Key Points
Bullet point summary by AI
- Our ranking of the best NFL head coaches capable of winning a Super Bowl is out, highlighting both proven champions and rising talents.
- The list includes coaches who have built championship-caliber defenses and others who transform struggling offenses into playoff contenders.
- The biggest debate centers around which coach at the very top has the most room to grow and could dominate the league for years to come.
Not all head coaches are created equal. Every year, we see a bunch of clowns get in over their heads and try to keep their jobs through a season, while other guys have a firm grip on what they’re doing, and they set their sights on championship football.
To be clear: this isn’t a ranking of the best head coaches. There are plenty of guys like Mike Vrabel, John Harbaugh, and Mike McCarthy who can win regular-season football games.
Those last two guys in particular have won a Super Bowl apiece, but it was such a long time ago that it’s hard to think that they still have it… And their former teams feel that way too, or else they wouldn’t have gotten fired. They’re not on this list.
We’re ranking head coaches who can win Super Bowls, and just about every single one of these guys is on this list for different reasons.
10. Liam Coen, Jacksonville Jaguars
Liam Coen’s got moxie, and that’s exactly the kind of thing the Jaguars needed. Their last three head coaches (Doug Marrone, Urban Meyer, and Doug Pederson) have all had some different levels of quirky… and in Meyer’s case, it was an emotionally detached and pathetic level of quirkiness… But Coen’s a little different.
He’s picking fights with other coaches, dog-cussing Trevor Lawrence mid-play call, and just being an otherwise crazy person. It’s weirdly refreshing to see someone with some fight leading that team.
He ended up turning the Jaguars into the most complete team in the AFC, and he did it when it seemed like they might be another lost cause. That’s an impressive turnaround.
NOW, the problem here is that Marrone and Pederson also made it to the postseason in their first seasons with the Jags. Marrone’s 2017 team made it to the AFC Championship, and Pederson’s 2022 team made it to the divisional round…. And then neither of those guys ever took their teams to the postseason ever again.
If Coen is the real deal, then he’s a little bit of a sleeper on this list. Jacksonville hasn’t made it to the playoffs in back-to-back seasons this millennium, and they’ve never really had a quarterback with the raw talent of Trevor Lawrence. If Coen can get this iteration of the Jaguars back to the postseason, the AFC is going to have a real problem on its hands.
9. Kyle Shanahan, San Francisco 49ers
Kyle Shanahan has had two opportunities to win a Super Bowl as a head coach, and he’s had one opportunity to do it as an offensive coordinator.
In 2016, his Falcons’ offense famously choked away a 28-3 lead to Tom Brady and the Patriots. In 2019, his 49ers’ offense stalled out in the fourth quarter and allowed the Chiefs to come back from being down 20-10 (KC won 31-20). In 2023, it was less about his offense falling apart and more about a lack of aggressiveness and his team not being prepared for overtime.
On top of that, his teams are always dealing with a debilitating number of injuries. It might not be fair to put that on the head coach, but it’s his team, and he has to answer for that stuff.
The point is: Kyle Shanahan has had chances, and he’s failed every single time… But he can call one hell of an offense, and that’s good enough to get in the top 10.
8. DeMeco Ryans, Houston Texans
The last two Super Bowls have been won by teams with top three defenses. If the Texans' offense can get them to a Super Bowl (or at least get them a real playoff run), DeMeco Ryans has built a defense that’s championship caliber.
It’s not just the players or the plays, but it’s the attitude that he’s brought. It’s a nasty team and a nasty defense. It’s a 4-3 scheme that brings relentless pressure up front, and it puts their defensive backs in position to smother and play violently.
It’s all about the way that he rattles quarterbacks, and he makes offensive coordinators reach deep into their bag to get some kind of edge. It’s disgusting and beautiful.
7. Dan Campbell, Detroit Lions
It’s tough to put a CEO head coach in the top 10 if they haven’t even made it to a Super Bowl, but Dan Campbell is different because you can see his fingerprints all over his team… And those are the fingerprints that you want.
When he took the job, he hired Anthony Lynn as his offensive coordinator, Aaron Glenn as his defensive coordinator, and he had Matthew Stafford as the starting quarterback. That lasted for two months before Stafford was traded to the Rams for Jared Goff. Campbell took that and turned a historically cursed franchise around.
And he did it while tinkering. It would’ve been very Detroit Lionsy of him to see that 3-13 season in 2021 and say, ‘We’re rebuilding a franchise, and we’re going to run it back and get better.’ Instead, he fired Anthony Lynn and hired Ben Johnson as their new offensive coordinator, which ended up being the best idea ever.
Time went on, Johnson left and took the head coaching job with the Bears, and Glenn took the head coaching job with the Jets.
He replaced them with John Morton (OC) and Kelvin Sheppard (DC). Morton wasn’t getting the job done on offense, so Campbell took over the play calling halfway through the 2025 season… Which just so happened to be the week they played a terrible Commanders’ defense too, which is a chef’s kiss.
When Campbell’s fingerprints are on something, it means that it’s aggressive. Not just in the ‘go for it on fourth down’ sense, but he’s also going to make changes before things get out of hand. A lot of coaches don’t do that, and it has to end up paying off for Dan Campbell at some point… right?
6. Ben Johnson, Chicago Bears
Is Ben Johnson a good football coach or what?
Caleb Williams looked broken in 2024. Then he got a real offensive coach and… well, he kind of still looked broken for a pretty good chunk of the time… But at least the offense worked dangerously well, and we were all able to see why the Bears drafted him first overall.
