Two of the best coaches of the last 20 years. Belichick is 3-0 against Reid in the postseason.
How do you get to the Pro Football Hall of Fame as a head coach? Here’s a helpful flow chart.
Did you win 3 rings? If so, proceed to Canton (9)
If you win three championships as a head coach in the NFL, you are going to make the Hall of Fame. There are only 10 men who can make that claim, and nine of them are already enshrined in Canton: George Halas, Curly Lambeau, Paul Brown, Chuck Noll, Joe Gibbs, Weeb Ewbank, Vince Lombardi, Bill Walsh, and Guy Chamberlin. The 10th, of course, is Bill Belichick, who will at some point retire and then be a first ballot inductee.
Did you win 2 rings plus have a third appearance? If so, proceed to Canton (3)
Two of the best head coaches ever — Don Shula and Tom Landry — fall into this category. Both are also in the top four in all-time wins. The third is Bill Parcells, who also took two different teams, and three different quarterbacks, to the Super Bowl.
Did you win 2 out of every 3 games and coach for 10+ years? If so, proceed to Canton (4)
Ray Flaherty coached the Redskins in the ’30s and ’40s, winning two titles, and then had success with the New York Yankeees in the AAFC. He coached for 11 seasons and won 68% of his games.
Tony Dungy won 67% of his games and coached for 22 seasons. He ranks 10th all-time in games above .500, so he was always going to be a lock for the Hall of Fame. He won one ring, and has some other factors in his favor, but his resume easily eclipses the bar for admission.
John Madden, like Dungy, has some extras he brings to the HOF table, but he won 75% of his games for a decade… and a Super Bowl. That’s a HOF resume without any of the additional contributions.
Finally, we get to the first Hall of Fame head coach who didn’t win a title: George Allen. He coached the Redskins and Rams for a dozen years, and only made one Super Bowl appearance: a loss to the undefeated Dolphins. His teams went one-and-done six times. [1]Allen also had some bad luck: only twice did he have a home playoff game, and his teams won both times. In 1967, his Los Angeles Rams teams were great, but because of the rules of the era which … Continue reading
Finally, a word about Blanton Collier. He won two-thirds of his games, but only coached for eight years; he’s the only head coach to coach more than five seasons — and fewer than ten — with such a strong winning percentage. Collier’s career can be broken into 8-year runs: he spent the first 8 years in Cleveland Browns history as an assistant under Paul Brown; he then left for an 8-year stint as the head coach at the University of Kentucky, and then returned to Cleveland as Brown’s successor for 8 years. Collier won 1 ring, but didn’t coach long enough to stand out in an era of great coaches.
Did you win two titles before 1950? If so, you’re in (3)
Brown and Lombardi raised the stakes of what a great head coach could accomplish, but everyone must be judged by their era.
- Jimmy Conzelman won a title with Providence in 1928 and then the Chicago Cardinals in 1947.
- Greasy Neale won back-to-back titles with the Eagles in ’48 and ’49.
- Steve Owen won with the Giants in ’34 and ’38.
There were only 7 head coaches chosen for the Hall of Fame before 1970: Halas and Lambeau in the inaugural class of ’63, Conzelman in ’64, Chamberlin in ’65, Owen in ’66, Brown in ’67, and then Neale in ’69.
Did you lead a legendary “dynasty”? That’s enough, too (3)
Marv Levy and Bud Grant each made four Super Bowls in a short window with the same franchise. That separates them a bit from Dan Reeves, who made three Super Bowls with the Broncos and then a fourth with the Falcons. Reeves is an arguable Hall of Fame snub, although Levy and Grant both had better winning percentages, too. Levy had a 0.615 winning percentage in 12 years in Buffalo (he was not so good prior to that in Kansas City) and Grant had a 0.621 winning percentage during his 18-year career in Minnesota; Reeves had a .601 winning percentage and made three Super Bowls in 12 years in Denver, but had below-average winning percentages in Atlanta and New York. If you are looking to find some day light between the resumes of Grant/Levy and Reeves, it’s not hard to find. Even if you want to put them in the same tier, Reeves would clearly be at the bottom of that tier.
Jimmy Johnson is the weakest Hall of Fame coach in a very long time, and perhaps ever. The most promising view of his career is to lump him in with Lombardi/Noll/Walsh/Belichick as coach of the team of the decade, and to give him some extra credit for popularizing his draft chart and/or the third ring the Cowboys won after he departed. Johnson also gets credit for building the Cowboys from the ground up, in a way that you wouldn’t say about George Seifert or Tom Flores.
The Rest (3)
Hank Stram won two titles and 62% of his games as head coach for 15 years with the Chiefs. That is a near identical resume to Mike Shanahan with the Broncos — 2 rings, 62%, 14 years — and I suspect that Shanahan will make it one day. If not, the most plausible explanation is that the bar has been raised. Stram is a worthy Hall of Fame pick — he made the Chiefs the best team in the 10-year history of the AFL.
