Ranking the NFL coaches heading into 2019

The new coaches are somewhat jumbled in random order, but Flores lands at the bottom, not by virtue of anything he’s done but because of the steep odds he faces with the Miami Dolphins this season. The history of Bill Belichick disciples doesn’t bode well for Flores’ tenure in Miami either.

Kingsbury’s below-.500 record as a college head coach positions him close to the bottom of our list, but the Cardinals are counting on his young, innovative offensive mind connecting with rookie quarterback Kyler Murray. It’s not necessarily the worst idea. Big 12 football reporters I trust say Kingsbury’s downfall at Texas Tech was his lack of ability as a recruiter. In the NFL, he’ll get the chance to prove himself as just a football coach.

LaFleur arrives in Green Bay as a bit of an unknown. He has a Sean McVay connection, which is heavily useful in today’s NFL, but he coached just one year under McVay in Los Angeles before becoming the play-caller in Tennessee last year. With LaFleur’s direction, the Titans finished 25th in offense last year.

Just like LaFleur, Taylor spent some time coaching under McVay in Los Angeles, which drew the Bengals to him this past offseason. Taylor served as an assistant wide receivers coach in 2017 and then as the quarterbacks coach last year with the Rams.

Unlike LaFleur and Taylor, Kitchens actually has some gray in his beard and spent more than a decade coaching in the NFL. He has just one partial year of experience as an offensive coordinator, but he and Baker Mayfield developed a connection during the second half of last season. That, plus the high expectations of the Browns, has Kitchens in position as the most likely new coach to experience immediate success.

Fangio tops our list of new coaches because of his three decades of experience as an NFL assistant. In recent years, Fangio was defensive coordinator of some of the league’s best defenses in San Francisco and Chicago. The quarterback and offense are still question marks in Denver, but the Broncos should have a great defense under Fangio.

The former Patriots defensive coordinator seemed to learn in his first year that there’s no place like New England, and no matter how hard you try, you can’t turn the Lions into the Patriots. In Patricia’s defense, though, it takes more than one year to change a culture. Lions fans were probably just hoping for more than six wins in his debut season.

At times the Titans showcased the resiliency Vrabel wants to instill in his team. Tennessee doesn’t have any major deficiencies, but at the same time it doesn’t excel in any one area, including quarterback. While Vrabel isn’t directly responsible for the development of Marcus Mariota and the offense, the unit must show more growth in 2019 for Vrabel to gain more respect.

Shurmur could easily sit at the bottom of the coaches who missed the playoffs in their first season on the job last year, but I’m willing to give him a small pass because the organization elected to stick with Eli Manning at quarterback. With Daniel Jones now in the fold, more pressure will be on Shurmur this season to make the switch behind center at the proper time and then develop the young signal-caller.

The honeymoon phase for Shanahan ends this fall. He took over a 49ers roster that was lacking talent at every position and no future at quarterback. Last year, his franchise signal-caller, Jimmy Garoppolo, suffered a season-ending injury in Week 3. At some point the excuses have to end. That’s not to say Shanahan should be gone if the 49ers don’t make the playoffs, but his reputation as a coach will fall if San Francisco doesn’t show tangible improvement in 2019.

In some respect, the fact Gruden has a 31-32-1 record over the last four years in a dysfunctional organization such as Washington is an accomplishment. Having said that, an average record and no playoff wins won’t get one ranked in the top of the coaching list. Gruden’s tenure now seems tied to the development of quarterback Dwayne Haskins, who may prove to be a steal at No. 15 overall in the 2019 draft.

During his first season as a head coach, McDermott led the Bills to their first playoff appearance in 18 years, and then despite a ton of roster turnover, Buffalo won six games last year. Having said that, McDermott gets docked for believing Nathan Peterman ever deserved to start an NFL game. Peterman has thrown an interception on nearly 10 percent of his NFL pass attempts.

