There are 9 head coaches who have won exactly 2 Super Bowls. Four of them are already in the Hall of Fame: Lombardi (who also won 3 additional championships before the Super Bowl era), Shula (the career leader in wins), Landry (who won 250 regular season games and 20 playoff games) and Parcells (who had a history of making bad teams good: he reached the playoffs with 4 teams, the conference championship game with 3 teams, and the Super Bowl with 2 teams).
The other 5 are all potential HOF candidates. John Turney recently wrote a good review of them, which inspired today’s post. Here is the full list, with the HOF coaches marked by a ‘+’ sign next to their name.
| Rk | Coach | Yrs | Yr-Yr | G | W | L | T | W-L% | G > .500 | Yr plyf | G plyf | W plyf | L plyf | W-L% | AvRk | BstRk | Chmp |
SBwl | Conf |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Vince Lombardi+ | 10 | 1959-1969 | 136 | 96 | 34 | 6 | .738 | 62 | 6 | 10 | 9 | 1 | .900 | 1.5 | 1 | 5 | 2 | 2 |
| 2 | Don Shula+ | 33 | 1963-1995 | 490 | 328 | 156 | 6 | .677 | 172 | 19 | 36 | 19 | 17 | .528 | 1.8 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 6 |
| 3 | Tom Landry+ | 29 | 1960-1988 | 418 | 250 | 162 | 6 | .607 | 88 | 18 | 36 | 20 | 16 | .556 | 2.4 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 5 |
| 4 | George Seifert | 11 | 1989-2001 | 176 | 114 | 62 | 0 | .648 | 52 | 7 | 15 | 10 | 5 | .667 | 1.9 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| 5 | Bill Parcells+ | 19 | 1983-2006 | 303 | 172 | 130 | 1 | .569 | 42 | 10 | 19 | 11 | 8 | .579 | 2.5 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 3 |
| 6 | Mike Shanahan | 20 | 1988-2013 | 308 | 170 | 138 | 0 | .552 | 32 | 8 | 14 | 8 | 6 | .571 | 2.6 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| 7 | Tom Coughlin | 20 | 1995-2015 | 320 | 170 | 150 | 0 | .531 | 20 | 9 | 19 | 12 | 7 | .632 | 2.5 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| 8 | Jimmy Johnson | 9 | 1989-1999 | 144 | 80 | 64 | 0 | .556 | 16 | 6 | 13 | 9 | 4 | .692 | 2.7 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| 9 | Tom Flores | 12 | 1979-1994 | 184 | 97 | 87 | 0 | .527 | 10 | 5 | 11 | 8 | 3 | .727 | 3.3 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 2 |
Provided by Pro-Football-Reference.com: View Original Table
How would you rank them? Here are, as best as I can see, the strongest arguments for each one:
- Seifert has the best winning percentage of the group and also is an impressive 52 games above .500. He also won 2 more Super Bowl rings as the 49ers defensive coordinator (with both Super Bowl victories being driven by strong defensive performances against that season’s AP MVP quarterback) and a 3rd as the 49ers defensive backs coach under DC Chuck Studley; normally I wouldn’t give much credit to that, but the 1981 49ers are famous for being driven by the success of their young secondary which featured three rookie defensive backs as starters. I don’t know how much additional credit Seifert should get as the DC (or DB coach) when evaluating his candidacy, but it’s certainly worth mentioning. He won 10 playoff games in 8 years with the 49ers as head coach.
- Shanahan won a Super Bowl as Seifert’s offensive coordinator with the ’94 49ers, and also lost two Super Bowls as the offensive coordinator for the Broncos, where his offenses scored 10 points in the first quarter and then fizzled out. The best argument for Shanahan is that he was able to win with a revolving door of talent; he’s the rare successful head coach where no quarterback started more than 20% of his career games. Yes, he had John Elway, but he also coached Brian Griese, Jake Plummer, Jay Cutler, and RG3 to Pro Bowl seasons. The 1998 Broncos were his shining achievement, and that was a team of undrafted and lowly-drafted skill position players.
- Coughlin had success to a greater degree than nearly any other coach when it comes to winning with multiple teams. He won 53% of his games with both the Giants and Jaguars, but won playoff games in 3 out of 8 years in Jacksonville and made it to two AFC Championship Games. With the Giants, of course, he won two Super Bowls (and was the team’s WR coach for the ’90 champion). His most notable feature is being a giant killer in the playoffs: there are 5 times in NFL history that a team won as a 12+ point underdog in the playoffs, and Coughlin coached two of those teams.
- Johnson has a great winning percentage and built his team from nothing. Almost literally. Johnson deserves credit for assembling the ’90s Cowboys, although perhaps that makes his coaching job less impressive since Dallas was so talented. After all, the ’95 Cowboys won a Super Bowl without Johnson, although that makes him executive job more impressive. His strongest argument is that he took a team that was 3-13 in 1988 to Super Bowl champions in 1992 and 1993, and nearly all of that success can be tied directly to Johnson.
- Flores won a third ring as an assistant coach on the ’76 Raiders, but his strongest argument is his great playoff record and winning two titles with a journeyman quarterback. Jim Plunkett was not Steve Young, Troy Aikman, or John Elway, and he probably wasn’t even Eli Manning. I am not a fan of the argument about his playoff record, but he won two titles under pretty unique circumstances (his team relocated in the middle of that run, Plunkett was a backup when the 1980 season began, the ’80 Raiders were the first Wild Card team to win, and the ’83 team beat three pretty amazing coaches).
How would you rank them?