What separates him from the 2-ring coaches who are *not* in the Hall of Fame? Tom Coughlin won just 53% of his games with both the Giants and Jaguars. George Seifert was the 49ers head coach for only 8 years, and failed after three years with the Panthers. Buddy Parker won two rings with the Lions in 6 years, but didn’t do much to boost his HOF credentials with 8 years in Pittsburgh. Tom Flores won 61% of his games in Oakland, but was only there for 9 years; he failed in three seasons with the Seahawks. And while Lou Saban won two AFL titles with the Bills, he had a losing record for his career.
Sid Gillman is in both the College and Pro Football Hall of Fame, and is one of the legendary coaches in pro football history for his innovations in the passing game. Gillman also made it during a bit of a lull for the Hall: Ewbank was chosen in ’78, and Landry in ’90 — in between, Gillman’s induction in ’83 was the only one for a head coach. He wasn’t competing with Landy/Walsh/Noll/Grant/Gibbs or Shula, who all were still active head coaches in 1983. As a pure head coach (i.e., ignoring his contributions to the game), he probably doesn’t make it if he replicates that career today.
Finally, we get to the newest choice: Bill Cowher. Among the head coaches with one ring, he is tied for 3rd with his successor, Mike Tomlin, in wins over .500, trailing only Madden and Dungy. Cowher had an impressive 0.623 winning percentage over 18 seasons. Among the 1-ring head coaches who are eligible for the Hall of Fame (i.e., ignoring Tomlin, Mike McCarthy, Pete Carroll, Sean Payton, and John Harbaugh), there’s only one head coach with a resume like Cowher who is not in the Hall of Fame. That’s Mike Holmgren, who also has a good chance to one day make it.
Where Does Reid Fall?
Reid ranks 7th all-time in wins and 7th all-time in wins over. 500; of course, the 6 men above him all won championships, and #8 on both of those lists is Marty Schottenheimer, who has not made the Hall of Fame and did not win a Super Bowl.
So why do I think Andy Reid get lumped with George Allen, Bud Grant, and Marv Levy, and not Schottenheimer, Dan Reeves, Chuck Knox, or Don Coryell?
Of those 8 head coaches, Reid has the most wins and the most wins over .500. In terms of winning percentage, the .600 mark is a pretty clear dividing line: Allen (.705) and Grant (0.620) both clear it, while Reeves (0.535) and Knox (0.558) fall short. Reid is at 0.618, and while that may still change, he is very likely to finish his career above 0.600. Of course, Schottenheimer is at 0.613, but Coryell (0.572) and Knox (0.558) fall short.
And when it comes to playoff success, Reid does well among this group. Assuming a loss today (since a win makes all of this moot), he would be 14-15 in the postseason; Levy and Grant are a combined 21-20. This is the clearest and simplest place for the Hall to make a distinction between Reid and Schottenheimer, who went just 5-13 in the postseason. Knox and Coryell also had worse records in the playoffs.
In short, even with a loss today, Reid still fits the profile of a Hall of Fame head coach. He’ll have made two Super Bowls; while that’s still two fewer than Grant and Levy, it’s also one more than Allen. He’ll have more wins and more wins over .500 than all of them. He’ll have a respectable playoff record, which Allen, Coryell, and Schottenheimer do not. And he’ll have a great regular season winning percentage, which Reeves and Knox do not. And while he won’t be a top-10 coach of all time, at 79 games over .500 in the regular season, he’s ahead of 1-ring coaches like Dungy, Cowher, and Madden in this regard (and well ahead of Gillman). And while those three each won one ring, they were a combined 30-26 in the playoffs with their fair share of disappointments. Their playoff resumes were more of a negative for those three than a positive, so Reid’s potential 14-15 mark shouldn’t be enough to keep him out.
References
| ↑1 | Allen also had some bad luck: only twice did he have a home playoff game, and his teams won both times. In 1967, his Los Angeles Rams teams were great, but because of the rules of the era which rotated the site of playoff games, his 11-2-1 Rams had to travel to Green Bay for the playoffs. L.A. had defeated Green Bay head to head and the Packers only went 9-4-1 in the regular season, but the rules dictated that the Coastal division champion (LA) travel to the Central division champion (GB) regardless of record. That game was played with a wind chill of -3, certainly not ideal for a team from Southern California. Two years later, the Rams ran into the famed ’69 Vikings and had to play in Minneapolis with a wind chill of -1.
Allen made 7 playoff games with the Redskins, and Billy Kilmer was his starter in each game. Washington went 2-0 as a favorite under Allen, and 0-5 as an underdog. The book on Allen wasn’t of that as a choker, but of a head coach who got the most out of his team and took them farther than most expected. He was a remarkably well-respected coach who is legendary for his motivational speeches and dedication. But he was also just a great mind: as defensive coordinator, his zone defense helped the ’63 Bears win the NFL championship. |
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