Of the 10 head coaches who were either fired or resigned this offseason, six made the playoffs with the team that let them go. Two made the postseason in 2025. Three have won Super Bowls, including two with the firing club. Tough business. It has been made even more so by the inarguable improvement in coaching over the past decade-plus. Coasting on clich\u00e9s is no longer enough when late 30something or early 40something hires keep winning Super Bowls. The demands on a coach \u2014 leadership, discipline, media savvy, scheme sophistication \u2014 are mostly the same as they have always been. What\u2019s changed is the hypersonic speed at which they continue to evolve. The NFL has never slowed down, but like the rest of modern life, it only ever moves faster.<\/p>\n
As I say every year, players, owners, assistants, injuries and acts of God can matter as much as coaching ability. That\u2019s why, though this is a rankings article, I try not to think of it that way. I view it as more of an almanac, an assessment of where the league\u2019s 32 coaches find themselves right now. How they got here and where they might be going. Last year\u2019s list can be found here<\/a>. 2024\u2019s is here<\/a>. <\/p>\n 1. Sean McVay, Rams<\/p>\n Career Record: 92-57 (.617) The Sean McVay era in Los Angeles might best be described as \u201chow to win games and influence people.\u201d McVay just turned 40 years old. 16 percent of the league\u2019s 31 other head coaches have already worked for him. That does not include his former assistants who have already been hired and subsequently fired, though that list is short at two. The league is always looking for someone to follow. Perhaps counterintuitively, McVay has proven to be the perfect leader for both his team and the NFL at large because he is not so set in his ways. One year it\u2019s three-receiver sets. The next, three tight ends. Sometimes he\u2019s bringing back old coaching friends (Kliff Kingsbury). Most others, he\u2019s scouring the country for new talent (Nate Scheelhaase). Although he has stolen the mantle of the league\u2019s greatest thinker from Bill Belichick, McVay is most comparable to Nick Saban. Belichick was felled by his devotion to his friends and familiarities. Like Saban, McVay is much too restless for that. He doesn\u2019t just want to win. He wants to do so in ways either no one has ever tried before or everyone else has forgotten about. He is the perfect blend of new school and old, and destined to be remembered as one of the sport\u2019s timeless geniuses.<\/p>\n 2. Andy Reid, Chiefs<\/p>\n Career Record: 279-157-1 (.640) Andy Reid is one of the greatest coaches in the history of football. This was true even before he found Patrick Mahomes. If you want to say he\u2019s still the best current coach, you could easily win the debate. Now, is he still the most dynamic? That would be harder to argue. On the one hand, you could ask: Why would Reid fix what isn\u2019t broken? Why wouldn\u2019t he keep running back the same offensive approach, the same assistant coaches? On the other, that\u2019s why. For as much as 2025 was about bad luck, unfortunate injuries and sometimes both (see Travis Kelce separating Xavier Worthy\u2019s shoulder in Week 1), it was the lack of dynamism and adjustments that stood out more. I am not a \u201cfootball mind.\u201d I know there is always an overarching strategy that might not be immediately apparent to my civilian understanding. But I feel I am qualified to ask: What is the thesis of this passing game? How has watching Patrick Mahomes become boring? Then I might follow up, if it is forces beyond Reid\u2019s control holding back the aerial attack \u2014 poor draft capital, lack of cap space, league-wide defensive trends \u2014 why is it being supplemented by nothing on the ground? Reid tacitly acknowledged the need for new ideas when he let former OC Matt Nagy\u2019s contract lapse, but perhaps not the will to really implement them when his solution was simply recycling former OC Eric Bieniemy. The joke is on you if you question Reid\u2019s overall greatness. The joke will be on him, however, if he thinks mere tweaks and shufflings will be enough to right what went wrong in 2025.<\/p>\n 3. Kyle Shanahan, 49ers<\/p>\n Career Record: 82-67 (.550) Kyle Shanahan\u2019s teams always win at least 12 games except for all the times they don\u2019t. Shanny has long since established himself as the king of variance. So is life when personnel takes a back seat to scheme and coaching. But has Shanahan finally discovered something he\u2019s been accused of lacking: Resilience? 