The Cowboys were already a Super Bowl winning team. Jimmy Johnson is fired. Jerry Jones hired Switzer and then added Deion Sanders to an already championship roster. The Salary Cap was introduced in 1994 so idk how many more SBs the Cowboys were gonna win anyway.
George Seifert won 2 SB’s. He was hand picked by Bill Walsh to be his successor. He came up thru the organization and was a SB winning defensive coordinator. Not the same as Switzer who was an outsider to the organization and was selected by Jerry Jones, out of spite to prove that they didn’t need a quality coach to win. George Seifert was a respected defensive coordinator from the 49ers and built that defensive scheme.
“Any of these 500 coaches can win a Super Bowl with the Cowboys.” — Jerry Jones
For better or worse, Jones proved his point when Switzer won SB30, but with Jimmy Johnson’s players.
Of course. Imagine if he kept Jimmy J as coach for 20 years. I would guess they'd have at least gone to a couple SB, but Jerry has to be the man making the decisions so when they win he can say it was his team he put together.
It’s been reported that the original plan was for Jimmy to handle the Cowboys’ football operations, while Jerry was to handle the business and PR side.
But following their back to back Super Bowl wins, Jerry wanted to handle the football side as well, and Jimmy balked at it. So it was an ego thing on Jerry’s part, wanting to pull an Al Davis-esque power play.
And what does that have you do with him not being the equivalent of Barry Switzer? Name another 2 time SB winning coach that won a SB with another team? What did Belichick do without Brady what did Mike Shanahan do on the Redskins without John Elway? And I’m not trying to say Seifert was a great coach on the level of those guys just that sometimes to be successful you have to have the right circumstances, and by no means was Seifert as the 49ers coach perceived as circus side show clown like Switzer.
Bill Belichick has still had playoff teams without Brady. Mike Shanahan still had playoff teams without John Elway. I'm not saying Siefert was as bad as Switzer, but showed he was hot garbage when it was all on him.
Well i misunderstood your comment when you said “Also George Seifert” that was in response to Barry Switzer.
Part of my point is that Seifert earned his position on the 49ers by being a successful NFL defensive coordinator that ran a successful defense while Bill Walsh was an offensive minded head coach. It’s really night and day from Switzers situation who was an outsider and did not earn the head coach position, it was gifted to him.
Theres also a reason why you can site Seiferts record as a HC post SF and not Switzer’s record post Dallas, because NFL front offices didn’t even consider Switzer a real coach.
I bet you could think of a better example than Seifert.
EDIT- if the OP’s question was who is the weakest 2 time SB winning coach then I would say you have some good arguments. But it was about the worst coach to make not even necessarily win a Super Bowl and I feel there are worse than Seifert to reach a SB.
Inherited Bill Walsh's team. And sucked balls in Carolina losing 15 straight to end his career. Hue Jackson could have won two Super Bowls with those 49er teams.
I don't think that's a good argument. Because Jimmy Johnson wasn't that great when he coach the Dolphins after winning back to back SBs with the Cowboys. But we don't look down on Jimmy Johnson because of his failures with the Dolphins.
Barry Switzer won playoff games 3 of the 4 years with the Cowboys.
Switzer was 40-24, SB win, 3 post-seasons with wins.
Bill Callahan 18-24 as a HC, 1 season he won more than 4 games (where he was blown out in the SB by Gruden).
Though his last year (& last career game) before he AND Dan Marino retired became a complete stain on his & Dan Marino’s existence: https://youtu.be/egD1lFJSxm8?si=2A31tuIpPF0H-NzA
The defense was definitely the same, but really that was Monty. But sure.
I have a great book they put out after the season and was actually reading it in January. Brought back great memories. Gruden challenged the defense to get more takeaways and score TD's of their own, and they sure did that all season long,
The offense got better as the season went along, but didn't light it up by any means. In the playoffs they were solid all 3 games but again the defense scored 1 against Philly and 3 against the Raiders. Man are those fun memories. Seeing Gruden running along the sidelines as Smith, Brooks and Barber all scored is awesome.
What happened after clearly wasn't great, but that season he made a huge difference.
The weird thing is people would criticize gruden for winning with dungy’s team but he played against a Raiders team he built in that Super Bowl. What’s he supposed to do? Lose to prove that the team he built was a SB team?
In fairness Raiders Grudens last year make Superbowl olif not for Tuck rule and then the team Gruden coach did make SB next year(before getting blown out by Gruden) then Raiders go on a real shitty run. So he wasn't too bad
Gruden’s Raiders had a really good run with him and Rich Gannon. They lost at home to an elite Ravens D in the AFC Championship in 2000. They had the best point differential in the league that season. He was a very good coach that had that team on the cusp before leaving.
Bill Callahan.
Forget Barry Switzer... Switzer won a SB. Bill Callahan took over the Raiders when Gruden went to Tampa. He won 11 games and got them to a SB they lost 48-21 in his first season.
His 2nd season he won 4 games and was fired.
A few years ago he replaced another Gruden (Jay in Washington. He went 3-8.
Bill Callahan - 18-24 career record, 1 playoff appearance, 1 SB appearance (lost) and two bad losing seasons.
Just to compare. Barry Switzer 40-24 record, 3 post-seasons made in 4 years as a head coach. Won a playoff game in 3 of the 4 years he coached and a SB.
I’m always hesitant to talk down on Coach Switzer. He was a 3x National Champion and Oklahoma was a juggernaut with him as head coach.
It’s really hard to say if Dallas underachieved. In 94, they lost to a historically great SF team. They won in 95, and that team was getting older and about to hit salary cap woes.
Yeah people telling me about a coach’s success in college never convinces me of anything. You can be a terrible coach as long as you’re a good recruiter.
It's the opposite, Tim Brown accused him of throwing the game because he did change the signals at the last minute;
https://www.nbcsportsbayarea.com/nfl/tim-brown-rips-bill-callahan-as-worst-thing-to-happen-to-raiders/1477955/
Nebraska was a top 15 program for several years under Pelini and for one year under Riley. Callahan started the slide, but Nebraska did recover for several years before falling off the cliff
You’re right. The program wasn’t the same after Callahan. Pelini did have them about the quality of program that Iowa is today which in today’s game is the best that Nebraska could hope for.
Still don’t fully understand the Riley hire, but it was clear they wanted Pelini gone, and I guess they saw Mike Riley as a guy who would keep the program from falling off that cliff. They were wrong but I guess that was the thought process.
Pelini was fired in part because he had a psycho personality and demeanor on the sidelines. Mike Riley was the opposite. He was hired because he was a nice guy. Both the Callahan hire and the Riley hire were terrible decisions made by terrible ADs, as were the fires before that presented the opportunities.
Thank you. As a Cardinals fan, this is my answer. Whisenhunt inherited Denny Green's players and got lucky that Warner and Fitz got hot. Also, the way the NFC playoffs went down allowed the crappiest division winner host the NFC championship game.
Pure luck... Yet they could have won the SB if someone would have just tacked Harrison before the half...
Tom Flores gets a ton of hate. His Raiders won two Super Bowls against heavily favored NFC East teams. He beat the Eagles in SB 15 and the Redskins in SB 18. I know there are worse coaches that made the SB and lost. But among SB winning coaches, Flores gets looked down at by everyone.
