Nearly one-third of the NFL’s franchises changed head coaches this offseason. The hope with each new hire is that he will cleanse his organization of past ills while selling a brighter future to the fan base.

There will be optimism and, coming off the 2025 season, inflated expectations. The world watched Mike Macdonald hoist the Lombardi Trophy a little more than two years after being introduced in Seattle. Macdonald’s Seahawks, of course, defeated a New England Patriots team led by first-year head coach Mike Vrabel, the reigning NFL Coach of the Year. Rookie coaches Liam Coen (Jacksonville) and Ben Johnson (Chicago) led their new teams to division titles.

Normally, those kinds of success stories would stand out due to their scarcity — far more coaching hires fail. There has been a one-and-done coach in five consecutive hiring cycles (Pete Carroll in Vegas was the latest). Half of the eight hires from 2024 have already been fired. The last 10-hiring cycle was in 2022; Kevin O’Connell and Todd Bowles are the only two still in place.

So as this year’s new hires get ready to stand on the podium representing their new teams at this week’s NFL combine, it’s fair to wonder: How many will achieve success?

The Athletic reviewed all 180 head-coaching hires since 2000 to determine an average performance based on regular-season record, postseason results and years on the job. By using these objective metrics, we built parameters to assess levels of head-coaching successes and failures. Here are the most notable takeaways:

First, our methodology

To ensure each coach in the data set had a reasonable sample size, we narrowed it down to the 160 hires made between 2000 and 2022. (This includes a handful of coaches, such as Antonio Pierce of the Raiders, who finished a season as an interim head coach before getting promoted in the offseason — those organizations had the opportunity to open the search, even if they didn’t always choose to cast a wide net.)

There are nine current head coaches who were hired during that stretch, so the data will continue to evolve as the active coaches complete future seasons. But, as we’ll explain below, the open-ended data sets shouldn’t change dramatically enough to reshape the conclusions of this study.

We identified six categories to measure success:

1. Length of tenure
2. Regular-season record
3. Playoff appearances
4. Playoff wins
5. Super Bowl appearances
6. Super Bowl wins

This is the average output per coach among the 160 hires from 2000-22.

Seasons on job: 4.4
Regular-season record: 34.4 wins, 34.5 losses, 0.2 ties
Playoff appearances: 1.7
Playoff wins: 1.6
Super Bowl appearances: 0.3 (45 total)
Super Bowl wins: 0.1 (23 total)

To measure success in each category, we awarded coaches with a “point” for exceeding the average. To receive a point in a category, the coach needed to hit the following benchmarks:

Seasons on job: 5
Regular season wins: 35 wins and a .500 record
Playoff appearances: 2
Playoff wins: 2
Super Bowl wins: 1
Super Bowl appearances: 1

The final number was the most astounding. Sixty percent of all head-coaching hires over 23 years failed to reach a single average benchmark during their tenure. Or, put simply: Sixty percent of those hires were failures.

Let’s start, though, with the success stories.

As good as it gets

Thirteen coaches earned all six possible points.

Seven coaches earned five points, with each of them lacking only a Super Bowl victory.

Of course, Kyle Shanahan and Zac Taylor still have time to check off that last box.

Two Super Bowl champions fell into lower categories.

Gary Kubiak, who retired after two seasons, was only on the job long enough to earn three points. Bruce Arians, who retired after three years, earned four points (he was 31-18 in the regular season, coming up just short of the 35-win benchmark).

Kubiak and Arians, though, should be considered resounding successes for delivering Super Bowls, albeit with the luxury of coaching quarterbacks Peyton Manning and Tom Brady, respectively. To be fair, Kubiak’s predecessor and Arians’ successor failed to win a Lombardi Trophy with the future Hall of Fame QBs.

Matt LaFleur (Packers) and Dan Campbell (Lions) are active coaches from the 2000-22 hiring cycles with four points, while Kevin O’Connell (Minnesota Vikings) and Todd Bowles (Bucs) have three, presuming they both coach at least one game in 2026 to reach their fifth seasons. There are no active coaches from those hiring cycles with zero, one or two points.

It’s unrealistic to measure successful hires by Super Bowls, as 15 out of the 160 hires (9.4 percent) raised the Lombardi Trophy. Only 13 of the 23 hiring cycles yielded a Super Bowl winner. Plus, there are so many other factors that can limit a coach’s ceiling. So if a coach earned three out of six points, he should be deemed a successful hire with this formula.

From the 2000-22 hiring cycles, 49 out of 160 coaches (30.6 percent) earned at least three points. While a .300 batting average might be good enough for the Baseball Hall of Fame, it will send NFL teams back into the hiring pool faster than anticipated.

Context clues

Of course, there’s room for interpretation with every hire. Kevin Stefanski, for example, was hired by the Cleveland Browns in 2020; he earned two points for six seasons on the job and two playoff appearances. (Stefanski would have earned a third point with one more playoff win, so he was right on the fringe.) The two-time Coach of the Year, who was fired this offseason before quickly landing a job with the Falcons, has widely been considered a quality boss by his peers, and there’s ample objective evidence to support that claim.

For the Browns, the Stefanski hire wasn’t bad, but they failed to support him. He was saddled with quarterback Deshaun Watson’s contract and an extreme lack of salary-cap and draft resources to build out the roster. And yet, Stefanski was the first Browns coach since Marty Schottenheimer to lead them to a pair of playoff appearances. Stefanski won where most fail.

But how much credit do the Browns deserve for hiring Stefanski when they didn’t maximize their window with him? Similar to drafting a quarterback, it’s one step to identify the right person, but it takes more to cultivate a successful environment around him.