2025 had all the hallmarks of a lost 49ers campaign. A biblical wave of injuries, including at quarterback. Acrimonious disputes with the No. 1 and 2 wideouts. Questionable to nonexistent returns from many key recent draft picks. This would usually be the cue for Shanny to accept his 6-11 fate and start planning for next year\u2019s Super Bowl loss. And yet, there his team was, playing for the NFC\u2019s No. 1 seed in Week 18. Not even the dreary home loss to the Seahawks that ensued could obscure the fact this was a different kind of Shanahan squad, one that actually punched back after getting knocked down. That was confirmed the following week when they upset the Eagles in the Wild Card Round. By that point, another rough loss to the Seahawks in the Divisional didn\u2019t even matter. This is a Shanahan team that still has all of its old strengths, but with some new ones thrown in. If \u201cShanny Ball\u201d can actually denote toughness moving forward, Shanahan will soon shed his moniker as the best active coach not to lift a Lombardi.<\/p>\n 4. Mike Macdonald, Seahawks<\/p>\n Career Record: 24-10 (.706) Usually you at least introduce yourself before winning a Super Bowl. Mike Macdonald hasn\u2019t been rude, but he\u2019s sure in a hurry. He went 10-7 as a first-time head coach in 2024 but wasn\u2019t satisfied. He fired OC Ryan Grubb and moved on from QB Geno Smith. Those decisive acts provided the hoped-for improvement on offense, though it was Macdonald\u2019s defensive side of the ball that once again led the way. Macdonald has been responsible for four NFL defenses. They\u2019ve finished top three in points allowed three times, surrendering the league\u2019s fewest tallies twice. His \u201cworst\u201d group was the 2024 outfit that finished 11th. Macdonald was also top 10 in the much larger FBS pool his lone season calling Michigan\u2019s plays in 2021. The word \u201cgenius\u201d is thrown around loosely these days, but Macdonald certainly appears to be one when it comes to confounding opposing play-callers and quarterbacks. His judgment is almost as good on offense, where his decisions to start Sam Darnold, hire Klint Kubiak and feature Jaxon Smith-Njigba made the group formidable enough to win a championship without a true franchise player. That\u2019s not easy in any era, but particularly now. Macdonald\u2019s sample size is small, but if you\u2019ve won a Super Bowl with Darnold before the age of 40, you are probably one of the five best active NFL coaches.<\/p>\n 5. Sean Payton, Broncos<\/p>\n Career Record: 184-108 (.630) Sean Payton didn\u2019t need to prove anything. He\u2019s done so anyways. The last of the Parcells disciples, Payton had a .631 winning percentage with the Saints. It\u2019s .620 with the Broncos. It\u2019s actually .666 since his infamous 70-20 loss to Mike McDaniel\u2019s Dolphins in Week 3 of the 2023 season. That was Payton\u2019s wake-up call. He\u2019s been wide-eyed ever since. Payton\u2019s continued Broncos success has come despite a few strange foibles. His vaunted short-passing game isn\u2019t what it once was. The backfield has been reasonably efficient, if strangely inert. It obviously hasn\u2019t precluded winning \u2014 Payton\u2019s Broncos are the first team other than the Chiefs to take the AFC West since Patrick Mahomes became starter in 2018 \u2014 though it has turned what used to be a beautiful system into a tough watch. That\u2019s undoubtedly what led Payton to make the shocking offseason decision of surrendering play-calling duties to OC Davis Webb. Payton is one of the best play-callers in the history of the game. That he was willing to hand over the keys speaks to not only an uncommon self awareness for someone with his r\u00e9sum\u00e9, but a truly burning desire to win. If Payton fails to reach another Super Bowl, it won\u2019t be because he was unwilling to do whatever it takes.