There’s no simple criteria for ranking the NFL’s head coaches, 1 through 32. Wins and losses aren’t enough, nor are Super Bowl wins, playoff appearances, longevity or the eyeball test.
It’s also quite a challenge to figure it all out in June, while teams are in OTAs, with a lot of draft picks still unsigned or unavailable, injuries already playing havoc with a coach’s chances to prove himself (hello, Jason Garrett; sorry about Sean Lee) and with seven new head coaches. Four of them have never been NFL head coaches before, period. What fun to rank them now!
All that being said, there is one fairly reliable rule of thumb: start with Bill Belichick and work your way down.
1. Bill Belichick, Patriots
It’s going to be a long time before any coach is able to dislodge him from the top, even if he never wins another Super Bowl. What makes him special, heading into year 15 in New England: You can hardly remember the last time the Patriots began a season without being one of the favorites to win it all. Tom Brady or not, that’s indescribably hard to do.
2. Pete Carroll, Seahawks
On the surface, it’s an overemphasis on the immediate, because his Seahawks just won the Super Bowl. But in taking over the franchise and turning it into a champion in four years, Carroll answered the final question about whether he was anything more than a rah-rah, fist-pumping college coach who had stumbled in previous NFL gigs and needed to stay in his lane. He’s in the right lane now — Seattle is here to stay, and so is he.
3. Tom Coughlin, Giants
Coughlin, who turns 68 in August, won’t be around forever, and one only hopes he’ll be more appreciated when he’s gone from the NFL. In turning the Giants (and the Jaguars before that) into winners, he mastered one of the great challenges any coach has: tweaking his style to mesh with players, while getting players to adopt and adapt to his. If nothing else, who else, outside of his own family, really thought Eli Manning had two Super Bowl wins in him? Thank Coughlin largely for that.
4. Sean Payton, Saints
It would be a shock if Payton exits with only one Super Bowl win. But getting that one with the Saints, with that history and under those circumstances, is a career pinnacle anyone can brag about. Few coaches rally their players around them the way Payton has, as evidenced by their return to prominence last year when he came back from his suspension. Puts his ego aside (no easy task for him) to surround himself with coaches who make his team better, like Rob Ryan last year.
5. Mike Tomlin, Steelers
He’s still only 42, making his two Super Bowls and one win all the more remarkable. Further proof that the Rooneys know what they’re doing, grabbing a hot assistant before the rest of the NFL believed he was ready. Now facing more of a challenge than he ever has in his brief career, but most franchises will gladly take back-to-back .500 seasons as a low point in seven years.
6. Andy Reid, Chiefs
You’d think that a coach with Reid’s track record in Philadelphia over 14 years wouldn’t need to jumpstart his rep. But Reid did, and he pulled it off in Year 1 in Kansas City last year. After all the near-misses with the Eagles, a Lombardi Trophy is hardly inevitable, but if and when Reid wins one, he jumps up several notches on this list.
7. John Harbaugh, Ravens
His success is almost taken for granted in Baltimore, but not anywhere else. One of the more inspired and unconventional coaching hires in recent years, Harbaugh proved the franchise’s wisdom with playoff trips in his first five seasons, three AFC title games and a Super Bowl win. The unknown Harbaugh brother will never be anonymous again.
8. John Fox, Broncos
When you take two different franchises to Super Bowls in just over a decade, it doesn’t matter if either of them had Peyton Manning. One of them didn’t, of course, the 2003 Panthers, so he can do far more than steer a Hall of Fame quarterback toward the huddle. He has the respect of his players and his colleagues — and this season, he may be loaded enough to get that last piece of hardware left.
9. Jim Harbaugh, 49ers
The 49ers’ brass had better be smart enough to hold onto him, because the transformation he’s engineered there is borderline miraculous. Not every front office, roster or fan base can handle his style, and he willingly takes on a ton of heat — but he has yet to prove he can’t handle it, nor has his team. Even if he overstays his welcome, some other team would snatch him up before the door closes behind him.
10. Mike McCarthy, Packers
Coaching in Green Bay is a cauldron, and it only gets hotter when you win, or have an all-timer at quarterback, or both. McCarthy is just low-key, firm and accessible enough to flourish in it. You can’t argue with the results so far, especially considering he wasn’t fast-tracked for a head-coaching position the way others often are. He’s a smart hire that’s paying off.