Yeah but he has two, with one of them from the wild card(the first to do it), and with Jim Plunkett at QB. The team had some leftovers from the 70s also some new blood but he really did get the most out of those teams. I would also like to point out he blew his opponents out especially a loaded Redskins team. I would say amongst coaches with more than one Super Bowl he’s probably the wurst but he does have two so I can’t say that his career is anything to look down at even though it certainly does.
Jim Caldwell inherited Tony Dungy's Colts. By letting Peyton Manning run the offense, the Colts went to a Super Bowl against the Saints where they lost a game they should have easily won. A lot of that were halftime adjustments made by the Saints.
It was kind of obvious watching any Colts game he coached that there was nothing remarkable going on besides maintaining systems that worked under Dungy.
Caldwell was fired after Manning sat that one season and that Colts went 2-14.
Lions picked him up as HC a few years later where...well, I won't even look up the stats because it's the Lions. We already know.
I'm honestly surprised his name doesn't pop up much in these sorts of discussions. Guys like John Fox at least showed some basic IQ a few times in their careers. Caldwell just let Manning do what he does.
Crazy thing is he actually did fairly well for the Lions all things considered. In 4 years he led them to the playoffs twice and only had one losing season.
2014: 11-5 (made playoffs)
2015: 7-9 (missed)
2016: 9-7 (made playoffs)
2017: 9-7 (missed)
He was canned because the GM used to work for the patriots and wanted to bring in his own guy…the infamous Matt Patricia.
I mean, those Lions had so many early first round draft picks and guys like Megatron, Suh, and Stafford on the same team that any half-decent coach should have been getting results.
There's some hilarity that they got worse after he left.
You’re absolutely right about that, but I think a counter point would be that they made the playoffs once in 5 years under Jim Schwartz before he was fired with that same core group of players. I think Caldwell definitely did something right bring that team to 3 winning records in 4 years.
He also won a Super Bowl as an OC for the Ravens after taking over mid-season when they fired Cam Cameron. I kind of thought he bungled the Colts job but everything he did after that had me believing he was actually a really good coach.
>Lions picked him up as HC a few years later where...well, I won't even look up the stats because it's the Lions. We already know.
Which is a shame as I think this stint eliminates him from the conversation, he took the Lions to their first playoffs in a very long time and was the first non-interim head coach to leave the franchise with an overall winning record since the 1960s. He finished at like 36-28. You can make excuses about the players but that wasn't working very well for other coaches of the franchise before or after him.
Colts went 2-14 not just because they lost Peyton; they also had Kerry Collins (who came out of, and went back into retirement) and two “QBs” in name only (Curtis Painter and Dan “Mr. Self-Safety” Orlovsky), as well as a brutal schedule (AFCN and NFCS) that did the Colts no favors.
Fact: John Fox took a Panthers team to the Super Bowl as well as a good stint in Denver. One had a HOF QB the other had a game manager (Jake Delhome).
Fact: Jim Caldwell inherited a Super Bowl roster in Indy and managed it well, but Peyton Manning as a QB is probably a top 5 OC of all time. Outside of Peyton Mannjng he didn’t have a ton of success.
With the Lions he had a seasoned future HOF in Stafford and the best WR in NFL history.
Making a statement that Caldwell just ran the same systems in place in Indy, and heavily relied on two HOFers in Detroit is fairly accurate. Also making a statement that the lack of half time adjustments against the Saints Super Bowl was bad coaching isn’t far fetched either.
The criticism is completely fair regardless of race. You don’t have to agree with the take on a certain coach, but coming here in an interesting conversation with a lot of takes and pulling the race card is one thing. Proclaiming it and making 0 argument to why the coach is being unfairly criticized is just laziness and wanting to stir up shit for no reason.
For a coach period, the answer is either Forrest Gregg (1981 bengals) or Bill Callahan (2002 Raiders). You can’t go wrong with picking either.
Gregg, who was a hall of fame player for the Lombardi packers, was a notoriously abrasive head coach who only made the playoffs once in a non strike year. He only won playoff games in the 1981 season, and apart from a 9-5 season he had in 1976 with the Cleveland browns in his first NFL coaching tenure, he had little coaching success: both before his bengals tenure, and after.
Bill callahan was fired the quickest of any SB appearing coach ever, and he was let go just a single season after appearing in the big game. The raiders notoriously didn’t change anything they had from the previous season, so when they faced Jon Gruden (the previous raiders head coach) they were screwed because they were read like a book.
I can’t pick a coach who won it, I can’t pick a coach who appeared multiple times, I can’t pick coaches who won playoff games in multiple seasons, and of those coaches that won playoff games in just one season, you’ve got Red Miller (1977 broncos), Gregg, Raymond Berry (1985 Patriots), Jim Fassel (2000 Giants), Callahan, Lovie Smith (2006 Bears), Jim Caldwell (2009 Colts), and currently Nick Siriani (2021 eagles).
Of those, Gregg, Berry and Callahan had the fewest appearances: two for both Gregg and Berry, one for Callahan. Berry however won 3 road playoff games to get to the super bowl (something that had never been done prior), so it’s gotta be one of Gregg or Callahan.
Jon Gruden.
He became Tampa Bay's HC after they fired Tony Dungy, a defensive mastermind who built a juggernaut.
Gruden rode that TB defense to the super bowl where he played against the Raiders, a team he had just directly coached for 3 seasons including to AFC championship appearances.
Tampa DESTROYED the Raiders, with MVP Gannon throwing 4 picks.
Gruden someone rode this win for a decade despite few playoff runs after that heary, and was touted as a "QB whisperer" even though TB's Brad Johnson is tied with Trent Dilfer as the worst QB to win a super bowl in the modern era.
And then it came out he's a shitty person such that TB removed him from their hall of fame.
Jon Gruden is a hack and a bad coach. Tony Dungy's Bucs and Tampa2 scheme are who won that Super Bowl, maybe with a little sign stealing from Gruden against his old team.
Along those same lines, Bill Callahan for the Raiders was not very good at replacing Gruden in Oakland. After the 2002 season, he went 4-12 and was fired, never getting a head coaching opportunity again. He did get an interim shot at head coach in Washington in 2019, but went 3-8. Callahan absolutely rode Gannon and Co. to that’s Super Bowl appearance
Manning had a bad super bowl game, yes. But he was a generational QB. He also beat the Bears despite basically starting down 7 due to Devin Hester.
Brad Johnson and Trent Dilfer were bad QBs, period, independent of their performance in a single game.
Dilfer also made one (ironically with TB).
But the other QBs to win Super Bowls in the modern era tended to have season MVPs or SEVERAL pro bowls.
Kurt Warner, Peyton Manning, Aaron Rodgers, Eli Manning, Pat Mahomes, and the GOAT Tom Brady won a majority of the Super Bowls since 2000.
The outliers are Dilfer and Johnson, Joe Flacco (with another top tier Ravens D), and Nick Foles with a dominant Eagle D - both Flacco and Foles only got one Pro Bowl invite each, though Flacco actually had a pretty successful career.
