The Ringer NFL Show - The NFL’s 10 Best Coaches | The Ringer NFL Show

Episode Date: May 28, 2020

Kevin is joined by The Ringer’s Danny Kelly and Rotoworld’s Patrick Daugherty to rank their top 10 coaches in the NFL as well as the worst. Host: Kevin Clark Guest: Danny Kelly and Patrick Daugherty Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What's up guys, it's this Kelly, and welcome to the Ringer Podcast Network. Launching this week on our podcast network is a new show from Van Lathen and Rachel Lindsay called Higher Learning. Two times a week, they'll be dissecting the biggest topics in black culture, politics, and sports, and wait into the most important and timely conversations. The first episode is out now, so make sure to subscribe to Higher Learning with Van Lathen and Rachel Lindsay on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. It's the Rerner NFL show, part of the Ringer Podcast Network. I'm Kevin Clark. I've joined today in a three-man weave by two very exciting people, Danny Kelly, the Dark Knight, and Roto World's Patrick Dardy.

How you doing, guys? I'm doing well, man. I'm great. I'm really happy to be here for a huge fan of both of you and all the ringers' amazing NFL content. This is one of my best pandemic activities so far. You know, a lot of competition with pandemic activities, all the amazing gatherings I've gone to. I will say Gary Bettman and Peyton Manning have reopened the economy this week and sports are back but we've still got a handful of weeks until football comes back for training camp.

Now a couple reports today, Charles Robinson from Yahoo, friend of the pod, said that essentially there's some hope of some normalcy, maybe even an outside chance there could be some mini camps in June. I don't know about that. Mini-cams, by the way, is supposed to be happening right now. The really the first week in June around this time, all 32 teams have a mandatory three-day period. That's not going to be happening.

It might happen in a couple weeks. I still think there's an outside chance of that, but I wouldn't put any money on it. I still think the likeliest option is maybe a longer training camp that you start, I don't know, July 21st or something to try to make up for the lost time. But it's all unknowable. J.C. Treader came out and said the union hasn't agreed to anything.

That's something we need to keep in mind. The players have to agree to this. This is a long way of saying we still don't know very much, but we are crawling towards the season. Wanted to, with all of this in mind, rank the coaches. That's what we want to do. Because this is a coaching year, guys. This is a big coach.

Every year of football ever has been a coaching year, but this is a coaching year. Because it's Zoom off season. it's no mini camps, no rookie mini camps, no OTAs. I think if any, if any year since 2011 when a lockout wiped out the season has been, has been more aligned on coaches, I'd be surprised. You know, in 2011, Bill Belichick literally changed his defense around because he knew they weren't going to have time to install a new system or a more complicated system.

So he just simplified things and they got to the Super Bowl. That's why Bill Belichick is the best coach of all the time. I think that there are probably coaches. There are probably coaches who are going to overcomplicate this and sort of do too much on Zoom. Sean Payton has canceled his Zoom off season. But this is a long way of saying that this is going to be a very coach dependent season, coaching and veterans and all that stuff. So we wanted to do our 10 best coaches and then we'll have a discussion on the worst coaches.

And I will say in looking at the worst coaches, is, Pat, maybe you'll agree with me here. It seems like there's a real dearth of just total zero as a coach. Like, there's a couple. But I feel like most years there's like five, six, seven guys in the conversation for worst. And I don't know if that's the case this year. No, it's funny.

You make that observation because I was telling people that around when I published this article. You know, people used to be like, oh, I'll just scroll at the bottom for Jeff Fisher. And I got some of that from Jets fans. and Adam Gase, who, spoiler alert, I didn't have dead last. But I agree. It's the worst or the worst are not as bad as usual this year. Which, you know, maybe it's a sign or teams are getting better and hiring. I mean, probably not. It's probably just like a fluke. But yeah, some of these people I had as the worst coach, like, as my worst coach is like, I don't think are good coaches. Like, it felt like didn't feel right like putting them at the bottom. Or it's like Jeff Fisher, you know,

whatever, like no brainer. Yeah, I totally agree. that maybe we're in a golden age for coaching. And if this is a golden age for coaching, I mean, that's a bad sign that there's no such thing as a golden age for coaching. Right. So I think that part of it is there's been so much turnover that these guys have not been revealed to be Jeff Fisher.

