After being named a coaching finalist earlier this year, former Kansas City Chiefs HC Dick Vermeil has been selected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame. He’ll join seven others as a part of the 2022 class, including Tony Boselli, Bryant Young, Richard Seymour, Sam Mills, LeRoy Butler, Cliff Branch and Art McNally.
Vermeil joined the Chiefs as head coach in 2001, just a season after leading the St. Louis Rams to a Super Bowl victory with the “Greatest Show on Turf.” He’d go on to coach in Kansas City for his final five seasons in the NFL, mentoring some of the most explosive offensive players in franchise history, including RB Priest Holmes, TE Tony Gonzalez, WR Dante Hall, LT Willie Roaf, RG Will Shields and more.
While Vermeil was unable to repeat his Super Bowl successes with the Chiefs, he won over plenty of hearts in Kansas City. An entire generation of Chiefs fans grew up watching his teams compete and win games. He coached the team to a 44-36 regular-season spanning 80 games with the team. Unfortunately, that success only once resulted in a playoff berth. In 2003, Vermeil’s Chiefs team went 13-3 in the regular season, winning the AFC West division. They faced the Indianapolis Colts in the divisional round of the playoffs and would lose the game 38-31.
Vermeil has now become the third former Chiefs head coach to be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, joining Marv Levy and Hank Stram. There will almost certainly be other head coaches of the franchise to join them all in the future.