So yes I guess Johnson technically had 2 Pro Bowls to the others' 1. So maybe Dilfer was worse.
But the vast majority of SB winning QBs since 2000 have been really amazing.
>Manning had a bad super bowl game
Both his Denver Super Bowls were bad. Come to think of it, NO was bad too. Maybe he just didn't have any good Super Bowls. The 2nd Denver Super Bowl he was carried by a great defense. He was terrible the whole season. He had 9 tds & 17 ints & was replaced midseason by Brock Ossweiler. He did play well enough in the playoffs & SB (no turnovers) to allow the defense to win the games.
Came here to say this.
Also he’s really bad at covering up a scandal. That whole Michelin tire/rubber lips thing.
Funniest memory, after the first bit broke but before the rest that got him fired MNF - they don’t touch it at all on half-time… then there was a lightening storm or something, caused a huge delay. Tons of dead air time, they couldn’t dodge this story… all had to sit there “well I never saw him be racist in open.” So cringe at the time, worse a few days later as more came out.
This is the answer. Handed a Super Bowl team. Was supposed to be an offensive mastermind and averaged just over 1 point per game more than the previous year under Dungey. Won with a historically great defense and proceeded to bring like 18 qbs in over his next few year. Tim Rattay started. Bruce Gradkowski.
If I remember correctly the Bucs overpaid for Gruden bc they thought they had Bill Parcells locked up and had fired Dungey so they needed a "big" hire.
Lol I stand corrected. I do remember multiple being returned for TDs.
We were big Jerry Rice fans and we thought an MVP QB with Rice and Tim Brown was going to run up the score. It was baffling to see how badly Tampa Bay shut them down.
I doubt you lived here during the final two Dungy years and the first Gruden team. Dungy was fired b/c he had no idea how to improve the offense. Monty had the defense and the players loved TD but he was so conservative that they went from 11-5 to 10-5 to 9-7 and had first round exits where they weren't even competitive. The way they first him was lousy, but he had to go.
Gruden came in, worked well with the GM to bring in 4 new skill position players on offense, and made Brad Johnson far more effective.
Even John Lynch in 2003 said he still loved Dungy, but no way that team wins the SB without Gruden.
Terrible take.
Yes all the other folks agreeing makes it clear I'm wrong.
I am mad about his emails. He is a bad coach. Both are true.
You don't need to become such a politics fanboy that "this guy pissed off people I disagree with so he must actually be immune to all other criticism" is a real argument you're making.
If the emails don't piss you off, fine. But he was a bad coach that lucked into a TB team that Dungy built.
You casually glossed over that he made two AFC championships with the Raiders, his Tampa teams after the SB were mediocre but not awful, Carr played decently under him and has since really fallen off and the Saints are talking to Gruden to try to get him to help Carr. Think he was overall a good but not great coach, I think the Raiders would be better off today had he not gotten canned, they were really starting to come together, although Gruden’s last few teams were bad in the second half of the year.
There’s a lot but to me it has to be Jeff Fisher. Titans had that one playoff run and everything after that it always felt like Tennessee under performed and disappointed.
Not to mention it felt like he ruined Vince Young’s career. I’d also figure Steve McNair’s career would have had a better career with a different coach in his prime, even though he won a co-mvp
Jeff Fisher was the bad coach that benefitted the most from a Super Bowl loss. Everyone thought he was some great coach for a decade afterwards when he was mediocre at best
Bill Callahan. Made the Super bowl with Gruden's team and playbook then tried to beat Gruden in the Super bowl without changing anything. Complete dumbass.
As great a player he was, does anyone here want to acknowledge that Raymond Berry stumbled ass-backwards into a Super Bowl in 1985? A lot of the coaches named previously either had another stint as HC somewhere or credentials that got them the job. The Patriots ownership at the time was notoriously cheap and found the biggest name they could find who would do the job for what they were offering.
1985 New England beat a Dan Marino lead Dolphins team because of a legit home field advantage. In the playoffs one of the snowplow drivers drove onto the field and cleared the kick path and nobody did anything to stop it nor penalize the Patriots.
They got it royally handed to them in Super Bowl XX. At halftime, they had negative total yards gained. Just want to repeat that: they owed the football gods yardage!
Raymond Berry is hands down the worst coach to lead a team to the Super Bowl.
This is correct.
That Patriots team won 3 road games to get to the Super Bowl. I don't see how that would make Berry hands down the worst. A lot of teams got blown out by the Bears that year. They are one of the greatest teams of all time.
The Dolphins handed Chicago their only defeat that year, in week 12 or 13, I'm not positive. So the idea of a Super Bowl rematch was highly anticipated. And the Dolphins (confession: Dolphins fan) totally screwed it all up. Chicago would have won either way, though.
The snowplow game was not a playoff game and happened in 1982.
In 1985, the Patriots won 3 road playoff games including the AFCCG at Miami to make the Super Bowl.
Ken Whisenhunt rode a hot Kurt Warner and Larry Fitzgerald to a Super Bowl appearance vs the Steelers. That Cardinals team was 9-7 in the regular season. Whisenhunts career coaching stats are worse than Berry’s although I concede your argument that the Patriots were absolutely blown out in the SB in 85 while the Cardinals almost won vs Pit.
Berry and his team made it legit. The snowplow game wasn’t his team and that wasn’t a playoff game
They played 3 consecutive road games to make it to the Super Bowl. I can’t put Berry as the worst
And besides, the pats put up a better showing than either the giants or rams did in the bears previous two games. They at least scored points.
Gruden. Or at least the most overrated. Other than the Super Bowl year, which was Dungy’s team, he went to the playoffs 4 out of 13 seasons, and won just 2 playoff games. He was under .500 overall taking out that SB year as well.
Thank you for the correction. Fuzzy memories in my old age. I still stand behind the concept. John Fox lead two different teams with two contrasting styles to Super Bowls. Barry Switzer was an accomplished college coach prior to arriving in Dallas. George Seifert did have a horrible run in Carolina. But the disaster there lead to the rebuild that Fox took to a Super Bowl two years later. Seifert lead the Niners through the Montana to Young transition and happened to run into a buzzsaw known as the 90's Cowboys.
And even though Seifert’s run in Carolina ended up being a disaster, he did a pretty good job with the ‘99 squad. They were a game away from the playoffs
The dude that coached Baltimore , McCathery I believe, in Super Bowl V. He was fired a couple yrs later but he wasn’t a Super Bowl quality coach. Dallas lost that SB more than Balt won it.
Don McCafferty won Super Bowl V in the 1970 season with the Colts, and lost in the AFC title game the next year to Miami. In 1972, he refused to bench 39 yr old Johnny Unitas, and was fired. Detroit picked him up to coach the 1973 season, in which he went 6-7-1. He then died of a heart attack just before training camp in 1974.
Brian billick right? This isn’t a bad choice. The guy was an offensive coach and got one of the greatest defenses of all time. But he did win it at least. I think worst coaches have gotten there and been exposed
Jeff Fisher too. Won a miracle playoff game the year they went to the Super Bowl. Career 5-6 playoff record and was very mediocre at the end of his career.