<\/p>\n 6. Jim Harbaugh, Chargers<\/p>\n Career Record: 66-31-1 (.679) Jim Harbaugh has coached six NFL seasons. He\u2019s won fewer than 11 games once. He has never finished below .500. He has won with the San Diego Toreros, and the team that used to be the San Diego Chargers. As is the case with many of Harbaugh\u2019s all-time great compatriots, it can accurately be said he would do anything to win, right up to and including crossing the line. See the end of his time at Michigan. But if every Harbaugh and Belichick is sometimes willing to bend the rules for even the slightest of advantages, one thing they\u2019re not always willing to do? Think outside the gilded box they\u2019ve built for themselves. This was Harbaugh when he first arrived in L.A. His first hire on offense? Old friend Greg Roman. Although Harbaugh predictably won right off the bat, Roman was just as predictably stale as a play-caller. So then Harbaugh pulled off the hardest new trick for an old dog: He went outside his coaching tree. At first blush, Mike McDaniel isn\u2019t just outside Harbaugh\u2019s tree, but outside his planet. The old colliding with the new. Upon closer inspection, however, these are two gonzo thinkers who both tend to arrive at old time football principles. For Harbaugh, it\u2019s toughness and fundamentals. For McDaniel, it\u2019s execution. Paired together, they might finally find Harbaugh the Super Bowl ceiling that has eluded his annual playoff floor.<\/p>\n 7. Mike Vrabel, Patriots<\/p>\n Career Record: 68-48 (.586) Mike Vrabel overachieved until he didn\u2019t in Tennessee. The dysfunctional Titans cut bait the second Vrabel stopped working miracles with an overtaxed, quarterback-free roster. So the Patriots decided to run an experiment: What might the details-oriented, player-friendly Vrabel accomplish with a young franchise quarterback? It\u2019s doubtful even they thought the answer would be \u201cinstantly make the Super Bowl,\u201d but that\u2019s where Vrabel\u2019s squad ended the year \u2026 after another season of overachievement. After winning three rock fights during the AFC playoffs \u2014 games decided by the smallest of margins, the crevices where Vrabel has always thrived \u2014 it was clear from the opening moments of Super Bowl LX his Pats were outclassed by the Seahawks. That they had maybe arrived a little too early. But it was final confirmation that, whatever your baseline might be, Vrabel is going to raise it. It was just as impressive of a feat in Tennessee, but your ceiling can only go so high if you are working around the quarterback rather than featuring him. Vrabel now has a featured player in Drake Maye. It might not be in 2026, but at some point, Vrabel is likely to finish the Super Bowl journey he started in 2025.<\/p>\n 8. Dan Campbell, Lions<\/p>\n Career Record: 53-43-1 (.552) The rollercoaster always comes down. In the NFL, you just hope it\u2019s after you\u2019ve already won the Super Bowl. When the answer is inevitably \u201cno\u201d for all but the luckiest few, the obsession then becomes getting it back up into the air. It\u2019s a job for which the Lions\u2019 caffeinated-consciousness<\/a>, Dan Campbell, would seem uniquely well suited, but the question for every adrenaline junkie is always: Did you burn too much fuel the first time around? The hangover effect was everywhere you looked in Detroit last season. They failed to rebound on defense and at times appeared to be going through the motions on offense. Departed OC Ben Johnson was missed even more than anticipated, with would-be replacement John Morton going less-than-one and done as play-caller after Campbell took the clipboard mid-season then fired Morton after it. Campbell did not lose the locker room. Nothing went off the rails. The Lions were competitive until the very end of the year, where they beat Johnson for the second time in as many tries in Week 18. But his words after the team\u2019s 2024 NFC Championship Game defeat \u2014 \u201cthis may have been our only shot\u201d \u2014 are looking all the more prophetic. The Lions arrived earlier than expected. The same will be true of their departure if Campbell can\u2019t fix his defense and coax a better Johnson impression out of new OC Drew Petzing.<\/p>\n 9. Nick Sirianni, Eagles<\/p>\n Career Record: 59-26 (.694) For having never posted a losing record and winning the NFC twice in five years, Nick Sirianni isn\u2019t afforded much benefit of the doubt. That\u2019s due to dubiousness about his true importance to the Eagles\u2019 operation. Whereas the coach is usually king in the NFL, that\u2019s not true in Philadelphia. More like an MLB franchise, this is GM Howie Roseman\u2019s show. Regardless of how close that perception comes to reality, it provides a convenient buffer for Roseman, who undoubtedly believes some of his own hype after firing his previous Super Bowl-winning coach in Doug Pederson without missing a beat. So Sirianni\u2019s seat is hotter than most despite his winning percentage being higher than most everyone to ever do it. He behaves accordingly, churning through coordinators at great speed, including on the offensive side of the ball this offseason. Sirianni understands that, fairly or not, he\u2019s only as good as his next streak, and it better be winning. If that makes him a little hot under the collar \u2014 there\u2019s nothing the sideline camera loves more than finding Sirianni yelling in any general direction \u2014 it\u2019s understandable. Less understandable is what the Eagles might be missing if they fire Sirianni and move on to the next one.