It’s always great to look back at the history of the game of pro football. Having had the fortune to cover the NFL for more than four decades, I can say the 1980s were special. Thanks to great coaching and great players, pro football went from a physical game that featured running and defense into a smart, situational type of game in the 1980s.

So much of that had to do with coaching, and Bob Glauber, who’s been covering the NFL since the 1980s, has written the definitive book on the 1980s. "Guts and Genius: The Story of Three Unlikely Coaches Who Came To Dominate THE NFL in the 1980s" hits the market in November. He joins us on Schooled with the Professor.

Bob tells great stories about Bill Walsh, Joe Gibbs and Bill Parcells. Those three coaches won a combined eight Super Bowls in the 1980s, but more importantly, they changed the game. Walsh brought the West Coast Offense, a staple that made the NFL a quarterback-driven league. Parcells glorified the 3-4 defense with Lawrence Taylor. Gibbs was simply a genius. He could figure out how to beat a defense by just observing alignments.

See omnystudio.com/policies/listener for privacy information.