In the group of coaches who have earned one playoff appearance during their careers, Gase may have the best chance of finding long-term success. The Dolphins haven’t had any success lately, but he led them to a 10-6 mark a couple of years ago. With the Jets, he has promising second-year quarterback Sam Darnold to develop and new toy Le’Veon Bell. Having said that, Gase probably gets far too much credit for once calling plays in an offense led by Peyton Manning in Denver. Over the last four years, Gase’s offenses have never finished inside the top 20 in points.

On last year’s rankings, Marrone might have been sitting in the top 10 because he helped the Jaguars end a 10-year playoff drought. That team was a few big plays in the fourth quarter of the AFC championship away from a Super Bowl appearance.

Gruden is tough to place. It’s hard ranking a Super Bowl-winning coach so low, but since capturing that championship, Gruden has posted a 49-65 record, including two playoff losses. Last year he jettisoned two of his top players because of contract issues or concerns and preferred veterans over young rookies. Has the game passed Gruden by? We’ll begin to find out in 2019.

The Texans are four games above .500 with O’Brien as their head coach. With quarterbacks such as Ryan Fitzpatrick, Brian Hoyer, Brock Osweiler, Ryan Mallett, Tom Savage and T.J. Yates starting games for them during that stretch, that’s a tremendous accomplishment. However, it doesn’t get one into the top realm of coaches either, and O’Brien can’t fall back on the fact he doesn’t have a quarterback anymore. He will be trusted to lead the Texans to playoff victories now with Deshaun Watson behind center despite the fact that the Houston defense could begin showing signs of age.

Zimmer has nearly a .600 winning percentage in five years with the Vikings, but the team’s inconsistencies keep him out of the top tier of coaches. Despite signing a “better” quarterback, Minnesota took a step backward last year, and Zimmer’s defense was partially to blame. The Vikings have plenty of talent and aimed to improved their offensive line this past offseason, though, so don’t be surprised if Zimmer has Minnesota back in the playoffs in January.

Speaking of inconsistencies, the Panthers have yet to post back-to-back winning seasons under Rivera. I gave him the slight edge over Zimmer because of a Super Bowl appearance, but that was four years ago. Rivera owns a 24-24 record over the last three years.

The grading scale for each NFL coach is not the same. That’s especially true for Garrett, as head coach of "America’s Team." In some respects, the Cowboys aren’t and never will be Garrett’s team. Their owner is so involved, he takes a lot of the credit and blame when things go badly in Dallas. But Garrett has no problem with that, and his ability to experience success in this unique situation says something about his demeanor. Garrett doesn’t call plays, and he’s not known as a great mentor, but he may manage egos better than any coach in the league.

After earning a playoff spot and victory in January following a 1-5 start last year, it’s tempting to rank Reich in the top 10, but that seems to be based too much on recency bias. Ten straight wins was a terrific run, but he will be judged this year on how he manages expectations in 2019, which took a hit when Andrew Luck abruptly retired. With such a young and talented roster, though, Reich is in position to become one of the elite coaches in the NFL. However, with the unexpected retirement of his franchise quarterback, he faces a stiff challenge heading into the season.

Quinn is a tough case. He brought his “brotherhood” mantra from Seattle to Atlanta, and it’s evident in his players. His team went through the toughest Super Bowl loss ever and rebounded to make the playoffs in 2017. Too many injuries kept them from playing January football a year ago. Having said that, most of that success is because of Matt Ryan and the offense. Quinn is a defensive guy, so he needs to establish an elite defense in Atlanta to become a top 10 head coach.

With his Coach of the Year win, Nagy has an argument to hold a top 10 coaching spot on this list, but again, I am attempting to withhold too much recency bias. So much of the Bears success last year was to the credit of Vic Fangio and the Chicago defense. Of course, Nagy could have stepped in and hired his own defensive coordinator. He didn’t, so he should receive some credit for the defense's success. Quarterback Mitch Trubisky and the offense are coming along too, making Nagy a candidate for a top 10 spot next year.

