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The 20 Greatest Coaches of All-Time Ranked
NFL teams can’t win without a good coach, and the best coaches can turn the fortunes of a team around. For example, before Bill Walsh took over as head coach of the 49ers in 1979, the team had finished under .500 in five of the previous six seasons. By Walsh’s third season, the Niners were Super Bowl champions.
While the players get most of the attention, the best coaches can make all the difference. This article will look at 20 of the greatest coaches in NFL history. It can be hard to judge coaches across various era, so don’t be too mad if your favorite head coach is a spot or two below where you might rank him.
So, let’s get into it. Here are Fubo’s picks for the 20 greatest coaches in NFL history. And with a few of these head coaches still active in the NFL, make sure you grab a Fubo subscription so you can watch the best coaches in action this season.
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The 20 Greatest NFL Coaches in Football History
Below are our picks for the 20 greatest coaches in NFL history.
20. Mike Tomlin
During his time with the Chiefs organization, Stram led the team to a Super Bowl victory and won three AFL titles. He coached with the team until the 1974 season when the team finished 5-9 and Stram was fired. He coached two more seasons with the Saints then went into broadcasting, working for CBS to do television and radio.
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If there’s one thing true about the Steelers, it’s that they stick with head coaches for a long time. Tomlin took over as the Steelers head coach in 2007 after serving one season as the Vikings defensive coordinator.
Tomlin has one Super Bowl ring as a head coach and also holds an NFL record with 16 consecutive seasons finishing .500 or better to begin his NFL career. Tomlin might not have any Coach of the Year awards, but his ability to win games no matter what the roster looks like makes him one of the top head coaches in the league now, and one of the 20 best head coaches historically. He’s made the playoffs 10 times.
19. Marv Levy
Levy never won a Super Bowl ring as the Bills head coach, but it wasn’t for lack of trying, as he led the team to four straight Super Bowls in the early 1990s. The Bills lost every time, but that stretch really showcased Levy’s ability to win games. He went 112-70 during his time with the Bills, and had an 11-8 record in the playoffs.
Overall, Levy has a 143-112 record as an NFL head coach, as he spent five seasons with the Chiefs, finishing over .500 just once. While that might be a knock against him, you also can’t talk about his coaching career without mentioning his time in the CFL, when Levy coached the Montreal Alouettes to two Grey Cup wins and a third appearance.
18. Tom Coughlin
A two-time Super Bowl champion head coach, Coughlin is likely best known these days for being a stern, disciplinarian coach, someone who fined players for not being early enough to team meetings.
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But that approach led to a lot of victories for Coughlin. He went 170-150 as an NFL head coach and was 12-7 in the postseason. That’s in spite of the fact that his first NFL head coaching job came for an expansion team—after going 4-12 in his first year at the helm of the Jags, he led the team to four consecutive playoff appearances. He later took over as the Giants head coach in 2004, where he won a Super Bowl in 2007 and then again in 2011.
17. Mike Ditka
Ditka, the head coach of the Super XX champion Bears and a two-time NFL Coach of the Year, has a long association with Chicago. From 1961 to 1966, he played tight end for the Bears, and in 1982 he took over as the team’s head coach.
He went on to win the second-most games in Bears history before being fired after a 5-11 season in 1992. His time in Chicago included seven seasons with double-digit wins, and seven playoff appearances during an eight-season stretch. He’d go on to coach three more seasons in the late 1990s with the Saints, a tenure most known for the team’s ill-fated decision to trade every 1999 draft pick for Ricky Williams.
16. John Madden
Best known as the namesake of the NFL video game franchise Madden, John Madden was more than just a broadcaster, though he would rank higher than 15th on a list of the best football broadcasters of all time.
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As a head coach, Madden won Super Bowl XI and was the 1969 PFW AFL Coach of the Year. He won an astounding 75% of his games in the regular season, going 103-32-7 and never having a losing season. He’s still the winningest coach in Raiders history. He retired after the 1978 season and moved into broadcasting the next season, joining CBS as a color commentator.
15. Jimmy Johnson
Jimmy Johnson wasn’t an NFL head coach for a long time, but he made those years count. In five seasons with the Cowboys, Johnson won two Super Bowls, leading a rebuild from a team that went 1-15 in his first season to one that was 11-5 in his third year.