<\/p>\n 10. Matt LaFleur, Packers<\/p>\n Career Record: 76-40-1 (.654) Matt LaFleur has kept it respectable. The Packers have made the playoffs all three seasons since moving on from Aaron Rodgers. Unfortunately, it\u2019s translated to only one postseason victory, as LaFleur\u2019s brand of football is also expert at keeping the other team in the game. Perennially in the red in pass rate over expected, LaFleur is devoted to a balanced attack no matter how plodding the run or explosive the pass. He is an amazing individual play designer but highly questionable play sequencer. It\u2019s why he\u2019s blown second half leads in the game that eliminated the Packers two of the past three seasons, to say nothing of what happened when Rodgers was still at the helm. If you think that\u2019s just media perception, multiple Packers players have lamented their inability to put teams away in 2025<\/a>. And if LaFleur\u2019s offense struggles to finish the opposition off, his defense has had a disastrous habit of collapsing at all the most inopportune times. LaFleur has struggled mightily to find the right defensive coordinator. Jeff Hafley was his best hire, but he\u2019s now departed for the Dolphins\u2019 head-coaching gig. LaFleur is smart. He is organized. He is, as we mentioned, respectable. That includes the respect he gets from the rest of the league for letting them hang around. If things don\u2019t change in 2026 \u2014 and he has vowed they will \u2014<\/a> it will be LaFleur who is no longer in the game in Green Bay.<\/p>\n 11. DeMeco Ryans, Texans<\/p>\n Career Record: 32-19 (.627) DeMeco Ryans is 3-for-3 on making the playoffs and has won at least one game every time he\u2019s gotten there. Ok, exactly one game every time he\u2019s gotten there. If Ryans\u2019 floor has been shockingly high, the ceiling has not appeared within reach. None of the Texans\u2019 Divisional Round losses were particularly competitive, while last season\u2019s represented the nadir for an offensive side of the ball that has been the bane of the defensive-minded Ryans\u2019 existence. Now, maybe there\u2019s only so much he can do with C.J. Stroud. He nevertheless needs to find the offensive coordinator best capable of doing it. It wasn\u2019t Bobby Slowik. It probably isn\u2019t Nick Caley. If Ryans\u2019 teams have had an identity on offense, it\u2019s conservatism. Again, maybe that\u2019s the only choice with an erratic QB. Again, it\u2019s not getting the job done when it matters most. A leader on his side of the ball, Ryans is also a player\u2019s coach. He is checking nearly every box, just not the one that matters most. Ryans may not be responsible for picking the quarterback, but he will be held responsible for the quarterback\u2019s play. That\u2019s life in the NFL. 2026 will be a critical year in Houston.<\/p>\n 12. Kevin O\u2019Connell, Vikings<\/p>\n Career Record: 43-25 (.632) Kevin O\u2019Connell has never won a playoff game. That hard-to-believe stat is thanks to his seasons somehow always devolving into a \u201cstrange but true\u201d factoid. He went 13-4 with Kirk Cousins \u2026 with a negative point differential. A playoff loss to Daniel Jones ensued. He went 14-3 with Sam Darnold before that was something everyone did. He failed to win the division in the process and got blown out in the Wild Card Round. By far his most miserable year, this past season\u2019s J.J. McCarthy fiasco, ended with \u2026 a winning record. Now how do you make heads or tails of all that? A large part of McCarthy\u2019s prestige as a quarterback whisperer relies on the fact that he made Josh Dobbs and Nick Mullens watchable in 2023. Sometimes I wonder if that oddity is doing a little too much heavy lifting for his reputation. Then I remember the Vikings probably would have remained a playoff team in 2025 had Carson Wentz\u2019s shoulder remained attached. O\u2019Connell has it figured out on offense. His top assistant, Brian Flores, has it figured out on defense. As a head coach, you need to handle your business on your side of the ball and know who to trust on the other. O\u2019Connell passes the test. He will eventually get past the first round of the playoffs if that remains the case.