Marv Levy retired at age 72. He was not forced out by Ralph Wilson. Levy has said that he later regretted retiring and wanted to get back into coaching, but nobody would hire him. He did become Bills GM in the mid-2000’s. He brought some class to the organization, but couldn’t build a winning team.

George Halas won 5 NFL Championships before he finally had back to back losing seasons, falling to 3-8-1 in 1953. Halas and the Bears rebounded with consecutive 8-4 records. He stepped down for a couple years, came back and won his 6th Championship in 1963. But Halas owned the team.

Curly Lambeau, Bill Parcells, Hank Stram, Tom Flores, and Steve Owen are the only other coaches who met the following criteria:

They all won 2 championships with the same team, and each of them had at least one year with a losing record in-between championship seasons. However, none of them were “down to the low.”

Lambeau went 5-7-1 in 1933
Owen went 5-6-1 in 1936
Stram went 5-7-2 in 1963
Flores went 7-9 in 1981
Parcells went 6-9 in the 1987 strike season.

Interestingly enough, the last three guys (the only “modern era”/post 1960 coaches) all had the losing season the year immediately after they won their first title.

This has only happened once. The 1964 Denver Broncos needed depth at QB, so they worked an unusual trade with the Houston Oilers. The Broncos sent a first round draft pick, and All Pro DT Bud McFaddin to Houston in exchange for backup QB Jacky Lee… for two years. Then Lee’s rights would revert back to Houston.

How did it work out? While passer rating hadn’t been invented yet, Lee’s rating ranked 8th in the 8 team AFL in 1964. (The Oakland Raiders has two QB’s ranked ahead of Lee; Buffalo’s Jack Kemp was the only starter ranked below Lee - and the Bills won the title that year.) The Broncos went 2-11-1. The following year, he only played 4 games. He went back to Houston in 1966 as a third string QB. He finished his career was a backup in Kansas City and won a Super Bowl ring in 1969.

McFaddin was 36 when he went to Houston. He played two years, though no longer as an All Star, and became an Oilers assistant coach when he retired.