After disagreements with Jerry Jones led to Johnson losing the Cowboys job after the 1993 season, he returned to the sidelines in 1996 with the Dolphins, coaching four seasons in Miami with three playoff appearances. He went 36-28 as the team’s head coach before resigning following a 62-7 loss to the Jaguars in the playoffs. Since then, he’s made his name on television, working as a studio analyst for FOX.
14. Mike Shanahan
Mike Shanahan has one of the best coaching trees in NFL history, but of all the coaches who’ve come after him, none have been as good as Shanahan himself, who won two Super Bowls as a head coach and went 138-86 in the regular season as the Broncos head coach from 1995 to 2008.
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After his Denver tenure, Shanahan coached four more seasons in Washington, which included a 10-6 campaign in 2012. It was the first division title for the team since 1999.
13. Tony Dungy
Dungy led one of the most successful teams of the 2000s, coaching the Colts from 2002 to 2009, during which time he won one Super Bowl and made the postseason every season.
His path to the Colts was an interesting one. Dungy was the head coach of the Buccaneers from 1996 to 2001, when he was let go so the team could hire Jon Gruden. Dungy made the playoffs in his final three seasons with Tampa.
In addition to his contributions in terms of win/loss record, Dungy also was crucial in the development of the Tampa 2 defense, a modification of the Cover 2 defense.
12. Curly Lambeau
Even if you don’t know Curly Lambeau, you know the last name, as the Green Bay Packers play at Lambeau Field, which is named after him. He was a player and coach for the Packers in the early days of the NFL and actually co-founded the team in 1919, playing for them that year before becoming a player-coach in 1920.
Lambeau coached the team to six NFL titles between 1920 and 1949. He left the team after that season after some messy issues behind the scenes and coached a couple other teams for the next few seasons. Overall, Lambeau won 63.1% of the regular season games he coached.
11. Andy Reid
After a long career with the Eagles, Reid took over the Kansas City Chiefs in 2013. Since then, Reid’s piloted the team to two Super Bowl titles, including the 2022 title.
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Reid has gone 117-45 as head coach of the Chiefs, building on a successful tenure in Philadelphia where he went 130-93-1. Reid hasn’t had a single season under .500 in KC, and in Philadelphia he had just three such seasons.
10. Bill Parcells
Remember Tom Coughlin? Well, Parcells was where he learned his stern approach to coaching. The two-time Super Bowl champion coach and two time AP NFL Coach of the Year.
Parcells coached four different teams during his NFL career. His Super Bowl titles both came with the Giants, where he finished 77-49-1 in the regular season. He retired following his second Super Bowl, then returned in 1993 to coach the Patriots, then the Jets and then the Cowboys. He made the playoffs in every stop.
Parcells’ coaching tree has some big names on it as well: in addition to Coughlin, there’s Bill Belichick, Sean Payton and Romeo Crennel.
9. Paul Brown
The landscape of the NFL in Ohio would look a lot different without Paul Brown. The co-founder, first head coach and the namesake of the Cleveland Browns, he later helped found the Cincinnati Bengals as well.
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As a head coach, Brown won three NFL championships, as well as four AAFC titles before that. Starting in 1946 in his first year, the Browns finished over .500 every season until 1956, the only year of Brown’s tenure that the team was under .500. He later led the Bengals to three playoff appearances.
8. Chuck Noll
Noll, the coach of the Steelers from 1969 to 1991, won four Super Bowl titles as a coach, and also two NFL championships as a player for the Browns. At one point, Nill’s teams won double-digit games seven times in an eight-year span, with the four Super Bowl titles coming in those years.
The only thing working against Noll being a top-five coach is his struggles later in his career. From 1986 to 1991, Noll’s teams made just one playoff appearance and finished under .500 four times. It’s nitpicking a little bit, but if Noll had retired sooner, he might have had a better shot at GOAT status, as only Bill Belichick has more Super Bowl victories than Noll has.
7. Tom Landry
Fans of King of the Hill will know Landry’s name, since the middle school in the show is named after him, but he’s far more than just a television cartoon reference; he’s one of the greatest coaches in league history.