11. Chuck Pagano, Colts
He’s a couple of playoff wins, maybe a conference title-game appearance, away from cracking the top 10. Pagano has instantly made owner Jim Irsay’s wholesale shakeup from two years ago pay off. Before and after his cancer fight in his rookie year and in the full season afterward, Pagano has pulled together the threads of a rebuilt roster, gotten the full support of his players, and steered Andrew Luck deftly through his introduction to the NFL.
12. Mike Smith, Falcons
Truly cursed by a lack of playoff success, which is overshadowing his regular-season accomplishments. Throw out last season’s buckling under the weight of injuries, and you have 56 wins in five years … and one playoff win. Smith’s division is loaded right now. You hope his team’s window hasn’t closed this early, not with Matt Ryan still just 29 years old.
13. Jeff Fisher, Rams
It’s hard to find anyone to knock Fisher’s coaching ability, some of the great teams he put together in Tennessee, the identity they forged, or even the early results of the current reclamation project in St. Louis. It’s harder to explain how he only made the playoffs six times, and had six winning seasons, in 17 years with the Oilers/Titans. The record needs to catch up with the reputation at some point. He’s in a tough division for that right now, the NFC West.
14. Lovie Smith, Buccaneers
On the other end of the scale from Fisher, it’s hard to knock what Smith did in Chicago for nine years, getting to a Super Bowl, making the NFC title game, three losing seasons in nine years — yet only NFL insiders seem to respect his coaching chops. He’s now being handed the reins in Tampa, a mess since the end of the Jon Gruden era. The Bucs will get better, but he also faces a beast of a division.
15. Chip Kelly, Eagles
Not many debut better than Kelly did in Philadelphia last season, proving to be the exact fresh face with fresh ideas the franchise needed. Taking the next step is a challenge, but no bigger a challenge than living up to the hype he brought from his college days. The challenge is tougher now that he has to prove that putting his foot down with now-departed DeSean Jackson was the right move, short-term and long-term. Philly fans have short memories and short tempers.
16. Jim Caldwell, Lions
If only he were more demonstrative, more colorful, more … coach-y? Also, if only he’d won more than two games with Curtis Painter at quarterback instead of Peyton Manning in 2011. Those are two harsh ways to judge a coach, too harsh to blot out a Super Bowl trip and a division title in his other two seasons leading the Colts post-Tony Dungy. Super Bowl winners in Indy and Baltimore swear by him as a coordinator. He’s just what the Lions need.
17. Rex Ryan, Jets
For all the bluster, Ryan keeps proving that he can coach ‘em up, especially on defense. If he’s far from a master of evaluating and developing quarterbacks, he’s a Ph.D. in getting the players to rally behind him, pusing the right buttons and taking the heat to deflect it from them. He’s still tilting at windmills, though. He wants to scale Patriots Mountain, but it’s tough to see how he’ll ever do it.
18. Marvin Lewis, Bengals
Nobody in the NFL needs to win a playoff game, just one, more than Lewis, who chugs into season 12 in Cincinnati. Yet he’s long overdue credit for raising the bar of expectations in a place where there were none for more than a decade, when they were a punchline. That being said, one-and-done isn’t good enough anymore.
19. Ron Rivera, Panthers
He almost catches a break from the fact that no matter what, he’ll never catch as much heat for failure or shortcoming than his quarterback, Cam Newton. The newly-minted “Riverboat Ron” persona has its pluses and minuses, too. But he has built a near-championship-caliber defense, and has a franchise quarterback. The next few years will define him as part of the upper echelon or as good-but-not-great.
20. Bruce Arians, Cardinals
The Cardinals have had sporadic success over the decades in the desert, but Arians is in position to bring sustained success. He’s off to a fine start, both in his interim days in Indianapolis and his initial 10-win season in Arizona. Two significant obstacles: the top-heavy division, and the franchise quarterback. Carson Palmer isn’t the long-term answer.
