The offenses are ranked. So are the defenses. Even the kickers and punters got their due. Now last, but not least, we list the men who call the shots—the head coaches.
1. Chiefs
Head coach: Andy Reid
Reid has long been one of the most well-respected head coaches in NFL history. So much so that with a Lombardi trophy now, he is assured a place in Canton. He has a 207-128 regular-season record with Eagles and Chiefs and has led his team to the playoffs 15 times over 21 years. He’s had a losing record just three times in 21 years and has never had a losing record with the Chiefs. That’s absurd.
Overall, his record in the playoffs is 15-14 with two conference championships and one Super Bowl win.
When he took over the Chiefs in 2013, he acquired Alex Smith in trade with the 49ers and for five years, was in the playoffs four times. Despite winning with Smith, just making the playoffs wasn’t enough, so Reid traded up in the 2017 draft to get Pat Mahomes. Then a year later, he traded Smith to Washington and started Mahomes who was MVP in his first year as a starter and Super Bowl champion in his second season.
2. Chargers
Head coach: Anthony Lynn
Lynn waited a long time as a position coach and coordinator before finally getting his shot to be a head coach three years ago. He led the Chargers to a winning record in each of his first two seasons, including a 12-4 record in 2018 and a playoff win.
Though he’s coming off a 5-11 season with the Chargers, that seemed to be more a product of Philip Rivers’s dwindling skills as a quarterback and his penchant for taking too many chances. The team was also depleted by injuries. In fact, Lynn has had to coach a snake-bit team seemingly every season since he arrived. He’s also had to deal with the team’s relocation and having no home-field advantage, often preparing for crowd noise for home games. How he’s had a 26-22 record through all that is beyond me. It’s quite impressive.
3. Raiders
Head coach: Jon Gruden
Many will probably think it shocking not to have Gruden at No. 2. That likely comes from his being such a veteran and well-respected coach. The problem is two-fold here. It would disrespect the job Lynn has done in his short time on the job while judging Gruden by his accomplishments of a distant past.
It may not seem like it, but a Gruden-led team hasn’t won a playoff game in 18 years. Or a total of eight seasons of coaching that he has not had to get up early for work in mid-January.
Granted, the last playoff win he had was the Super Bowl and that’s no small thing. Though it’s hard to give him all the credit for that considering he was coaching a team mostly assembled by Tony Dungy and in the Super Bowl, he faced his former team and former offensive coordinator who was still using essentially the same playbook.
This isn’t meant to disrespect Gruden. He is a good coach. A brilliant coach who commands the respect of his players. That goes a long way. But in a ‘what have you done for me lately’ world, we have to see something going into his third season that suggests he can be the difference. He has yet to prove without a doubt he is an upgrade over Jack Del Rio who, keep in mind, led the team to a 19-13 record and a trip to the playoffs in his first two seasons in Oakland with the same quarterback. Gruden is sitting at 11-21 so far in his return.
4. Broncos
Head coach: Vic Fangio
Talk about biding your time before getting a shot. Fangio got his first defensive coordinator job in 1995 and was an NFL defensive coordinator for 19 years before finally getting the call to be a head coach last season.
The Broncos were sitting at 3-8 with five games to go last season before Fangio made the call to put in Drew Lock at quarterback. They went 4-1 to finish the season 7-9.
Being a great coordinator isn’t all that matters when it comes to being a head coach. And though the defense deserves some credit for the Broncos strong finish, it clearly was Lock’s insertion that made the difference. That’s not a knock on Fangio because every team needs a good quarterback to have success and Lock was on the partial season injured reserve list before that, so he wasn’t even available for Fangio before that. It just means that after one season on the job, the jury is still out on Fangio as a head coach.
It’s also worth mentioning that Fangio inherited one of the league’s best defense. What happens when he loses some of those guys and has to make the picks to replace them? We’ll see.