<\/p>\n 13. Ben Johnson, Bears<\/p>\n Career Record: 11-6 (.647) In a league and media landscape addicted to hyperbole and quick-fixes, no label gets misapplied more frequently than \u201coffensive genius.\u201d Well, maybe \u201cfranchise savior.\u201d Ben Johnson arrived in Chicago to expectations of both. He blew them away. Tasked with \u201cfixing\u201d Caleb Williams, Johnson helped reduce Williams\u2019 sack total from 68 to 24. Ridiculous. The Bears went from 26th in offensive EPA per play to seventh. They scored 131 more points than the year prior, jumping from 28th to ninth in scoring. So, offense fixed. If that was the longed-for first step, step two was something along the lines of: Just stop getting embarrassed in the rugged NFC North. Johnson won the division, earned the conference\u2019s No. 2 seed, then humiliated arch-rival Green Bay with an epic Wild Card comeback. One year, etc. but these Bears are no longer embarrassing. They were lucky in 2025, living off one-score, and even sometimes one-point, victories. Regression comes for even the best players and coaches. The follow-up will be 10 times more difficult than the opening act. Johnson knows this, and as the rare offensive-minded coach who doesn\u2019t just call plays but sets the tone for all 53 of his players<\/a>, he seems perfectly-suited to keep leveling up. You should never speak too soon in the NFL \u2014 Chip Kelly, et. al say hello \u2014 but it sure seems like it won\u2019t take long for Johnson to accomplish even greater things in Chicago.<\/p>\n 14. Liam Coen, Jaguars<\/p>\n Career Record: 13-4 (.765) Liam Coen\u2019s Jaguars tenure had inauspicious beginnings. He somehow bungled the very act of getting hired<\/a> before uttering the Jags\u2019 signature \u201cDuval\u201d chant in the cadence of a killer movie clown<\/a> at his introductory press conference. Paired with new GM James Gladstone\u2019s \u201cmillennial word salad\u201d-style of speech, Coen started off looking like the latest in a long line of failed Jaguars saviors. Then he got to saving them. Although that did not result in a postseason victory, Coen and company posted the club\u2019s highest winning percentage of the 21st century. Making the playoffs is the first goal for any NFL head coach, but for Coen it was really just icing on the cake of his primary 2025 objective: Getting Trevor Lawrence\u2019s career back on track. The often tentative and scattershot would-be franchise player was a more believable roster cornerstone by season\u2019s end. So Coen accomplished his first-year priorities and then some, arguably cramming 2-3 years of work into one. Just like we shouldn\u2019t overreact to one bad press conference, the same is true of one good season. But Coen certainly looks like the man primed to get the Jags out of the draft lottery for good.<\/p>\n 15. Shane Steichen, Colts<\/p>\n Career Record: 25-26 (.490) We are trying to answer an either\/or question with Shane Steichen. Does he deserve credit for keeping a dysfunctional franchise on the tracks, or blame for remaining mired at .500? I tend to believe the former, but it\u2019s easy to indulge in the latter after Indy started 8-2 last season only to collapse out of the playoffs before Week 18 even started. It is inarguable that things could be worse in Indy. But how does Steichen make things better than his current 8-9, 9-8 carousel? Talk inevitably turns to things beyond Steichen\u2019s control. Were GM Chris Ballard\u2019s \u201clost years\u201d more about late owner Jim Irsay than himself? Will new owner Carlie Irsay-Gordon run a more traditional operation, giving Steichen more stability and leeway? The early returns on both of those questions are \u201cno\u201d after last November\u2019s hyper-aggressive, ultimately ill-considered trade for Sauce Gardner. Indy now lacks the draft capital it needs to get out of quarterback purgatory. That probably ultimately means Steichen\u2019s Colts tenure will get hit with an incomplete grade and we might not get a final answer on his coaching ability until he is recycled elsewhere.