It’d be one thing if that were the first time we saw Johnson make huge strides with a team, but it wasn’t. He took the Lions and turned them into a team that wasn’t just competitive; they were straight-up dangerous. That’s just what he does, and he’s done it every single year for the past four seasons.
Now, Johnson’s easiest path to the Super Bowl is to get a real defense. They were weirdly amazing at turning the ball over last season, and they were terrible at everything else… and they still took the Rams to the third possession of overtime in the wild-card round of the playoffs.
If they can get any kind of a pass rush and get one more tackle or one more incompletion on a third down per game, they’ll play at home in January… and that is not a running game you want to see when it’s cold.
Lovie Smith, Marc Trestman, John Fox, Matt Nagy, Matt Eberflus, and now this? It’s very non-Bears to have a violent offense being masterminded by a lunatic who rips his shirt off, but here we are.
5. Andy Reid, Kansas City Chiefs
Andy Reid gets in the top-five because of his resume… He’s been to six Super Bowls, and he’s won three of them.
We could just as easily see the Chiefs bounce back in the next couple of years as we could see Patrick Mahomes never bounce back from his ACL injury and that team falls flat on its face for the next half-decade.
He’s one of the best and most accomplished head coaches in the history of the NFL. There’s nothing more that needs to be said about him.
4. Nick Sirianni, Philadelphia Eagles
Question: What does Nick Sirianni do besides win football games?
Answer: It really doesn’t matter because he wins football games.
Sirianni’s the most frustrating head coach to rank because, from the outside, it really seems like he’s a CEO head coach who does nothing… But he has to be in the top five because in the past four seasons, he's made it to two Super Bowls and won one of them.
While it’s crazy to say that he had absolutely nothing to do with that kind of success, it’s not crazy to question how much he had to do with that success.
We know that Howie Roseman is the mastermind of the Eagles, and he hired Kellen Moore and Vic Fangio (the Eagles’ 2024 Super Bowl-winning OC and DC). We also know that the last two offensive coordinators that Sirianni hired, Brian Johnson and Kevin Patullo, were duds (Patullo more than Johnson).
But when Sirianni took the head coaching job in 2021, he did hire Shane Steichen. That was a home run. Sirianni handed the playcalling duties over to Steichen when it was going terribly. And in that 2022 season, the Eagles had one of the most dominant offenses in the NFL with Steichen as the play caller.
The scheme that the Eagles ran that season (and pretty much every season since) is, ‘Go be better than the guy across from you.’ And it has worked frustratingly well. In 2022, it was the passing game, and in 2024, it was the running game. That’s undeniable. The 2023 and 2025 seasons, though? That scheme turned out to be terrible.
If we were ranking the best head coaches in general, he wouldn’t be in the top-10… But we’re ranking head coaches who can win Super Bowls, and Sirianni has to be in the top five.
3. Sean Payton, Denver Broncos
It’s always frustrating to put Sean Payton near the top of any type of coaches list because he’s such a weirdo... and not a fun weirdo like Jim Harbaugh, but a jerk weirdo.
Unfortunately, he’s really good at his job.
His Broncos were soooo close to making it to the Super Bowl last season. All they had to do was have the most important person on their franchise not break his ankle in the divisional round of the playoffs…
But sure enough, Bo Nix went and broke his ankle in the divisional round of the playoffs. Then they had to start Jarrett Stidham in the AFC Championship game, yada yada yada, they lost 10-7, and their season ended.
Sean Payton has made it to the postseason 11 times as a head coach; nine times with the Saints, and twice with the Broncos. He has made it to the Championship game four times, and to the Super Bowl once (should’ve been twice, but there was that pass interference in 2018)… And he won that single Super Bowl trip.
He’s done that with all kinds of teams, too: good quarterbacks, bad quarterbacks, good pass catchers, bad pass catchers, good running games, bad running games, good defenses, and bad defenses. As painful as it is to say:
Sean Payton is a good football coach who knows how to win postseason football games, and unlike Kyle Shanahan, he knows how not to lose them… That might be more important.
2. Sean McVay, Los Angeles Rams
Sean McVay’s been doing this thing where he’s run the most consistently good offense for the past nine years. In that time, he’s made it to the postseason seven times, the NFC Championship game three times, the Super Bowl twice, and won it once. And he’s done it with a bunch of different variations of his offense.
In 2018, his brain got broken by Bill Belichick in the Super Bowl, so he changed his run scheme. In 2021, he got the quarterback of his dreams in Matthew Stafford, and his passing game became lethal. In 2023, he got a do-everything wide receiver in Puka Nacua. In 2025, he got Davante Adams and a super-efficient running game.
He gets the best out of his players, and he makes postseason runs. His problem is that for the last two seasons, those runs have ended at the hands of the eventual Super Bowl Champions.
Three things can happen for McVay at the end of the 2026 season:
- He wins the Super Bowl, and everything is cool
- He loses after a deep postseason run and takes a break from coaching
- The Rams implode because of a lack of depth, they don’t make the playoffs, and both him and Stafford ride off into the sunset.
1. Mike Macdonald, Seattle Seahawks
Mike Macdonald is easy because he just did it, and he made it look easy… And he’s 38 years old… And he did it in his second year as a head coach. That’s bonkers.
The Seahawks’ performance last year was a testament to everyone who’s ever said, “Defense wins Championships.” Their offense kind of fell apart in the second half of last season, but everything about the defense held strong, and then they peaked during the playoffs.
Sure, his defense has been exposed by McVay’s Rams pretty much every time they played each other, but hey… Who hasn’t been exposed by them?
The bottom line is that Macdonald’s got a whoooole lot of coaching ahead of him. If he’s able to get his defenses remotely close to the level they were at in 2025, his teams are going to be competitive for a very, very long time.
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