Rankings are fun. If you don't take them too seriously. It's just one opinion. Here's my opinion on the ten greatest coaches in NFL History.
1. Vince Lombardi
Lombardi won five NFL Championships in his nine seasons as head coach of the Green Bay Packers. That's an incredible concentration of football success. Lombardi lost the 1960 NFL title to the Philadelphia Eagles in only his second season. It was his Packers only championship game loss just as he promised it would be. It even looked like he had the Redskins turned around in his single season coaching in Washington.
2. Paul Brown
I've always been partial to Brown as I grew up with Cleveland Browns and All America Football Conference tales from my father. Brown's Browns played in his conference's championship game from 1946-55. An incredible ten-year run. He won seven of those ten games. 4 AAFC titles. 3 NFL titles. Beyond his on-field success Brown changed the way football coaching was done. Perhaps more than any other coach.
3. Bill Belichick
His Patriots dynasty is still going strong half-way through his second decade. That prolonged, season-to-season success and four Super Bowl titles puts him here. There are many talking heads that peg his five-year stint as the head coach of the Cleveland Browns as a failure. I've never quite understood that. He had the Browns heading in the right direction until everything fell apart during the season in which the move to Baltimore was announced. How anyone expected wins during that chaotic time is a mystery.
4. Bill Walsh
Walsh built a dynasty in San Francisco and he did it with Lombardi-like efficiency. The 49ers were a disaster and suddenly they were in the Super Bowl. At least it seemed sudden. His offense is still seen today through the generations of coaches that he mentored directly and indirectly.
5. George Halas
Halas officially coached the Chicago Bears to six NFL titles. 42 years separated his first title and his last. Two other titles were won on his watch when he wasn't officially coaching the team. Even when he wasn't physically on the sideline he was on the sideline. He was the Chicago Bears. He's still the Chicago Bears. He was there that day in Canton when this little idea for a professional football league became something more than an idea. George Halas might be the most important figure in the history of the league.
6. Don Shula
Shula won more games than any other coach. He won two Super Bowls. He coached in six Super Bowls. He even took a David Woodley-led Miami Dolphins team to the Super Bowl. That alone should put him higher on this list.
7. Curly Lambeau
Lambeau and Lombardi led the Packers to 11 of their 13 NFL titles. Lambeau's six titles ties him with Halas for most in history. It took Halas 44 years to win six. It took Lambeau 24 years to win six. All six were won over a 16-year period. About the only coach that won titles with such frequency was that other Packers coach.
8. Chuck Noll
Noll coached the Pittsburgh Steelers to a dynasty in the 1970s. This dynasty was one of the greatest and it came during one of the most competitive decades in league history. The Miami Dolphins, Oakland Raiders, Dallas Cowboys had their title moments and probably would have more if not for the Steelers.
9. Tom Landry
Landry had an incredible 29-year run as the Dallas Cowboys head coach. He may have won only two Super Bowls but he was in it just about every year from 1966-82. His Cowboys teams nearly kept Lombardi's Packers teams out of the first two Super Bowls.
10. Joe Gibbs
The most remarkable thing about Gibbs' coaching career is winning three Super Bowls with three different quarterbacks. More often than not sustained football success comes with a nice pairing of coach and quarterback. Not many coaches have just taken the quarterback that they have and gone on and won a title. Gibbs did that three times.
Even though I think of Vince Lomabardi as the best coach I can understand just about any combination of the above ten. I can also understand the inclusion of these two.
Bill Parcells
John Madden
It's tough to leave out both. It actually feels wrong to leave out both. Parcells built winners just about everywhere he went. If Madden had managed to pull even one of those Super Bowls from the Steelers he'd probably be in my top-5. Those Raiders-Steelers games of the 1970s were outstanding football games.
One coach that I feel has been unfairly passed over by history is Buddy Parker. He should be in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Perhaps because he's been forgotten I wanted to put him on this list. Parker turned the Detroit Lions into a powerhouse in the 1950s. Something that's difficult to imagine these days. In only his second season as head coach he led the Lions to the NFL title in 1952. Repeated in 1953. And lost to the Cleveland Browns in the 1954 title game. The Lions won it all again in 1957. Parker wasn't around for that one as he shocked the football world by quitting at the start of training camp. He jumped to the Pittsburgh Steelers. He had a winning record in his eight years with the Steelers. Something that no coach had managed to do in Pittsburgh in the previous three decades.
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