’s top offense, averaging 347.5 yards and 26.5 points per game. Quarterback Adrian Martinez was named the UFL’s MVP, but Matt Corral came in during the second half of last week’s USFL final and led the Stallions to a 31-18 victory.
San Antonio had the UFL’s best defense (256.7 yards allowed per game) and allowed only 15.3 points per game.
Whatever the result of Sunday’s game, Phillips has indicated he would like to return next season.
“I understand my age is a factor,” he said, “but as long as I’m healthy and can contribute — which I think I have — I don’t set a time limit, but I get older every day. I know that.”