And you don't get a chance to be Jeff Fisher anymore. Right, right. If you go eight and eight or seven and nine, or even nine and seven for a number of years, now you just get fired. It's true. The Premier Leagueification of NFL coaches.

Syria. Ah, just get them fired in week 14 and bring in another guy. Yeah, we're trying to, you know, five years, the Jaguars will just have four coaches, you know, in one year. It'll be very normal. Hockey. Somehow Lou Lamarillo is coaching the Jaguars next year for, on an interim basis. All right.

Let's get to the list. Danny, let's start with you. And the reason I wanted to start with you is because when I told you the gimmick for this particular episode, you said, I'm going to have some takes. And we need a huge open. right now. Give us your 10 through 6. Oh, man. I really wish that Mike McCoy was still coaching in the NFL, which we learned last night while we were texting, he's out of football. Is Mike McCoy out of, he is out

of football? We know that. So Mike McCoy found a way to make the Cardinals very boring in 2018 as an offensive coordinator. He was an extremely uninspiring Chargers head coach. And I don't want to make this Mike McCoy episode, but it's Mike going to getting a job again? Someday. I think you will. Like as a quarterback's coach or something like that. Like a special teams coach? I don't know.

What is it? What's the hierarchy? I don't know if that's transferable. Yeah, I don't know. Assistant tight ends coach at Oklahoma State or something. Yeah. No, he can get back. He plays that into, yeah, QB's coach for like two years for a team that wins six games in two years. But we haven't seen the last

of Mike McCoy. He's a card carrying member of the Marty Morning Wig union. He'll be back. He's also 48 years old, so he's got a chance to go through the system again and become an offensive coordinator for one more year. Like 2027, he's somehow, he's an offensive coordinator for the bucks. He might have missed the boat on his last coordinator opportunity because I feel like he would have needed like an act of God or something like a pandemic to like totally disrupt

the accident. But the pandemic happened after the hiring cycle. and so like he just he would have had to been like a familiar hiring for someone under like emergency circumstances. I'll say bad coaching finds away. Danny, number 10. I'm actually very curious to see what your guys is take on my number 10. I have Bruce Ariens at number 10. So why do you have Bruce Ariens 10? This one was tough because I think the 10 spot is like a tier of like four or five guys that I think could have easily made it into this group.

Ultimately, I just went with Ariens. he's a two-time coach of the year. He's one of the few recent coaches of the year that actually is a good coach, I think. And I don't know, everywhere he's gone, he's shown that he can, you know, manufacture a good offense. He hasn't always had a good off,

hasn't always worked with good quarterbacks. He's managed to find ways to be limber enough as a play caller to, you know, get the most out of his players. I think he seems to me like a type of coach that players want to play for. You know, he's the kind of like, just kind of a, I don't know, players coach, I guess is the cliche, but just like a dude that you want to play for. I remember during the peak years of the Seahawks 49ers rivalry, Bruce Ariens came in there and kind of like did his own thing.

He was like, there's a new sheriff in town. I think he even said one time when he beat the Seahawks. And so I just have a lot of respect for him for that era, but also just everywhere he's gone, he's just had a lot of success. So I think, and I think what he's doing with the Buccaneers is pretty impressive to bringing them out of, you know, obscurity, I guess. And so, yeah, I think he's, you know, he's just a longtime coach that's been really successful everywhere he's gone. Yeah, I'm, I don't think you'll get an objection here. He's not on my list, but I certainly think he's a top half NFL coach. What he did in Arizona is really, really impressive.

I just, I wasn't like, blown away by the 2019 bucks. And he has a chance this year, obviously, to be a, extreme to be an extremely competitive, I feel extremely competitive Bucks team, but I'll reserve judgment on that. Yeah. All right, number nine. Oh, go ahead, Pat.