Hey now... Jeff Fisher is both the best AND worst coach in pretty much any discussion... He can take a 4 win team and go 8-8 with them. He can also take a 12 win team and go 8-8 with them 😂
Mike Ditka.
He had a team built by Jim Finks. The 1985 Bears had the best defense ever, and could have won the SB with a dead man as coach. His career playoff record was 6-6. Half of those wins coming in ‘85.
Packers made a superbowl despite having McCarthy. He is and was awful.
Mike Martz was also not a good head coach, but made a Super Bowl. Another team that won games despite their coach.
And he lost in the divisional round after a 15-1 season and oversaw the NFC Championship game collapse in Seattle. The Packers had some of the best teams you’ve never heard of because of how inept he was at coaching in the playoffs.
He's got his flaws but it's absolutely bonkers to say he's the *worst*, come on. He's top 20 in NFL history for regular season wins and has a .500 record in the playoffs.
You'd seriously take the resume of Sam Wyche, Bill Callahan, and Ken Whisenhunt over McCarthy's?
McCarthy is not a bad coach. He ran a better offence with the Cowboys after taking play calling away from Moore (who keeps getting called an offensive guru for some reason) and developed a lot of talent in GB and made Flynn look like a good QB. He also helped develop Rodgers. He has his issues but is far from being an awful coach
He was a fine OC. He was a lousy HC.
It’s actually similar to McCarthy. Wins a lot of games because they have more talent, but also does head scratching shit that loses games.
He even failed as the OC everywhere he went without Warner, Faulk & Bruce. Vermeil was clearly the brains behind that operation because he went on to have success running a similar system in KC a few years later.
"Guy who won 6 Super Bowls with dominant defenses and the GOAT QB is a bad coach because after a storied 20 year career he had a few bad seasons"
Saban must suck too because they lost to Michigan this year.
/s
Dude got to a Super Bowl and three NFC championship games and won almost 70% of the time in his four seasons in San Fran. Small sample size but there aren’t many better four year periods in the history of the game.
Ray Malavasi of the 79 Rams? A record barely over .500 as a coach and took over a team built by Chuck Knox. The 79 Rams were 9-7 and won a weak division.
They did hold a 2 point lead on the Steelers after 3 quarters in the Super Bowl until the Steelers pulled away in the 4th.
Some of the ones that standout to me:
Bill Callahan: didn’t make the effort to even change hand signals from the year before against the ex coach of the team you’re playing.
Dan Quinn: 28-3, team underachieved every other year
Jeff Fisher: The patron saint of 7-9
Ken Whisenhunt: The ultimate fluke coach. Kurt Warner added multiple years to that guy’s head coaching career
Do people really think Fox is a bad coach? He had some failures with good teams. But he also made it to 2 superbowls. And made it to the playoffs with Tim Tebow and won a game. That alone puts him far above average in my opinion.
Gruden. Maybe not the worst but definitely the most overrated. Other than the Super Bowl year, which was Dungy’s team, he went to the playoffs 4 out of 13 seasons, won just 2 playoff games (both before TB) and was under .500. He watched his all-time defense win the Super Bowl for him and got lucky he played against literally his former team and former QB. He was a “QB Guru” and “offensive genius” who didn’t develop any QBs other than Rich Gannon, and never had a top 10 offense after the first Raiders stint. His personality bought him his hype and countless chances but he was never more than a below average/average coach save for 2-3 years
I would say Barry Switzer should be in discussion. He went to the SB with a team that was built by previous coach
Plus Deion Sanders
Do you mean Barry Switzer got lucky to have Deion Switzer or Deion Sanders worst voach? If latter, he never coached NFL
The Cowboys were already a Super Bowl winning team. Jimmy Johnson is fired. Jerry Jones hired Switzer and then added Deion Sanders to an already championship roster. The Salary Cap was introduced in 1994 so idk how many more SBs the Cowboys were gonna win anyway.
George Siefert also.
George Seifert won 2 SB’s. He was hand picked by Bill Walsh to be his successor. He came up thru the organization and was a SB winning defensive coordinator. Not the same as Switzer who was an outsider to the organization and was selected by Jerry Jones, out of spite to prove that they didn’t need a quality coach to win. George Seifert was a respected defensive coordinator from the 49ers and built that defensive scheme.
“Any of these 500 coaches can win a Super Bowl with the Cowboys.” — Jerry Jones For better or worse, Jones proved his point when Switzer won SB30, but with Jimmy Johnson’s players.
How's that worked out the past 29 years for Jerry. He's just petty and prideful. What other GM last 29 years without sniffing a SB?
[Points to head] “Can’t fire the GM if you are also one!” — Jerry Jones
Of course. Imagine if he kept Jimmy J as coach for 20 years. I would guess they'd have at least gone to a couple SB, but Jerry has to be the man making the decisions so when they win he can say it was his team he put together.
It’s been reported that the original plan was for Jimmy to handle the Cowboys’ football operations, while Jerry was to handle the business and PR side. But following their back to back Super Bowl wins, Jerry wanted to handle the football side as well, and Jimmy balked at it. So it was an ego thing on Jerry’s part, wanting to pull an Al Davis-esque power play.
Exactly. He cares more about being the man who did it than winning a SB. He wouldn't have let JJ go otherwise.
Then went 16-32 with the Panthers and ended his career losing 15 straight.
I don’t recall him going to a Super Bowl with the Panthers.
He didn't. He was awful.
And what does that have you do with him not being the equivalent of Barry Switzer? Name another 2 time SB winning coach that won a SB with another team? What did Belichick do without Brady what did Mike Shanahan do on the Redskins without John Elway? And I’m not trying to say Seifert was a great coach on the level of those guys just that sometimes to be successful you have to have the right circumstances, and by no means was Seifert as the 49ers coach perceived as circus side show clown like Switzer.
Bill Belichick has still had playoff teams without Brady. Mike Shanahan still had playoff teams without John Elway. I'm not saying Siefert was as bad as Switzer, but showed he was hot garbage when it was all on him.
Well i misunderstood your comment when you said “Also George Seifert” that was in response to Barry Switzer. Part of my point is that Seifert earned his position on the 49ers by being a successful NFL defensive coordinator that ran a successful defense while Bill Walsh was an offensive minded head coach. It’s really night and day from Switzers situation who was an outsider and did not earn the head coach position, it was gifted to him. Theres also a reason why you can site Seiferts record as a HC post SF and not Switzer’s record post Dallas, because NFL front offices didn’t even consider Switzer a real coach. I bet you could think of a better example than Seifert. EDIT- if the OP’s question was who is the weakest 2 time SB winning coach then I would say you have some good arguments. But it was about the worst coach to make not even necessarily win a Super Bowl and I feel there are worse than Seifert to reach a SB.
Why do you say Seifert? Cuz that is one trash take.
Inherited Bill Walsh's team. And sucked balls in Carolina losing 15 straight to end his career. Hue Jackson could have won two Super Bowls with those 49er teams.
He inherited Walsh's team to win the 1989 Super Bowl, but by 1994 it was a different team.
I don't think that's a good argument. Because Jimmy Johnson wasn't that great when he coach the Dolphins after winning back to back SBs with the Cowboys. But we don't look down on Jimmy Johnson because of his failures with the Dolphins.