Finally, data with the nine active coaches won’t impact the parameters too much in the future. To illustrate, let’s remove Bill Belichick’s Patriots tenure and Andy Reid’s Chiefs performance from the 2000-2022 dataset (the numbers from the full dataset, including Belichick and Reid, are in parentheses):

Seasons on job: 4.2 (4.4)
Regular-season record: 32.2 wins, 33.8 losses, 0.2 ties (34.4-34.5-0.2)
Playoff appearances: 1.5 (1.7)
Playoff wins: 1.3 (1.6)
Super Bowl wins: 0.2, 31 total (0.3)
Super Bowl appearances: 0.1, 14 total (0.1)

Forecasting the future

What does the data suggest about the 10 new coaches hired over the last month? Three will be successful hires, earning at least three of the six points. Six will fail across the board, failing to hit a single average benchmark during their tenure. One will have moderate success, earning one or two points.

But don’t let the size of the coaching class fool you. With just 8.1 percent of coaches from the dataset earning all six points, there’s no guarantee that anyone from the 2026 cycle turns into an elite hire.

In fact, this is the fourth time since 2000 that there have been at least 10 new hires (2006, 2009, 2022). The 2006 cycle, which included Sean Payton (Saints) and Mike McCarthy (Packers), yielded Super Bowl champions, but only one of the 11 hires from 2009 made a Super Bowl. No one from 2022 has won a title.

The 2022 cycle has only produced three total playoff victories, and two of those belong to coaches who have already been fired (Doug Pederson in Jacksonville, Brian Daboll in New York). By the formula for this study, the 2022 hiring cycle was among the worst, so sheer volume doesn’t necessarily translate to results.

As evidenced by Belichick and Reid, there’s been approximately one generational hire per decade during the study, although Sean McVay and maybe even Shanahan could further tilt the scales for the 2010s.

There are candidates among the 2020s hires, too. Though Sirianni has been under constant fire in Philadelphia, he was the first coach since McVay to join the six-point tier. Campbell (four points) is still seeking the two Super Bowl categories.

DeMeco Ryans (Houston Texans) has two points due to playoff appearances and wins. With a 32-19 regular-season record, he is on the cusp of a third point, and he’ll get a fourth if he’s still coaching the Texans in 2027.

Payton, who has one point with the Broncos, has the same regular-season record as Ryans and one playoff win, so he’s also closing in on a successful tenure. Out of the 2024 hiring cycle, Jim Harbaugh (Los Angeles Chargers) and Dan Quinn (Washington Commanders) have one point and enough of a runway to chase down more. Vrabel, has two points and is off to an impressive start, but needs more time to round out his successful tenure in New England.

Macdonald already has three points and is the most obvious candidate to join the six-point club, which would happen in 2028 when he reaches his fifth season, as long as the Seahawks return to the playoffs once more.

Trending teams

The frequency of failed head-coaching hires (60 percent) is concerning, but the teams at the center of those failures are even more of a problem. Seventeen teams failed on at least 60 percent of their hires from 2000-22, meaning their coach didn’t earn a single point during his tenure. The Lions and Buccaneers barely missed that threshold, with four of each team’s seven hires (57.1 percent) going down as a failure.

The Raiders were, unequivocally, the worst. Nine of their 10 hires from 2000-22 were failures. Bill Callahan was the exception, earning two points with a Super Bowl trip in his first season, but he was fired a year later.

The Browns (7 of 8 failures), Bills (6 of 7), Dolphins (6 of 8), Jets (5 of 7), Commanders (5 of 7), 49ers (5 of 7), Giants (4 of 5), Jaguars (4 of 6), Broncos (4 of 6) and Cardinals (4 of 6) also had exceedingly poor hiring records for the better part of the 23-year study.

The Colts (four hires) and Packers (three) were the only teams to make multiple hires without a failure during that stretch. The Patriots (Belichick), Ravens (Harbaugh) and Steelers (Tomlin) each had one hire during that stretch, and they made it count with a six-point coach.

The Eagles are the only team with two six-point coaches (Pederson, Sirianni) in the study — their only other hire post-2000 (Chip Kelly) was a failure. (Reid had a five-point tenure with the Eagles, but he was hired in 1999 and was therefore not part of this dataset.)

Best in class

The eight-coach hiring class of 2002 was the best in the study, as its 22 total points were the most among the 23-year stretch. Tony Dungy (Colts) and Jon Gruden (Bucs) won Lombardi Trophies, while Callahan and John Fox (Panthers) reached the Super Bowl. Only three of the hires were considered failures.

Belichick’s cycle in 2000 ranked second with 19 points. The seven-coach class also included Mike Martz (Rams), Mike Sherman (Packers) and Dave Wannstedt (Dolphins). There were only two failures: Al Groh (Jets) and Dave Campo (Cowboys).

The 2017 cycle was the best of the last decade with McVay, Shanahan and Sean McDermott (Bills). The six-coach class has 16 points, and there were only two failed hires: Vance Joseph (Broncos) and Anthony Lynn (Chargers), though Lynn was right on the cusp of a point in four categories before his firing.

The worst hiring cycle was easy: 2005 featured only three head-coach hires, but that trio failed to earn a single point based on our data (no other class in the study earned less than five points). Nick Saban (Dolphins), Romeo Crennel (Browns) and Mike Nolan (49ers) combined for a 57-94 record and no playoff appearances.

They, too, were once the faces of hope for the future. But as history has shown, optimism fades far more quickly than teams would like to admit.