Ultimate tier list of every NFL head coach

There’s something specifically special about knowing your team has a great head coach. The best in the NFL operate as force multipliers, getting so much more out of the talent on their roster — while also possessing a rare quality which allows them to weather the storm when things go wrong. Injuries and holdouts are out of their control, but a good coach can be the difference between finish at the bottom of a division, or consistently pushing into the playoff and beyond.

That’s what makes someone like Mike Tomlin so special. The longest-tenured NFL head coach might not have had much recent playoff success, but since taking the helm of the Steelers in 2007 he’s taken the team to the playoffs 12 times, led them to two Super Bowl berths, and one win. If you’re a 25-year-old fan in Pittsburgh you’ve only seen your team fail to make the postseason six times, and have literally never seen the organization finish below .500.

Today we dive into a tier list containing all 32 NFL head coaches. There are buckets we can put these guys in, from the very bottom of the barrel who struggle to remain competitive even with elite talent, and the very top who have managed to keep their teams in the mix, or at least been very competitive year-in, year-out.

Elite of the elite

There is only one top tier in the NFL, and only one man atop the mountain. You know who it is without reading any further. Nobody in football right now is like Andy Reid. An almost-elite coach in Philadelphia, Reid has taken the Chiefs to ludicrous heights and isn’t given enough credit for the storms he’s weathered along the way.

It might be easy to dismiss his accomplishments as “having Patrick Mahomes,” but the Chiefs have had numerous key injuries, lacking receiving weapons, been without a true bellwether running back for years, and had ample turnover on defense, and yet every single year this team is contending for a Super Bowl.

• Andy Reid

Elite

These are the coaches who have serious potential to ascend into Reid’s tier but are simply a step behind. Only Jim Harbaugh has failed to win a Super Bowl out of this list, and that’s more a product of being away from the NFL for some time. As it stands he’s already molding the Chargers into a team to watch.

The quality all these coaches possess is the ability to approach football in their own way and set trends the rest of the league follows.

• Sean McVay
• John Harbaugh
• Sean Payton
• Nick Sirianni
• Jim Harbaugh

Close to elite, but their resume needs more

The next tier down are legitimately good coaches. Guys who have shown the ability to take teams into the playoffs on a consistent basis, and form staffs that know how to win in the NFL. What separates this group of coaches from the guys above is silverware.

We’ve yet to see these teams take teams to the Super Bowl, instead falling into the “close, but no cigar” camp. The one guy on this list who is really on the cusp is Kyle Shanahan. For Shanny this season will determine a lot, and if the 49ers fail to deliver he’ll drop into the tier below.

• Kevin O’Connell
• DeMeco Ryans
• Matt LeFleur
• Dan Campbell
• Dan Quinn
• Mike Vrabel
• Kevin Stefanski
• Todd Bowles
• Kyle Shanahan

Excellent, but on the downswing

These ones hurt. Right now there are three coaches in the NFL who at one point where in the elite, or “close to elite” tier, but it just doesn’t feel like they belong anymore. Indeed that’s very subjective, but it’s more or less do or die for these guys as it stands.

It feels a little unfair to put Pete Carroll in this grouping, but the Raiders are just such a mixed bag. I could see them either stunning everyone and pushing into the playoffs, or collapsing and finishing last in the AFC West again. As for Tomlin and McDermott: They’re great, they’re still winning — but there have been far too many playoff stumbles in recent years that we could be approaching the end.

• Mike Tomlin
• Sean McDermott
• Pete Carroll 

Promising coaches, but too early to tell

It’s written right on the tin. These are the guys who could still be really good, but nobody has earned the right to be trusted fully yet.

• Dave Canales
• Liam Coen
• Brian Daboll
• Mike Macdonald
• Brian Schottenheimer
• Aaron Glenn
• Jonathan Gannon
• Shane Steichen
• Ben Johnson

Not too sure about them …

The second-to-last tier are the guys who just give you that feeling in the pit of your stomach that things won’t work out well. Mike McDaniel might be a play calling wizard, but he doesn’t have the edge a coach needs to command a room. Kellen Moore is making his head coaching debut in a terrible situation, but even before that he was passed over for jobs dozens of times over the years. Brian Callahan could very well be coasting off his father’s name. Raheem Morris has a .382 record as a head coach, and in five years in both Tampa Bay and Atlanta he has one winning season.

• Mike McDaniel
• Kellen Moore
• Brian Callahan
• Raheem Morris

Why do they have a job?

It’s easy to pick on Zac Taylor. So let’s continue to pick on Zac Taylor. I’m convinced the only reason Taylor is still the head coach of the Bengals is that his contract runs through 2026 and the organization is too cheap to fire him to bring in someone else. During his tenure there have definitely been some high points, but the routine story is that the Bengals win in spite of Taylor, not because of him.

He’s not particularly good in-game when the pressure is on, continues to find ways to leave Joe Burrow and his receivers on an island, and owns one of the worst defenses in the NFL — which has been an issue in Cincinnati for six years now. This team will not take the next step until it gets serious and brings in a better head coach.

• Zac Taylor