<\/p>\n 16. Todd Bowles, Bucs<\/p>\n Career Record: 61-74 (.452) Has Todd Bowles\u2019 Bucs tenure gone better or worse than expected? It\u2019s certainly never been worse than it was down the stretch in 2025, where an apocalyptic 1-7 post-bye stretch rendered the Bucs\u2019 Week 18 victory over the Panthers irrelevant, coughing up one of the easier-to-claim division titles in recent memory. It would be easy to say it was emblematic of Bowles\u2019 time by the bay, but until last season he had primarily been backing into good outcomes. His first year featured an 8-9 division title with the greatest player in league history before he pulled off similar feats each of the next two campaigns with the greatest walk-on<\/a> in league history. Bowles\u2019 somewhat-sustained offensive success has belied a conservative and stodgy reputation. It\u2019s been necessary since he hasn\u2019t quite lived up to expectations on the defensive side of the ball. That was especially true in 2025. On the whole, Bowles has been running pure in the 8-10 win zone. Good for him, but that\u2019s an unsustainable approach whether you\u2019re Jeff Fisher or Mike Tomlin, and Bowles seems much more like the former. Absent a big 2026 step forward, there will probably be big changes on the Bucs\u2019 sideline.<\/p>\n 17. Zac Taylor, Bengals<\/p>\n Career Record: 52-63-1 (.453) Zac Taylor is now the longest-tenured head coach in the AFC North because he\u2019s the only-tenured head coach in the AFC North. A man who seemingly half the world wants fired has now outlasted Mike Tomlin and John Harbaugh. It\u2019s not due to merit, of course. Taylor would have been churned in almost any other city by now. But Mike Brown\u2019s Bengals will never be any other franchise. They favor thrift. They prefer slow and steady. They never win the race, but that\u2019s a matter for another day. So if Taylor isn\u2019t going anywhere, what are the Bengals left to work with? A coach who at least abides by \u201cyou\u2019re only as good as your quarterback.\u201d When Joe Burrow is healthy, Taylor doesn\u2019t get in his way and the Bengals score a ton of points. When Burrow is out, Taylor stands around waiting for him to return. Hardly ideal. Also not as disastrous as it could be. A replacement-level in-game decision-maker, Taylor is never going to steal a game on his own. I guess Bengals fans should be thankful he \u2014 usually \u2014 doesn\u2019t lose them on his own, either.<\/p>\n 18. Kellen Moore, Saints<\/p>\n Career Record: 6-11 (.353) Kellen Moore is only 36 years old but already had six years of NFL play-calling experience before landing the Saints\u2019 head-coaching gig. Unlike some of his wiz kid brethren, Moore also played big-time college football and bounced around the fringes of NFL rosters for a few seasons before turning in his helmet and picking up a headset. That is the long way of saying he had more experience than most fans probably realized upon his arrival in New Orleans. It showed his first year on the job. Handed a 53-man roster the entire league knew was going nowhere, the best Moore could hope for was winning around the edges. He did just that as ran the fastest offense in the NFL as a way to at least keep opposing defenses off-balance. He benched Spencer Rattler and cajoled far better results than expected out of second-rounder Tyler Shough. Passing production of any kind should not have been easy to come by considering the Saints\u2019 undermanned skill corps and underpowered running game, but Moore\u2019s attack was positively league-average by season\u2019s end. That would be damning with faint praise elsewhere, but genuinely surprising for the 2025 Saints. The next step is dealing with actual expectations after clearing last year\u2019s nonexistent bar.<\/p>\n 19. Dave Canales, Panthers<\/p>\n Career Record: 13-21 (.382) Dave Canales has never had a winning season. That didn\u2019t stop him from almost winning a playoff game last year. Canales\u2019 8-9 club did not close particularly well \u2014 it went 2-3 after Thanksgiving \u2014 but those victories were over previous division dominator Tampa Bay and Sean McVay\u2019s Rams. It was those same Rams Canales and company nearly beat in the Wild Card Round. Strange. Probably random. Maybe, just maybe something. That\u2019s not a lot to go on, but it is more to go on than the Panthers have had since the end of the Cam Newton era. Canales seems to be doing the best he can on his own offensive side of the ball. The defense got (a lot) better in 2025. Bryce Young is occasionally watchable. Canales has several factors holding him back. Young is, at best, a 2-3 year solution, and owner Dave Tepper does not seem to be a predictable man to work for. This is probably a hard-capped job. Canales is nevertheless doing his best to find out, and if nothing else, putting together a nice clip reel for his next gig.