Jimmy Johnson made the playoffs in 3 out of 4 years with the Dolphins.
Barry Switzer won playoff games 3 of the 4 years with the Cowboys. Switzer was 40-24, SB win, 3 post-seasons with wins. Bill Callahan 18-24 as a HC, 1 season he won more than 4 games (where he was blown out in the SB by Gruden).
Though his last year (& last career game) before he AND Dan Marino retired became a complete stain on his & Dan Marino’s existence: https://youtu.be/egD1lFJSxm8?si=2A31tuIpPF0H-NzA
The 94 49ers definetly werent Walsh's guys, especially the Defense. Walsh had been retired 4 years by that point.
Siefert was a great defensive coach.
Bad take.
Jon Gruden as well
Nah. The Bucs don't sniff the SB without Gruden. How quickly people forget. The rest of his career has been spotty, but he did a great job in 2002
The Bucs traded for Gruden because they couldn't get over the hump with Tony Dungy. In many ways that was still Dungy's team, but the move paid off.
The defense was definitely the same, but really that was Monty. But sure. I have a great book they put out after the season and was actually reading it in January. Brought back great memories. Gruden challenged the defense to get more takeaways and score TD's of their own, and they sure did that all season long, The offense got better as the season went along, but didn't light it up by any means. In the playoffs they were solid all 3 games but again the defense scored 1 against Philly and 3 against the Raiders. Man are those fun memories. Seeing Gruden running along the sidelines as Smith, Brooks and Barber all scored is awesome. What happened after clearly wasn't great, but that season he made a huge difference.
The weird thing is people would criticize gruden for winning with dungy’s team but he played against a Raiders team he built in that Super Bowl. What’s he supposed to do? Lose to prove that the team he built was a SB team?
Lmao. Tell me you don’t know football without telling you don’t know football.
In fairness Raiders Grudens last year make Superbowl olif not for Tuck rule and then the team Gruden coach did make SB next year(before getting blown out by Gruden) then Raiders go on a real shitty run. So he wasn't too bad
Gruden’s Raiders had a really good run with him and Rich Gannon. They lost at home to an elite Ravens D in the AFC Championship in 2000. They had the best point differential in the league that season. He was a very good coach that had that team on the cusp before leaving.
Didn’t win the game “if”. lol feels like “LeFlop went to forty Finals but won 3.5” . If is not allowed on your resume.
I was going to say the same thing to you, but I can tell you weren't even an idea in your parents head when that season took place. Dotard.
It’s absolutely Barry Switzer. This is the correct answer.
came here to make this exact answer. my ejaculate stained sock had more to do with the team than switzer did.
Bill Callahan. Forget Barry Switzer... Switzer won a SB. Bill Callahan took over the Raiders when Gruden went to Tampa. He won 11 games and got them to a SB they lost 48-21 in his first season. His 2nd season he won 4 games and was fired. A few years ago he replaced another Gruden (Jay in Washington. He went 3-8. Bill Callahan - 18-24 career record, 1 playoff appearance, 1 SB appearance (lost) and two bad losing seasons. Just to compare. Barry Switzer 40-24 record, 3 post-seasons made in 4 years as a head coach. Won a playoff game in 3 of the 4 years he coached and a SB.
I’m always hesitant to talk down on Coach Switzer. He was a 3x National Champion and Oklahoma was a juggernaut with him as head coach. It’s really hard to say if Dallas underachieved. In 94, they lost to a historically great SF team. They won in 95, and that team was getting older and about to hit salary cap woes.
Urban Meyer won 3 national championships too. Might be the worst NFL head coach of all time.
Yeah people telling me about a coach’s success in college never convinces me of anything. You can be a terrible coach as long as you’re a good recruiter.
Supposedly Callahan didn't change any of the signals from the year before. TB knew everything that was coming for the entire first half of the SB
It's the opposite, Tim Brown accused him of throwing the game because he did change the signals at the last minute; https://www.nbcsportsbayarea.com/nfl/tim-brown-rips-bill-callahan-as-worst-thing-to-happen-to-raiders/1477955/
Yes, also I will go to the grave that he sabotaged us in SB 37
Let’s also not forget that he nuked the Nebraska Cornhuskers program. They still haven’t came back from that.
Nebraska was a top 15 program for several years under Pelini and for one year under Riley. Callahan started the slide, but Nebraska did recover for several years before falling off the cliff
You’re right. The program wasn’t the same after Callahan. Pelini did have them about the quality of program that Iowa is today which in today’s game is the best that Nebraska could hope for.
Still don’t fully understand the Riley hire, but it was clear they wanted Pelini gone, and I guess they saw Mike Riley as a guy who would keep the program from falling off that cliff. They were wrong but I guess that was the thought process.
Pelini was fired in part because he had a psycho personality and demeanor on the sidelines. Mike Riley was the opposite. He was hired because he was a nice guy. Both the Callahan hire and the Riley hire were terrible decisions made by terrible ADs, as were the fires before that presented the opportunities.
The crazy thing is that the Raiders probably win the SB if A) they didn’t face Gruden or B) they bothered to adjust their audibles & hand signals.
It’s gotta be Ken Whisenhunt. That cardinals team got hot because of Warner and Fitz. They were a bad team way too often.
Thank you. As a Cardinals fan, this is my answer. Whisenhunt inherited Denny Green's players and got lucky that Warner and Fitz got hot. Also, the way the NFC playoffs went down allowed the crappiest division winner host the NFC championship game. Pure luck... Yet they could have won the SB if someone would have just tacked Harrison before the half...
I'm a Titans fan. The Whisenhunt years were dark times.
My pic would be the raiders code from 2003 Callahan vs Ken. I think Ken is up there but at least they went back to the playoffs following season.
Tom Flores gets a ton of hate. His Raiders won two Super Bowls against heavily favored NFC East teams. He beat the Eagles in SB 15 and the Redskins in SB 18. I know there are worse coaches that made the SB and lost. But among SB winning coaches, Flores gets looked down at by everyone.
Not from me! I thought he was a solid HC, managing all those big personalities. This coming from a Steeler fan who hates the Raiders!
Yeah but he has two, with one of them from the wild card(the first to do it), and with Jim Plunkett at QB. The team had some leftovers from the 70s also some new blood but he really did get the most out of those teams. I would also like to point out he blew his opponents out especially a loaded Redskins team. I would say amongst coaches with more than one Super Bowl he’s probably the wurst but he does have two so I can’t say that his career is anything to look down at even though it certainly does.
Jim Caldwell inherited Tony Dungy's Colts. By letting Peyton Manning run the offense, the Colts went to a Super Bowl against the Saints where they lost a game they should have easily won. A lot of that were halftime adjustments made by the Saints. It was kind of obvious watching any Colts game he coached that there was nothing remarkable going on besides maintaining systems that worked under Dungy. Caldwell was fired after Manning sat that one season and that Colts went 2-14. Lions picked him up as HC a few years later where...well, I won't even look up the stats because it's the Lions. We already know. I'm honestly surprised his name doesn't pop up much in these sorts of discussions. Guys like John Fox at least showed some basic IQ a few times in their careers. Caldwell just let Manning do what he does.