It’s tough ranking Arians in the top 10 after a year away from the game, but it’s hard to find a better quarterback developer and play-caller in the league. Including the playoffs, Arians won 50 games in five years with the Cardinals, and he went 9-3 as an interim head coach with the Colts in the absence of Chuck Pagano, who had cancer. During that stretch, he won Coach of the Year twice.

After starting 0-4 as a head coach with the Chargers in 2017, Los Angeles has gone 21-7 since then. The Chargers used to be the kings of losing close games, but under Lynn, they went 6-1 in one-possession games last year.

A couple of rocky offseasons has dropped Tomlin out of the top five, which is where he stood in a lot of coaching rankings a few years ago. It’s been 10 years since the Steelers won a Super Bowl, and the organization didn't win a title with all the offensive talent it accumulated this decade (Antonio Brown and Le’Veon Bell). But Tomlin still has yet to suffer a losing season in 12 years with the Steelers. He’s taken them to the playoffs eight times and won eight playoff games. Furthermore, only Bill Belichick has a better win percentage than Tomlin among active coaches with at least 50 games coached.

Without Joe Flacco’s injury (or a Steelers collapse), Harbaugh might have been fired at the end of last season. It’s funny how things work sometimes. But Harbaugh did have the smarts to stick with Lamar Jackson, and it could change the projection of his career. Harbaugh will need Jackson to continue to work his magic this season, or the Ravens coach probably will be in the most danger of dropping on our list. Harbaugh owns a 50-46 record since winning Super Bowl XLVII.

The best way to overcome a small sample size and rank among one of the best head coaches in the league is to win the Super Bowl. Pederson did that despite losing his MVP candidate quarterback, Carson Wentz, during the stretch run. The Eagles struggled in their title defense, but Philadelphia responded with its back against the wall again, earned a playoff spot and won a playoff game. In just three years in Philadelphia, Pederson and his aggressive nature have also changed how other coaches view fourth downs.

For his dismal coaching performance in the Super Bowl, McVay nearly fell out of the top five, but he holds onto the last spot thanks to his 24-8 record in two seasons and Super Bowl appearance last year. McVay took over a Rams offense that was last in scoring, and it immediately become the top scoring offense in the league. He also may have saved the career of quarterback Jared Goff.

In my mind, the public isn’t hard enough on Payton. Despite having one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time, he has one Super Bowl ring. Other than a year-long suspension (which was fair punishment), the media has been too forgiving of his involvement in BountyGate. But that can’t keep Payton out of the top five heading into 2019. After several mediocre years, he’s led the Saints to a 24-8 mark the last two seasons and has them positioned for another run this fall. If not for a non-pass interference call in the NFC championship game, Payton may be even higher on this list.

On the surface, it’s hard positioning a coach without a championship as one of the top three in the league. But that’s not the case with Reid. Other than Belichick, no active coach has more wins than Reid, who will join the 200-win club if he can manage to just finish .500 this fall. In 20 years, he owns a .611 win percentage and has suffered just three losing seasons. If he can win his ring with quarterback Patrick Mahomes, Reid is a sure-fire Hall of Famer.

Since 2012, Carroll has led the Seahawks to seven winning records and six playoff appearances. No other coach can say that exce...yep, Belichick. Moreover, Seattle has won eight playoffs games since 2012, including at least one every season from 2012-16. Last year may have been his best coaching yet. After starting 0-2 and without so many of his defensive stars of the past, the Seahawks rallied to finish 10-6 and earn a playoff spot. Seattle will seemingly always be in contention with Carroll at the helm.

Was there ever any doubt? Belichick might be the best NFL coach of all time, so among the active coaches, he’s easily No. 1. His six Lombardi Trophies, nine AFC championships, including three straight, 261 victories and 42 more wins in the playoffs, speak for themselves.