<\/p>\n 20. Dan Quinn, Commanders<\/p>\n Career Record: 60-59 (.504) If the Commanders\u2019 2024 felt a little too good to be true, well \u2026 there\u2019s no harm in letting someone have their moment. That felt especially apropos in Washington, where fans were desperate for anything to go right after the hellish Snyder years. So it was easy to look the other way when everything went right, right down to Dan Quinn reaching 12 wins for the first time in his coaching career. Even though it felt flimsy, I wanted to believe in the power of positivity. It just goes to show. That free lunch was paid for and then some in 2025, where Washington again became the football town where every good deed promptly gets punished. That included on Quinn\u2019s sideline, where his bet that 2024 was the birth of a new Kliff Kingsbury was quickly disproven. He was also forced to fire DC Joe Whitt, reaching deep into his bag of scapegoats just one year after it seemed like the good vibes would never die. In some ways, that was actually true, as Quinn was one of just two head coaches to earn an A+ grade in the NFLPA\u2019s annual survey<\/a>. Players have always loved Quinn. That has never been up for debate. 2025 was just a necessary reminder of the limits of personality(-based coaching) in a league where personnel and play-calling are everything.<\/p>\n 21. Brian Schottenheimer, Cowboys<\/p>\n Career Record: 7-9-1 (.441) The Dallas sky did not fall during Brian Schottenheimer\u2019s first year on the job. It did not brighten, either. If the initial reaction of \u201cwhy didn\u2019t they just let a fan coach the team\u201d was a little over the top for an assistant with 25 years of NFL experience, it was still directionally accurate. Schottenheimer exceeded expectations only because there weren\u2019t any. A team that used to dream of Super Bowls now seems content to break parking and concessions records. If you\u2019re wondering, \u201cwhat does any of that have to do with Brian Schottenheimer,\u201d the answer is nothing. That\u2019s because this project is no longer really about football. It used to be the only Cowboy who was graded on a curve was owner Jerry Jones. \u201cFor an owner, he actually knows about football.\u201d \u201cListen, the Cowboys at least usually get their first-round picks right.\u201d That permissive attitude now permeates the entire operation. \u201cSmall wins\u201d are enough. The 2025 squad might have gone 7-9-1, but Dak Prescott stayed healthy. They won the George Pickens trade. And yes, last but not least, they didn\u2019t hire the very worst coach in football. Congratulations. To whom, we aren\u2019t exactly sure.<\/p>\n 22. Aaron Glenn, Jets<\/p>\n Career Record: 3-14 (.176)
With The Rams Since: 2017
Last Year\u2019s Ranking: 2<\/p>\n
With The Chiefs Since: 2013
Last Year\u2019s Ranking: 1<\/p>\n
With The 49ers Since: 2017
Last Year\u2019s Ranking: 4<\/p>\n
With The Seahawks Since: 2024
Last Year\u2019s Ranking: 19<\/p>\n
With The Broncos Since: 2023
Last Year\u2019s Ranking: 12<\/p>\n
With The Chargers Since: 2024
Last Year\u2019s Ranking: 6<\/p>\n
With The Patriots Since: 2025
Last Year\u2019s Ranking: \u2014 \u2014<\/p>\n
With The Lions Since: 2021
Last Year\u2019s Ranking: 7<\/p>\n
With The Eagles Since: 2021
Last Year\u2019s Ranking: 5<\/p>\n
With The Packers Since: 2019
Last Year\u2019s Ranking: 10<\/p>\n
With The Texans Since: 2023
Last Year\u2019s Ranking: 17<\/p>\n
With The Vikings Since: 2022
Last Year\u2019s Ranking: 11<\/p>\n
With The Bears Since: 2025
Last Year\u2019s Ranking: \u2014 \u2014<\/p>\n
With The Jaguars Since: 2025
Last Year\u2019s Ranking: \u2014 \u2014<\/p>\n
With The Colts Since: 2023
Last Year\u2019s Ranking: 20<\/p>\n
With The Bucs Since: 2022
Last Year\u2019s Ranking: 15<\/p>\n
With The Bengals Since: 2019
Last Year\u2019s Ranking: 14<\/p>\n
With The Saints Since: 2025
Last Year\u2019s Ranking: \u2014 \u2014<\/p>\n
With The Panthers Since: 2024
Last Year\u2019s Ranking: 23<\/p>\n
With The Commanders Since: 2024
Last Year\u2019s Ranking: 13<\/p>\n
With The Cowboys Since: 2025
Last Year\u2019s Ranking: \u2014 \u2014<\/p>\n
With The Jets Since: 2025
Last Year\u2019s Ranking: \u2014 \u2014<\/p>\n