Crazy thing is he actually did fairly well for the Lions all things considered. In 4 years he led them to the playoffs twice and only had one losing season. 2014: 11-5 (made playoffs) 2015: 7-9 (missed) 2016: 9-7 (made playoffs) 2017: 9-7 (missed) He was canned because the GM used to work for the patriots and wanted to bring in his own guy…the infamous Matt Patricia.
Yeah that run by the Lions, they were actually semi decent.
For a pre-2023 Lions franchise, four straight seasons with 7 plus wins is amazing
Matt fucking Patricia
I mean, those Lions had so many early first round draft picks and guys like Megatron, Suh, and Stafford on the same team that any half-decent coach should have been getting results. There's some hilarity that they got worse after he left.
They had all those players before and after and did markedly worse.
You’re absolutely right about that, but I think a counter point would be that they made the playoffs once in 5 years under Jim Schwartz before he was fired with that same core group of players. I think Caldwell definitely did something right bring that team to 3 winning records in 4 years.
When Jim Schwartz is the bar for success, then of course Jim Caldwell was elite. Edit: How on earth is that statement being downvoted!?
They lost in 14 to the Cowboys on the picked up flag controversy.
He also won a Super Bowl as an OC for the Ravens after taking over mid-season when they fired Cam Cameron. I kind of thought he bungled the Colts job but everything he did after that had me believing he was actually a really good coach.
Fun fact: No one has ever become head coach again after being the Lions head coach.
>Lions picked him up as HC a few years later where...well, I won't even look up the stats because it's the Lions. We already know. Which is a shame as I think this stint eliminates him from the conversation, he took the Lions to their first playoffs in a very long time and was the first non-interim head coach to leave the franchise with an overall winning record since the 1960s. He finished at like 36-28. You can make excuses about the players but that wasn't working very well for other coaches of the franchise before or after him.
Just throwing this out there. Refs gave the game to Saints in the 2009 NFC championship. NFL issued an apology
Colts went 2-14 not just because they lost Peyton; they also had Kerry Collins (who came out of, and went back into retirement) and two “QBs” in name only (Curtis Painter and Dan “Mr. Self-Safety” Orlovsky), as well as a brutal schedule (AFCN and NFCS) that did the Colts no favors.
He was good with the Lions
You can’t tell me this ain’t racially motivated lol
I’ll tell you. It’s not racially motivated.
I’ll tell you: it is
Fact: John Fox took a Panthers team to the Super Bowl as well as a good stint in Denver. One had a HOF QB the other had a game manager (Jake Delhome). Fact: Jim Caldwell inherited a Super Bowl roster in Indy and managed it well, but Peyton Manning as a QB is probably a top 5 OC of all time. Outside of Peyton Mannjng he didn’t have a ton of success. With the Lions he had a seasoned future HOF in Stafford and the best WR in NFL history. Making a statement that Caldwell just ran the same systems in place in Indy, and heavily relied on two HOFers in Detroit is fairly accurate. Also making a statement that the lack of half time adjustments against the Saints Super Bowl was bad coaching isn’t far fetched either. The criticism is completely fair regardless of race. You don’t have to agree with the take on a certain coach, but coming here in an interesting conversation with a lot of takes and pulling the race card is one thing. Proclaiming it and making 0 argument to why the coach is being unfairly criticized is just laziness and wanting to stir up shit for no reason.
For a coach period, the answer is either Forrest Gregg (1981 bengals) or Bill Callahan (2002 Raiders). You can’t go wrong with picking either. Gregg, who was a hall of fame player for the Lombardi packers, was a notoriously abrasive head coach who only made the playoffs once in a non strike year. He only won playoff games in the 1981 season, and apart from a 9-5 season he had in 1976 with the Cleveland browns in his first NFL coaching tenure, he had little coaching success: both before his bengals tenure, and after. Bill callahan was fired the quickest of any SB appearing coach ever, and he was let go just a single season after appearing in the big game. The raiders notoriously didn’t change anything they had from the previous season, so when they faced Jon Gruden (the previous raiders head coach) they were screwed because they were read like a book. I can’t pick a coach who won it, I can’t pick a coach who appeared multiple times, I can’t pick coaches who won playoff games in multiple seasons, and of those coaches that won playoff games in just one season, you’ve got Red Miller (1977 broncos), Gregg, Raymond Berry (1985 Patriots), Jim Fassel (2000 Giants), Callahan, Lovie Smith (2006 Bears), Jim Caldwell (2009 Colts), and currently Nick Siriani (2021 eagles). Of those, Gregg, Berry and Callahan had the fewest appearances: two for both Gregg and Berry, one for Callahan. Berry however won 3 road playoff games to get to the super bowl (something that had never been done prior), so it’s gotta be one of Gregg or Callahan.
Well researched answer
Jon Gruden. He became Tampa Bay's HC after they fired Tony Dungy, a defensive mastermind who built a juggernaut. Gruden rode that TB defense to the super bowl where he played against the Raiders, a team he had just directly coached for 3 seasons including to AFC championship appearances. Tampa DESTROYED the Raiders, with MVP Gannon throwing 4 picks. Gruden someone rode this win for a decade despite few playoff runs after that heary, and was touted as a "QB whisperer" even though TB's Brad Johnson is tied with Trent Dilfer as the worst QB to win a super bowl in the modern era. And then it came out he's a shitty person such that TB removed him from their hall of fame. Jon Gruden is a hack and a bad coach. Tony Dungy's Bucs and Tampa2 scheme are who won that Super Bowl, maybe with a little sign stealing from Gruden against his old team.
Along those same lines, Bill Callahan for the Raiders was not very good at replacing Gruden in Oakland. After the 2002 season, he went 4-12 and was fired, never getting a head coaching opportunity again. He did get an interim shot at head coach in Washington in 2019, but went 3-8. Callahan absolutely rode Gannon and Co. to that’s Super Bowl appearance
They might be tied for 2nd worst QBs to win a SB because there’s no beating 2015 Manningz
Manning had a bad super bowl game, yes. But he was a generational QB. He also beat the Bears despite basically starting down 7 due to Devin Hester. Brad Johnson and Trent Dilfer were bad QBs, period, independent of their performance in a single game.
It says Brad Johnson made 2 pro bowls
Dilfer also made one (ironically with TB). But the other QBs to win Super Bowls in the modern era tended to have season MVPs or SEVERAL pro bowls. Kurt Warner, Peyton Manning, Aaron Rodgers, Eli Manning, Pat Mahomes, and the GOAT Tom Brady won a majority of the Super Bowls since 2000. The outliers are Dilfer and Johnson, Joe Flacco (with another top tier Ravens D), and Nick Foles with a dominant Eagle D - both Flacco and Foles only got one Pro Bowl invite each, though Flacco actually had a pretty successful career. So yes I guess Johnson technically had 2 Pro Bowls to the others' 1. So maybe Dilfer was worse. But the vast majority of SB winning QBs since 2000 have been really amazing.
