Chiefs-Colts game matches old friends as foes

INDIANAPOLIS -- Herm Edwards would never let work come between him and Tony Dungy.\nNot last season, when the weary Jets coach put football on hold temporarily to attend the funeral of his best friend's son in Tampa, Fla., and certainly not this week when the two coaches meet again in a wild-card game.\nTheir bond is just too strong.\n"I feel like he's my big brother, and I never had a big brother," Edwards, coach of the Kansas City Chiefs, said of Dungy, coach of the Indianapolis Colts. "He's helped me a lot in my life, taught me to look at things a little differently with my faith and helped me become a better man."\nIn the cruel, stressful, competitive and sometimes disloyal environment of the NFL, Dungy and Edwards offer a different perspective on life as head coaches.\nThe two old pals still call each other routinely to discuss family matters, trade old war stories or offer advice. And yes, while the sport they revere has often kept them hundreds or thousands of miles apart, they've somehow managed to continually grow closer.\nThey follow a simple set of rules: family comes first; friendship matters more than victories; and always support your buddies, except when teams meet.\nThat's why Saturday's game between Kansas City (9-7) and Indianapolis (12-4) will be anything but fun for these two.\nSure, Dungy and Edwards will exchange the customary pregame pleasantries, probably embrace at game's end and might even send their wives out for dinner. But when it's over, one coach will go home for the offseason while the other begins preparing for his next opponent.\nThe stakes, nor the emotions, can't get much higher.\n"They're not fun games," Dungy said. "It's always tough when we play each other because you always want your team to do well, and 99 percent of the time I want Herm's team to do well, too."\nIt's the second time in five years Dungy and Edwards have met in the playoffs, and Dungy has jokingly called this payback time. In the 2002 playoffs, Edwards' Jets won 41-0, handing the Colts their worst playoff loss ever .\n"The last time we met, it was kind of a newsworthy deal," Edwards said. "Now no one is even saying that, and that's great. I think Tony looks at it that way, and I look at it that way."\nInstead, the focus has turned to issues Dungy and Edwards believe are more appropriate: the implications of the game, the players who will be on the field and the chummy relationship between the coaches.\nDungy and Edwards first met three decades ago during a college all-star game, and their personalities seemed an unlikely match. Edwards' fiery, passionate, emotional style contrasts sharply with Dungy's measured, stoic demeanor.\nSomehow they hit it off and have remained friends for nearly 30 years. After working together briefly in Kansas City, Dungy and Edwards were reunited in 1996 at Tampa Bay, Dungy's first head-coaching job.\n"We needed to change the mind-set and the thought process there, and that's a big reason I wanted Herm," Dungy said. "I knew he could help us do that"