Who’s the Best Coach in the NFC West? 2025 Rankings Revealed

The NFC West is quietly one of the better divisions in the NFL when it comes to coaching staffs.

The Los Angeles Rams have a Super Bowl winning head coach in Sean McVay.

The San Francisco 49ers have Kyle Shanahan, who has taken the organization to multiple Super Bowl appearances.

The Arizona Cardinals and Seattle Seahawks have young, innovative defensive coaches in Jonathan Gannon and Mike Macdonald, respectively.  

Those four stack up as well as any other division in the league for its head coaches. It becomes fair to question who is the best of the bunch.

There's definitely two tiers here, but it’s also not a surprise they’re separated by their years in the league. But nonetheless, they are all trending toward greatness. 

1. Sean McVay, Los Angeles Rams

McVay gets the edge for the top spot on this list as the lone Super Bowl champion with two trips to the big game. The once youngest head coach in the league has widely been considered one of the greatest offensive minds in the NFL since the turn of the century, and has turned out the shortage of elite offensive players across several skill positions.

When McVay took over the franchise in 2017, it was looking for new direction and someone to revitalize top pics Todd Gurley and Jared Goff. It took next to no time for McVay to turn them both into Pro Bowl level players.

Plenty of veterans have made stops with the team and found equal or new success to their previous teams. Rookies have also found near immediate success under his regime.

And while the offense has been McVay’s calling, more often than not, the Rams have had a defense to pair with it. The team's pass rush in particular has always been a major emphasis of strength for the team, even beyond the legendary Aaron Donald.

A mighty defense paired with such an explosive and innovative offense has led to all, but one massively successful season.

McVay has also established quite a quality coaching tree across the league on top of his wild success.

Pound per pound, McVay sits atop the NFC West as its best head coach. He is trailed closely by another, but a ring separates them.

2. Kyle Shanahan, San Francisco 49ers

A Super Bowl win would likely swap Shanahan with McVay, but he doesn’t have one — it’s a simple as that.

Still, Shanahan is a terrific head coach and has his team competing more often than not. His losing seasons with San Francisco have typically been marked with injuries, although I’ll never hand out that excuse because everyone deals with them.

But there is something that Shanahan does better than anyone in the league, and that’s getting the most out of both elite players and players who the league did not want. The ultimate example is Brock Purdy, who just signed a fat contract as the former Mr. Irrelevant.

He has made plenty of unknown players become studs on both sides of the ball and also turned great players into MVP candidates a la Christian McCaffrey

Some credit needs to be handed out to Shanahan (as well as this front office) for assistant coaching hires that have turned out several head coaches across the league. His coaching tree is extremely noteworthy and his ability to identify talent from a staff-building standpoint is beyond exceptional — it’s among the best in the entire league.

But beyond all that, Shanahan is simply a terrific head coach. He’s as great of an offensive mind as his father was back in the day and has the Niners competing for championships on an annual basis. The 49ers will be right back into the thick of things this year and anyone overlooking them will be made a fool of themselves.

3. Jonathan Gannon, Arizona Cardinals

Gannon avoids last place on this list after a successful year two in what is undeniably a rebuilding franchise. The Cardinals went from bottom feeders to contenders in two seasons, and are a better team than last year — one that was in the hunt for the division crown for most of the season.

The tale of last season for the Cardinals was a defense that was consistently overachieving. Compared to other units across the league and even within its own division, Arizona was able to hang around in ways that they probably shouldn’t have. They weren’t the most talented and they didn’t have the most debts, but they had guys who stepped up when called upon.

It led to an offseason almost entirely focused on the defensive side of the ball. All three levels were addressed with talent, youth, and proven players.

The team was a mess last year offensively and not much was done to correct that. The Cardinals are putting all of its eggs in the Kyler Murray/Drew Petzing basket and what will be a major prove-it year for the two. The team has plenty of talent between James Conner, Trey McBride, and Marvin Harrison Jr.

It’s not quite “playoffs or bust“ for Gannon this season, but there will be a ton of hype for this team to take another step forward with how far ahead of schedule they are.

4. Mike Macdonald, Seattle Seahawks

Macdonald gets the short end of the stick with just one season under his belt. He did have the Seahawks playing with a backbone last season and they were in the hunt for the division crown up until the last part of the season.

And that means a lot for a first year head coach.

By no means were the Seahawks in some horrible spot when Macdonald got there, but the team was in need of retooling and he was interested in that job. We can call year one successful with a winning 9-8 record. 

Seattle’s defense, which has been the team’s calling card for more than a decade now, looked completely at home under the defensive guru Macdonald. Several players had career seasons or even re-made themselves under his new vision.

Offensively, the team needs more work, but several moves were made this offseason to try and get them in a new direction. Moving on from Geno Smith to Sam Darnold will be an intriguing experiment, while moving on from DK Metcalf is much more controversial.

How the offense performs will likely define the season and there will be decent expectations for Macdonald in year two. The division is more than winnable for a good Seahawks team and they will be among the league’s most intriguing to follow this year.