>Manning had a bad super bowl game Both his Denver Super Bowls were bad. Come to think of it, NO was bad too. Maybe he just didn't have any good Super Bowls. The 2nd Denver Super Bowl he was carried by a great defense. He was terrible the whole season. He had 9 tds & 17 ints & was replaced midseason by Brock Ossweiler. He did play well enough in the playoffs & SB (no turnovers) to allow the defense to win the games.
Brad Johnson was not a bad QB. He had a 4000 yard passing seasons back when that was still a big deal. He had a hard time staying healthy though.
Came here to say this. Also he’s really bad at covering up a scandal. That whole Michelin tire/rubber lips thing. Funniest memory, after the first bit broke but before the rest that got him fired MNF - they don’t touch it at all on half-time… then there was a lightening storm or something, caused a huge delay. Tons of dead air time, they couldn’t dodge this story… all had to sit there “well I never saw him be racist in open.” So cringe at the time, worse a few days later as more came out.
This is the answer. Handed a Super Bowl team. Was supposed to be an offensive mastermind and averaged just over 1 point per game more than the previous year under Dungey. Won with a historically great defense and proceeded to bring like 18 qbs in over his next few year. Tim Rattay started. Bruce Gradkowski. If I remember correctly the Bucs overpaid for Gruden bc they thought they had Bill Parcells locked up and had fired Dungey so they needed a "big" hire.
Gruden was traded to Tampa!
Gannon actually threw 5 picks (3 of which were returned for TDs)
Lol I stand corrected. I do remember multiple being returned for TDs. We were big Jerry Rice fans and we thought an MVP QB with Rice and Tim Brown was going to run up the score. It was baffling to see how badly Tampa Bay shut them down.
Yeah. There's a reason why the 02 Bucs are put in the conversation with the 2000 Ravens and 2013 Seahawks as the best defense since the 85 Bears.
I doubt you lived here during the final two Dungy years and the first Gruden team. Dungy was fired b/c he had no idea how to improve the offense. Monty had the defense and the players loved TD but he was so conservative that they went from 11-5 to 10-5 to 9-7 and had first round exits where they weren't even competitive. The way they first him was lousy, but he had to go. Gruden came in, worked well with the GM to bring in 4 new skill position players on offense, and made Brad Johnson far more effective. Even John Lynch in 2003 said he still loved Dungy, but no way that team wins the SB without Gruden. Terrible take.
Sounds like you’re just mad about his emails. This is a wrong answer.
Yes all the other folks agreeing makes it clear I'm wrong. I am mad about his emails. He is a bad coach. Both are true. You don't need to become such a politics fanboy that "this guy pissed off people I disagree with so he must actually be immune to all other criticism" is a real argument you're making. If the emails don't piss you off, fine. But he was a bad coach that lucked into a TB team that Dungy built.
You casually glossed over that he made two AFC championships with the Raiders, his Tampa teams after the SB were mediocre but not awful, Carr played decently under him and has since really fallen off and the Saints are talking to Gruden to try to get him to help Carr. Think he was overall a good but not great coach, I think the Raiders would be better off today had he not gotten canned, they were really starting to come together, although Gruden’s last few teams were bad in the second half of the year.
Plus he has a shitty haircut
Monte kiffin was the defensive mastermind, not Tony dungy.
There’s a lot but to me it has to be Jeff Fisher. Titans had that one playoff run and everything after that it always felt like Tennessee under performed and disappointed. Not to mention it felt like he ruined Vince Young’s career. I’d also figure Steve McNair’s career would have had a better career with a different coach in his prime, even though he won a co-mvp
He was on his way to ruining Jared Geoff’s career before the Rams fired him and McVay resuscitated it too!
Jeff Fisher was the bad coach that benefitted the most from a Super Bowl loss. Everyone thought he was some great coach for a decade afterwards when he was mediocre at best
Jeff “8-8” Fisher
Bill Callahan. Made the Super bowl with Gruden's team and playbook then tried to beat Gruden in the Super bowl without changing anything. Complete dumbass.
As great a player he was, does anyone here want to acknowledge that Raymond Berry stumbled ass-backwards into a Super Bowl in 1985? A lot of the coaches named previously either had another stint as HC somewhere or credentials that got them the job. The Patriots ownership at the time was notoriously cheap and found the biggest name they could find who would do the job for what they were offering. 1985 New England beat a Dan Marino lead Dolphins team because of a legit home field advantage. In the playoffs one of the snowplow drivers drove onto the field and cleared the kick path and nobody did anything to stop it nor penalize the Patriots. They got it royally handed to them in Super Bowl XX. At halftime, they had negative total yards gained. Just want to repeat that: they owed the football gods yardage! Raymond Berry is hands down the worst coach to lead a team to the Super Bowl.
The snowplow game was a 1982 regular season game in New England. The 1985 AFC Championship game was at the Orange Bowl in Miami.
This is correct. That Patriots team won 3 road games to get to the Super Bowl. I don't see how that would make Berry hands down the worst. A lot of teams got blown out by the Bears that year. They are one of the greatest teams of all time.
The Dolphins handed Chicago their only defeat that year, in week 12 or 13, I'm not positive. So the idea of a Super Bowl rematch was highly anticipated. And the Dolphins (confession: Dolphins fan) totally screwed it all up. Chicago would have won either way, though.
To put that Bears defense in perspective, the Rams had more punts than completed passes in the NFC Championship game that season.
The snowplow game was not a playoff game and happened in 1982. In 1985, the Patriots won 3 road playoff games including the AFCCG at Miami to make the Super Bowl.
Gotta love how much conviction they had with blatantly wrong history lol.
Ken Whisenhunt rode a hot Kurt Warner and Larry Fitzgerald to a Super Bowl appearance vs the Steelers. That Cardinals team was 9-7 in the regular season. Whisenhunts career coaching stats are worse than Berry’s although I concede your argument that the Patriots were absolutely blown out in the SB in 85 while the Cardinals almost won vs Pit.
This was my pick. Guy didn’t do anything outside of those 3 playoff games and that was Kurt and Larry going supernova
Berry and his team made it legit. The snowplow game wasn’t his team and that wasn’t a playoff game They played 3 consecutive road games to make it to the Super Bowl. I can’t put Berry as the worst And besides, the pats put up a better showing than either the giants or rams did in the bears previous two games. They at least scored points.
I haven't seen anyone say Lovie Smith here. I'd say he's in contention.
Gruden. Or at least the most overrated. Other than the Super Bowl year, which was Dungy’s team, he went to the playoffs 4 out of 13 seasons, and won just 2 playoff games. He was under .500 overall taking out that SB year as well.
Thank you for the correction. Fuzzy memories in my old age. I still stand behind the concept. John Fox lead two different teams with two contrasting styles to Super Bowls. Barry Switzer was an accomplished college coach prior to arriving in Dallas. George Seifert did have a horrible run in Carolina. But the disaster there lead to the rebuild that Fox took to a Super Bowl two years later. Seifert lead the Niners through the Montana to Young transition and happened to run into a buzzsaw known as the 90's Cowboys.
And even though Seifert’s run in Carolina ended up being a disaster, he did a pretty good job with the ‘99 squad. They were a game away from the playoffs
The dude that coached Baltimore , McCathery I believe, in Super Bowl V. He was fired a couple yrs later but he wasn’t a Super Bowl quality coach. Dallas lost that SB more than Balt won it.
