Gibbs, Vermeil know each other well

? Old friends as well as old foes, Dick Vermeil and Joe Gibbs are about to confront each other as head-coaching adversaries for the first time in almost 23 years.

“That says something about Dick and I,” the 64-year-old Gibbs said with a laugh. “We’re long in the tooth.”

Also long is the respect these two accomplished men always have held for one another.

The 68-year-old Vermeil figures Gibbs’ Washington Redskins (3-1) will come after his Kansas City Chiefs (2-2) today with the same unshakable discipline and smart, well drilled execution that characterized his early Washington teams a generation ago.

Four times in the old days, while the two men were building their teams to Super Bowl status, Gibbs’ Redskins squared off against Vermeil’s Philadelphia Eagles.

“We beat them once in four ball games,” recalls Vermeil. “The three losses were by a total of nine points, one in overtime. He’s an outstanding leader.”

Matching wits against Vermeil is something Gibbs recalls vividly.

“We had some classic battles,” he said. “He’s somebody I admire in the coaching profession.”

Between them, the Gibbs-Vermeil tandem has 267 victories and six appearances in the Super Bowl. The lives and careers of the two men who’ll clash today in Arrowhead Stadium have paralleled one another in remarkable ways.

Gibbs went to school at San Diego State, Vermeil to San Jose State. Each began his career as an assistant at a California college.

Vermeil rebuilt the long-moribund Eagles into a Super Bowl team in the late ’70s, then unexpectedly retired in 1982. Gibbs took the Redskins to three Super Bowl titles before calling it quits in 1992. Both launched highly successful second careers, Gibbs in NASCAR and Vermeil as a broadcaster and motivational speaker.

Heading into their 60s, they both were financially secure and eminently respected. Nobody thought they had anything to prove against a cadre of supposedly more energetic, up-to-date young coaches.

Yet, after more than a decade out of football, both found finicky fans and 16-hour workdays impossible to resist and jumped back into the demanding profession.

Vermeil came back in 1997, coached St. Louis to its only Super Bowl title, retired again and then decided in 2001 to take over the Chiefs. Gibbs returned to Washington in 2004 and in just one year has the Redskins tied for the lead in the NFC East.