These Coaches Have Been There Before : NFL: The coaches of the four remaining NFC playoff teams have accomplished the ultimate--winning the Super Bowl.

You hire a coach. You ask him to win a Super Bowl. If he wants to keep his job, he tries to obey.

Joe Gibbs is obedient. So is Mike Ditka. And Bill Parcells. And, yes, George Seifert. The NFC’s final four coaches take orders well.

They’ve all won Super Bowls. They all brought their teams within sight of another this season.

Gibbs, who got the jump on his NFC coaching brethren when he was hired in 1981 to guide the Redskins, has been the most successful with two Super wins and one loss. He also has tenure on every coach in the conference.

Ditka took over the Bears, for whom he was an All-Pro tight end, in 1982. By ‘85, he had put together possibly the most powerful Super Bowl winner ever.

Parcells became Giants head coach in 1983. It also took him four seasons to get his Super Bowl ring.

Seifert had a major edge over the other NFC coaches whose teams still were alive heading into this weekend. He was with the 49ers for two other championships as defensive coordinator. In 1989, when Bill Walsh retired, he ascended to the leadership of a dynasty still intact.

That might even be tougher than rebuilding.

“The expectations your first year certainly are high,” says Seifert, 28-4 as 49ers coach. “As defending champions, you’re expected to win it again. If we didn’t, how many (people) would say it was me?

“I felt an awful lot of anxiety last year, along with excitement, and I feel the same way.”

The regular season can be drudgery compared to the do-or-die playoffs. Everyone feels the excitement now. The coach’s job is to channel it, use it as a weapon, not allow it to become a distraction.

Ditka, Parcells, Gibbs and Seifert are masters of that difficult task.

“Bill knows how to get you in the right frame of mind,” Giants linebacker Gary Reasons says of Parcells. “He makes you think about what you have to do to get ready. Then he lets you get ready in your own way.”

“He’s a man of character,” Redskins DT Tim Johnson says of Gibbs. “He works diligently and that rubs off.”

Two of the coaches, Ditka and Gibbs, come from offensive backgrounds. Both, along with Parcells, are enamored of the running game, particularly power running.

Ditka and Parcells prefer the same kind of defense: “We’ll knock you down as hard as we can as often as we can. Nothing fancy, no surprises. You know what you will get from us,” Ditka says.

Gibbs and Seifert aren’t above unusual touches, with and without the ball.

“It helps to keep them guessing,” Seifert says. “As long as you know what you’re doing.”

While Seifert inherited a great team, the other three were hired to revitalize sinking squads.

Gibbs would go on to become the winningest coach in Redskins history, but his start was inauspicious. Taking over for Jack Pardee, Gibbs lost his first five games. The defense was pitiful and the offense, which Gibbs was supposed to enliven after his work on Air Coryell in San Diego, was inconsistent.

“He never let the guys get down, even with such a bad start,” Joe Theismann remembers. “He knew we’d get turned around.”

They did. The next year, the first strike season, Gibbs took the Skins to the championship. The next year, they lost in the Super Bowl to the Raiders. Gibbs won consecutive Coach of the Year awards.

In 1987, when teams were falling apart after another strike and the replacement games that caused dissension, Gibbs held his team together. Again, the Skins went all the way.

Gibbs is 112-54 in 10 seasons and he was 12-3 in the playoffs after last week’s victory at Philadelphia.

The turnaround came almost as quickly for Parcells. Elevated to head coach when Ray Perkins abruptly left for Alabama, Parcells was 3-12-1 in his first season. Despite heavy media pressure to dump him, GM George Young had faith in Parcells.

That faith began paying off the next year. The Giants were 9-7 and made the playoffs. They have been there four years since and, in 1986, won the Super Bowl.

This season, Parcells was criticized for an unimaginative offense. But the defense, as always, was staunch and the players have not been troubled by Parcells’ decisions. Or style.

“He’s sort of like a fortune teller,” LB Carl Banks says. “Even if you don’t have the question, he has an answer.

“Bill is very consistent. His enthusiasm is there, week in and week out. He’s a guy who prepares well. He doesn’t leave anything out. He doesn’t forget anything, and it’s carried over to the players.”

Ditka carried the wrong vibes to his players during last season’s 6-10 debacle. This year, he’s been a changed man.

“Blowing up is not the worst thing,” he says, “but a lot of people have fragile feelings. A year ago, I didn’t understand that.

“It was a conscious effort on my part. The discipline was no problem after I made up my mind (for better self-control). The pressure of playing the game is enough. I didn’t want to put added pressure on them.”

The 1989 collapse followed five division titles. It was totally unexpected. Ditka, the second-winningest coach of the Bears behind team founder George Halas--Parcells also is No. 2 in Giants history--had not experienced a losing year since his first, when Chicago was 3-6 in the ’82 strike season.

He had no clue how to handle it.

“Last year, I was out in another world,” he says. “I was gone. I had taken off mentally from the world. That was the first time in a long time that I had been faced with adversity and, boy, I’ll tell you what, I handled it like a real nut.”

This season, Ditka seems to have mellowed. He has been more communicative with his players and the tirades have been few.

“Our guys were inundated with criticism and we never really turned it around,” Dan Hampton says. “It was like an avalanche. I think rather than being a participant in an avalanche (this year), Mike realized, ‘these are my guys. Win, lose or draw, I’ve got to protect them, let them know I’m on their side.’ ”

You couldn’t go wrong with Ditka, Parcells, Seifert or Gibbs on your side.