No one has any clue what makes a Super Bowl winning head coach. Everyone thinks they do, but they really don’t. Why? Because the criteria always seems to change. It’s either coaches that are willing to adapt to Bill Walsh’s West Coast offense, on Bill Belichick’s coaching tree or had a cup of coffee with Sean McVay. Whatever is the hot idea is supposedly the right idea. Well sports fans, as we know, aren’t the most intelligent. Have you ever listened to sports talk radio? When doing a fairly simple search on the history of Super Bowl wining head coaches’ backgrounds, we can see that there’s more common ground than you think. There are characteristics needed to be a Super Bowl winning head coach based on history. However, a coach does not need to check every box off the list to win a Super Bowl. Based on a background check of all 32 head coaches to win a Super Bowl, here is what we and front offices executives should look for when trying to find the next great head coach.
Lightning does not strike twice
The most stunning, but yet well-known realization regarding Super Bowl winning head coaches is that none have accomplished this large feat with two separate teams. This is mostly due to the fact that Super Bowl winning head coaches are so rare that the teams that are lucky enough to have them, don’t let them go. After all, there has been 53 Super Bowls in NFL history. That means those head coaches that have won “The Big Game” have won over 60% of them! However, that does not mean that no Super Bowl winning head coach has ever led another team to the world’s most famous game. Of those 32 to win it all, just four have ever been to the Super Bowl with two separate franchises. What’s interesting is half lost the first time around and won the second, while the other half won it all, but lost during their next try with another franchise. Don Shula’s 1968 Colts team lost to the Jets, but then he led the Dolphins to back-to-back championships in 1972 and 1973. Dick Vermeil’s 1980 Eagles squad fell to the Raiders, but nearly two decades later, he struck back with the Rams in 1999 to win it all. Bill Parcells and Mike Holmgren did not have the same luck. Parcells took the Giants to win it all in 1986 and 1990, but lost with the Patriots in 1996. Holmgren, who’s Packers defeated Parcells’ Patriots in 1996, lost in the Super Bowl with the Seahawks in 2005.
Offense > Defense
We’ve heard the phrase thousands of time. Offense wins games, defense wins championships. It’s helpful to tell your Little League team, but not the best way to look at the NFL. People have claimed this is only a recent trend as the league’s rules shifted to help star offensive players stay healthy. However, it’s ALWAYS been this way in the league. Of the 32 Super Bowl winning head coaches, 18 were offense specialists, 12 were defensive specialists, John Harbaugh was a special teams expert and Hank Stram did not have one area of expertise. Stram is not the best example considering he was one of the earlier head coaches in Super Bowl history and was known to have no coordinators on staff. Sure, someone like Bill Belichick can probably accomplish that now, but it would take a ton of extra work in today’s more advanced game-planning.
No head coaching experience necessary
There’s two factors this. One can be from earlier that a great coach head coach is so hard to come by that teams will hold on for as long as they can and the other is that teams rather go with someone new than with someone they’ve seen before. Teams are playing more to this as less and less former head coaches are getting hired, but more coordinators are, despite these former head coaches’ past success. We’ve seen a Super Bowl winning head coach take another team to the promise land and only two other head coaches have ever taken two separate franchises to The Big Game. Of the 32 Super Bowl winning head coaches, 10 had prior head coaching experience in the NFL. Those who had head coaching experience had mixed success with prior teams, but this proves it’s worth it to take a chance on an up-and-coming coordinator than a former head coach, despite how much Rex Ryan will plead on television.
It goes the same for those with collegiate head coaching experience. Only 8 of the Super Bowl winning head coaches were head coaches on the college level. Of those 8 former college head coaches to take a team to a Super Bowl victory, three of them were also NFL head coaches. Those three were Dick Vermeil, Tom Coughlin and Pete Carroll. Overall 15 Super Bowl winning head coaches have had any head coaching experience on the college or professional level. With more than half having no head coaching experience, it makes it worthwhile to take a chance on someone despite their lack of experience.
When looking at the position Super Bowl winning head coaches held directly before the team they won with hired them, 18 of them were NFL coordinators. 10 were Offensive Coordinators, 7 were Defensive Coordinators and only John Harbaugh was hired by the Ravens after being a Special Teams Coordinator. Four held occupations on NFL coaching staffs that weren’t a coordinator level and Hank Stram was hired directly from a college coaching staff position. Surprisingly, only five were hired following a NFL head coaching job and four were directly pulled from a college head coach position.
Super Bowl experience does not matter as well on the resume. Only 13 of the 32 head coaches to win a Super Bowl won it all as a coordinator. So when a team hires a coordinator who helped take a team to the playoffs, but not a Super Bowl victory, you should not have any fear.
The importance of coordinators
Perhaps football is such a strong part of America’s fabric because it takes so much hard work and grit to get a head coaching position. In the NBA and MLB, we’ve seen players go straight from retirement or the broadcast booth to take a team to a championship. There’s no real coaching trees and resumes, it’s all about names and connections. In the NFL, it’s much more complicated to become a head coach. It’s why you never see a superstar player walk off the field and grab a headset the following year.
Of the 32 Super Bowl winning head coaches, 29 of them had previous coaching experience at the NFL level. The three that didn’t hold such jobs were Hank Stram, Jimmy Johnson and Barry Switzer who went straight from college to the pros. However, those three all had been a coordinator on the collegiate level. It may be possible to obtain a NFL head coaching job without coordinator experience, but we’ve yet to see one win a Super Bowl without that experience.
Not so average Joe’s
Let’s be real we’ve all had the same dream. It seems like it’s very possible to study football for hours upon end, land a job and work up to being a NFL head coach. I mean look at someone like Mike Holmgren or Tom Coughlin. They seem like just normal guys who love football. However, that dream is pretty much impossible unless you played college football. All 32 coaches who have won a Super Bowl have played some level of college football. Some like Jimmy Johnson played for blue blood programs like University of Arkansas and others like Mike McCarthy started at a community college before transferring to a school that plays in the NAIA.
College experience is only necessary. Most of them never made the NFL as a player. Unlike the NBA, NHL or NBA, it’s rare that a former superstar player leads a team to win a championship. The only notable player to lead a team to a Super Bowl victory as a coach was Mike Ditka, but even the great “Iron Mike” had to pay his dues as a member of the Cowboys coaching staff under Tom Landry before being hired by the Bears as head coach. Only 11 Super Bowl winning head coaches have ever participated in a NFL game as a player.
It may be hard to picture many head coaches as actual football players, but it’s no surprising that most of them had leadership positions on the field. The two most popular positions of any Super Bowl winning head coach are quarterback and linebacker, both are the leaders on the offense and the defense. Just like how baseball teams look at catchers for future managers and basketball teams look at point guards for future head coaches, football teams look at quarterbacks and linebackers.
We may not know who for sure would be the next dream head coach, but based on this, there’s certainly a better idea of who it should be.
Marc Weber Talks Sports 