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His contributions to the game include creating the 4-3 defense and coaching the Cowboys for 29 seasons, which included 20 consecutive winning seasons and two Super Bowl titles. His Dallas teams appeared in five Super Bowls. While he struggled at the end of his career with three consecutive losing seasons, Landry’s overall contributions to the game make him a top 10 coach all-time
6. George Halas
Halas is synonymous with the Chicago Bears. He played for the team for the entirety of the 1920s, beginning when the team was still known as the Decatur Staleys. In 1921, he’d taken over as the owner of the team while still playing for them and would own the team until his death in 1983.
In addition to being a player and owner, Halas coached the Bears on and off from 1921 through 1967. He won eight NFL championships and was the AP NFL Coach of the Year in 1963 and 1965. For a long time, he was the oldest person to coach an NFL game, last taking to the sideline as a 72-year-old, but Romeo Crennel later broke that record.
5. Joe Gibbs
The long-time Washington head coach—and current NASCAR team owner—won three Super Bowls as Washington’s head coach during his first stint with the team from 1981 to 1992.He had just one season with a record under .500 record over that span. Gibbs would later come out of retirement to coach four more seasons for the team from 2004-2007.
Gibbs was a two-time NFL Coach of the Year and is the only head coach in NFL history to win three Super Bowls with three different starting quarterbacks, showcasing his ability to adapt and win in different situations. He’d later win five NASCAR Cup Series champions as the owner of Joe Gibbs Racing.
4. Bill Walsh
Bill Walsh was the primary reason why the West Coast offense and its emphasis on passing the ball swept through professional football. His innovative offensive ideas helped Walsh win three Super Bowl titles, and he was named NFL Coach of the Year twice.
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The only downside for Walsh might be his lack of NFL longevity. A long-time assistant and then the head coach at Stanford for two seasons, Walsh began his coaching career at the high school level in 1957 but didn’t get an NFL head coaching job until 1979 with the 49ers. He stayed with the Niners until 1988, when he retired. He would later return to the sidelines for three more seasons at Stanford.
Walsh is also known for his coaching tree, with names like Mike Holmgren and Dennis Green coaching for him.
3. Vince Lombardi
The namesake of the Super Bowl trophy, Lombardi has a strong argument for being the greatest coach ever, leading the Packers to the first two Super Bowl titles in league history. He also won three NFL championships and was named NFL Coach of the Year twice.
Lombardi wasn’t a coach for long, as he led the Packers from 1959 through 1967 and later added one year in Washington. But he won 73.8% of his regular games during that span and was 9-1 in the postseason during his career. Lombardi died in 1970, after just one season at the helm in Washington, where he led the team to its first winning season since 1955.
2. Don Shula
Only one NFL head coach has led a team to a perfect season: Don Shula with the 1972 Dolphins. That was one of two Super Bowl wins for Shula as head coach, who was named AP NFL Coach of the Year four times during his career.
Longevity works in Shula’s favor as well. He started as the Dolphins coach in 1970 after a seven-year stint with the Colts. He remained on the Miami sideline until 1995, and he was still a top coach at the end, finishing .500 or better in each of his final five NFL seasons.
1. Bill Belichick
It’s hard to call anyone but Belichick the GOAT of NFL coaches. While his initial run in Cleveland was largely forgettable, with just one season over .500 in five years at the helm for the Browns, he reinvented himself in New England, where he won a Super Bowl in his second season.
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That was the first of six Super Bowl titles for Belichick. After going 5-11 in his year with New England, he didn’t have another season under .500 until 2020. You can argue how much of his success was because of his coaching skill and how much was because Tom Brady was his quarterback, but you can’t deny the wins, or the 70.8% win rate as New England’s head coach.
Where to Watch the Upcoming NFL Season
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FAQs
What coach has won the most Super Bowls?
Bill Belichick has won six Super Bowl titles as head coach of the New England Patriots, but those aren’t his only rings, as he also won two as an assistant coach for the New York Giants.
Who is the longest-tenured head coach in the NFL right now?
Bill Belichick was hired by the Patriots in 2000 and has coached the team since then. He’s one of just three current NFL head coaches hired by their current team before 2010, with the Steelers hiring Mike Tomlin in 2007 and the Ravens hiring John Harbaugh in 2008.
Who has the most victories as an NFL head coach?
Don Shula won 328 games in his career, making him the winningest head coach in NFL history. Patriots head coach Bill Belichick is third with 298 career wins, the most of any active head coach.
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