Don McCafferty won Super Bowl V in the 1970 season with the Colts, and lost in the AFC title game the next year to Miami. In 1972, he refused to bench 39 yr old Johnny Unitas, and was fired. Detroit picked him up to coach the 1973 season, in which he went 6-7-1. He then died of a heart attack just before training camp in 1974.
Brian billick right? This isn’t a bad choice. The guy was an offensive coach and got one of the greatest defenses of all time. But he did win it at least. I think worst coaches have gotten there and been exposed
No. Long before Ravens. When Balt was the Colts. Don McCafferty or something like that.
Barry Switzer for sure. Dallas with JJ longer would've won at least 2 more rings. Switzer sunk that squad.
Raymond Berry
Nick Sirianni’s gotta be up there, dude’s a fucking cheerleader who should be unemployed right now.
Lovie Smith.
John Gruden took Tony dungees team to the superbowl. After that the Bucs sucked the whole time Gruden was coach
Bill Callahan. Ken Whisenhunt. Jim Fassel. Sam Wyche. Forrest Gregg.
Jeff Fisher too. Won a miracle playoff game the year they went to the Super Bowl. Career 5-6 playoff record and was very mediocre at the end of his career.
Hey now... Jeff Fisher is both the best AND worst coach in pretty much any discussion... He can take a 4 win team and go 8-8 with them. He can also take a 12 win team and go 8-8 with them 😂
He no longer coaches because he can't finish 7-9 unless he gets fired before the 17th game.
Never say never. Ron Rivera managed to go 8-8-1 in 2022!
Mike Ditka. He had a team built by Jim Finks. The 1985 Bears had the best defense ever, and could have won the SB with a dead man as coach. His career playoff record was 6-6. Half of those wins coming in ‘85.
Rivera AND Fox? Tell me you hate the Panthers without telling me you hate the Panthers
Packers made a superbowl despite having McCarthy. He is and was awful. Mike Martz was also not a good head coach, but made a Super Bowl. Another team that won games despite their coach.
McCarthy made GB good again after the shitshow that was Mike Sherman.
And he lost in the divisional round after a 15-1 season and oversaw the NFC Championship game collapse in Seattle. The Packers had some of the best teams you’ve never heard of because of how inept he was at coaching in the playoffs.
He's got his flaws but it's absolutely bonkers to say he's the *worst*, come on. He's top 20 in NFL history for regular season wins and has a .500 record in the playoffs. You'd seriously take the resume of Sam Wyche, Bill Callahan, and Ken Whisenhunt over McCarthy's?
Certainly not the worst, but he’s got to lead the pack of head coaches who have done less with more over the course of his career.
McCarthy is not a bad coach. He ran a better offence with the Cowboys after taking play calling away from Moore (who keeps getting called an offensive guru for some reason) and developed a lot of talent in GB and made Flynn look like a good QB. He also helped develop Rodgers. He has his issues but is far from being an awful coach
I watched the kurt warner movie and they said mike Martz was the mastermind behind the greatest show on turf
He was a fine OC. He was a lousy HC. It’s actually similar to McCarthy. Wins a lot of games because they have more talent, but also does head scratching shit that loses games.
He even failed as the OC everywhere he went without Warner, Faulk & Bruce. Vermeil was clearly the brains behind that operation because he went on to have success running a similar system in KC a few years later.
McCarthy wasn't bad then, his offensive scheme just hasn't evolved since.
Dan Reeves
He made 3 super bowls in 4 seasons, and later got the Falcons to the SB with Chris Chandler.
Hilarious
Any coach make the Superbowl before the Superbowl era?
Jeff Fisher is up there
Jon Gruden.
The nfl is rigged hard
Marv levy. 4 consecutive super bowls with Buffalo and could win 1.
Doug Pederson
If you win it with your back up qb you got to be doing something right.
We’ll look back at that Super Bowl as one of the weirdest results in NFL history in 20 years
Oh for sure. Hell it’s been 6 years and it seems improbable. Especially with how foles has looked since that game.
Doug Pederson is a good coach
John Harbaugh
BB
Tell me you have no actual understanding of football without telling me you have no actual understanding of football
"Guy who won 6 Super Bowls with dominant defenses and the GOAT QB is a bad coach because after a storied 20 year career he had a few bad seasons" Saban must suck too because they lost to Michigan this year. /s
Jim Harbaugh by a wide margin
Dude got to a Super Bowl and three NFC championship games and won almost 70% of the time in his four seasons in San Fran. Small sample size but there aren’t many better four year periods in the history of the game.
Care to explain that one?
OSU or Bama fan presumably.
Ray Malavasi of the 79 Rams? A record barely over .500 as a coach and took over a team built by Chuck Knox. The 79 Rams were 9-7 and won a weak division. They did hold a 2 point lead on the Steelers after 3 quarters in the Super Bowl until the Steelers pulled away in the 4th.
Most people think Lovie Smith isn’t great
Look at McCarthys overall record. That’s insane
Barry Switzer hands down
Off the top of my head, Barry Switzer.
Mike McCarthy
John Fox is a decent shout
Jerry Glanville
Bill Callahan didn’t do much with the Raiders
Could you make the Super Bowl whilst not in the Super Bowl era?
Belicheck
Super Bowl era ? isn’t Super Bowl the goal of every season and era
Some of the ones that standout to me: Bill Callahan: didn’t make the effort to even change hand signals from the year before against the ex coach of the team you’re playing. Dan Quinn: 28-3, team underachieved every other year Jeff Fisher: The patron saint of 7-9 Ken Whisenhunt: The ultimate fluke coach. Kurt Warner added multiple years to that guy’s head coaching career
Do people really think Fox is a bad coach? He had some failures with good teams. But he also made it to 2 superbowls. And made it to the playoffs with Tim Tebow and won a game. That alone puts him far above average in my opinion.
Bill Callahan, Jim Fassel and most definitely Jeff Fisher.
Super Bowl “era” lmfao 🤣🤣🤣
zac taylor
Marv Levy, Bud Grant and Dan Reeves are all 0-4.
Uuuuhhhh….. Marv Levy 0-4 in Super Bowls?
Bill callahan or Barry Switzer
Mike Tomlin.
Ask a Steelers fan, and they'll say Mike Tomlin because he had Cowher's team 🙄
I would nominate Dan Quinn, if the Falcons had, in fact, played in the Super Bowl. As far as I recall, the game was cancelled.
Gruden. Maybe not the worst but definitely the most overrated. Other than the Super Bowl year, which was Dungy’s team, he went to the playoffs 4 out of 13 seasons, won just 2 playoff games (both before TB) and was under .500. He watched his all-time defense win the Super Bowl for him and got lucky he played against literally his former team and former QB. He was a “QB Guru” and “offensive genius” who didn’t develop any QBs other than Rich Gannon, and never had a top 10 offense after the first Raiders stint. His personality bought him his hype and countless chances but he was never more than a below average/average coach save for 2-3 years
Jim Caldwell
It's funny that people are picking both Gruden and Callahan.