21. Mike McCoy, Chargers
Excellent start in San Diego, with the entire team and with Philip Rivers. McCoy earned his way onto a lot of teams’ short lists with his work in Denver, with Manning and with Tim Tebow. An inability to make up ground against the Broncos and Chiefs in the AFC West in the next few years shouldn’t reflect poorly on his coaching.
22. Ken Whisenhunt, Titans
Who can argue with a Super Bowl trip and a near-win with the Cardinals? The problem for Whisenhunt is that he’s beloved as a coordinator, but has yet to solve a quarterback issue as head coach outside of handing the ball to Kurt Warner. He’s got the same problem in Tennessee now. The jury’s still out on whether he deserved to be the smokin’-hot candidate he was last offseason.
23. Jason Garrett, Cowboys
One will always wonder how Garrett would do out from under Jerry Jones, as something other than the owner’s hand-picked golden child — or with a roster only half as bizarrely constructed as the Cowboys’ usually is. On the other hand, coaching the Cowboys has always meant living up to outsized expectations, and Garrett hasn’t even come close so far.
24. Doug Marrone, Bills
If you didn’t know any better, you’d think that the Bills are building toward something special, especially on defense, which happens to be their second-year coach’s specialty. Early signs are that this was a hire from the college ranks, with vital NFL assistant experience, that will pan out. Picking the right quarterback will make the difference (stop us if you’ve heard this before).
25. Marc Trestman, Bears
Out of the NFL for eight years, in Canada for five years … now that’s an unconventional hire. The 8-8 record in Trestman’s rookie year was a little too pedestrian, though, especially considering the NFC North was dying to be taken late last season. If things don’t get better, prepare for the Bears to be accused of out-thinking themselves, and fairly so.
26. Gus Bradley, Jaguars
In season 2, Bradley, the former defensive whiz in Seattle, will get to coach real players, not the leftovers from the previous failed regime. Nothing the Jaguars did made him look like a bad coach, but this is what they brought him in to do: mold an up-and-coming team with a handpicked franchise quarterback in Blake Bortles.
27. Bill O’Brien, Texans
Welcome to the first head-coaching newcomer to the rankings, which probably won’t make the two returning coaches ranked behind him feel very chipper. O’Brien’s ascent to an NFL head-coaching job has been inevitable for a while, even while he was trying to steer Penn State back on course. He’s got the Bill Belichick connection — which, truth be told, hasn’t done much for those who had it before. Then again, he’s been handed one of the more promising 2-14 teams in recent history.
28. Joe Philbin, Dolphins
You still want to rinse your eyes in bleach after recapping last season with the Dolphins, and while making it to 8-8 after all the chaos is admirable, it’s not obvious on the surface what made Philbin worth saving while so many others in the organization were tossed overboard. Here’s his chance to prove he deserved the reprieve.
29. Mike Zimmer, Vikings
The entire league smiled when Zimmer, who paid his dues for a long time and has survived personal hardship, finally got a top job. The Vikings, of course, are not good, which is why the job was open. He’s rebuilding a lousy defense, and got the quarterback he apparently was sold on early, Teddy Bridgewater. Quarterbacks sunk his two predecessors (Brad Childress, Leslie Frazier).
30. Jay Gruden, Redskins
There’s paying NFL dues, there’s paying CFL dues, then there’s paying Arena league dues like Gruden. Those credentials might work better for him than his Bengals offensive coordinator years (three seasons, three postseasons, no wins, crummy offense). The ball is now in his court to make Robert Griffin III the star he was on track to becoming before the knee injury.
31. Mike Pettine, Browns
Did Pettine tell himself once upon a time, “When I get my big head-coaching break, I sure hope it’s with a brand-new front office, a lightning-rod of a rookie quarterback and a competition the whole nation tunes in to?” He may be more ready for the task than anyone in the organization, but if that organization isn’t, he’ll be the one shown the door. (Although in Cleveland, maybe not.)
32. Dennis Allen, Raiders
Being ranked last doesn’t necessarily make one a terrible coach. But Allen’s first two years as head of the new post-Al Davis regime, run by Reggie McKenzie, aren’t terribly encouraging. Yet it may reflect more on McKenzie and the Raiders than on Allen, who might just not have been ready yet when they yanked him out of Denver after one year as a coordinator.