I'm sorry. I was just away in an errands really quick because he is the tough one to rank because I always had him in the top 10 back and he was with the Cardinals, but I had him at 14 this year. I felt like he was kind of oddly disengaged last year. You know, like we weren't getting like... He wasn't calling plays. Yeah.

It seemed like he was... It seemed like kind of like the focus of his season was to get Byron left and Todd Bowles, like, head coaching jobs, which, you know, good. But I just feel like we didn't, weren't getting, like, vintage prime Bruce Arians. Kind of like his, like, his fire had gone out. But then, I think he's fixed that because if you don't have a fire, you know, you're not bringing in Tom Brady. So I think, like, he was, like, trying to, like, get the juices flowing again this offseason.

And, uh, yeah. The other thing I was going to say about him is he also is, like, one of the most honest coaches. Yeah, he was really. He really pissed off of James Winston. Yeah, he was. His ability to get really pissed off, especially late in the season at James Winston, was that's when I knew Bruce Ariens was back.

That's what did it, I think. That's true. I should have not pinpointed it at Brady. It was when he finally lost it at the end of this time. Yeah, I mean, it'd be hard. I mean, come on. Anybody would lose it on the way to 30 intersections. All right, Janie Kelly, number nine.

All right, I got number nine. I have Doug Peterson of the Eagles. and I think, you know, he's kind of just like... I was about to say a little low, and then that's almost exactly where I have him. Yeah, I think he might, that might be, you spoiler, lower than Pat has him. It is.

Which I was a little bit surprised at Pat's ranking, so he can give me his pitch, I guess, on Peterson. But I would just say Peterson has a very good blend of, you know, he's forward-thinking, embraces analytics and all that stuff. I love the offense that they run. He did a lot with not a lot last year in terms of like all their injuries, you know, at the receiver position, multiple positions. So he seemed to get the most out of his roster.

That said, I don't think he just, like his history to me wasn't as strong, you know, over time, I guess, than a lot of the other guys on this list. We're all probably going to have Doug Pierce running our top town. He won a Super Bowl a couple years ago. Pat, do you want to do you want to do this now or do you want to go through Doug Peterson in your list when we do yours. I'll just do my Peterson spiel now. I have him number five.

And it's weird because I feel like most of the issues there's Doug Peterson almost come back to personnel. And like personnel issues like last year, all the receiver injuries, you know, every year, like the injuries and the secondary, it seems like they never have been in secondary. Kind of make for this like chaotic feel. You know, they had this super ascendant feel,

the Super Bowl season until Nick, or until a Carson's, wins towards ACL. And even when they won the Super Bowl, you know, those games, this had, like, there's just a very chaotic feel. And I feel like that hasn't gone away. It's almost like, even though he's Mr. Analytics, he's been like McGiver kind of, like having these crazy, you know, the season going nowhere last year and then they go four and out, you know, to steal the division away from the Cowboys. But like, as Danny alluded to, they're still, they were still one of the most efficient offenses in the NFL last year, still one of the fastest pace. To the things they did with

Greg Ward as their number one receiver. In quotations. Greg, Greg War. Exactly. They knew receiver was an issue before the season. Like, they tried to address it. And they just had a million injuries again. And I feel like the indicator lights are all still very positive for Doug Peterson,

but that he's just had like an abnormal amount of chaos the past few years. I mean, when you keep making the playoffs, like with your backup quarterback, they didn't make the playoffs to their backup quarterback back last year. but they made with a backup team they had a start their starting quarterback backup team yes he has shown an ability to coach through it and i think like one of these years he's going to have a year you know where they are on the the lucky side of the injuries they're going to like look like a dominant force again i think he's in my top 10 he would have to do a lot to undo the coaching job he did to get this team a super bowl ring when essentially he had to retool a team on the fly he used the buy weeks of the by week in the playoffs to essentially hold another training camp he did a million little things i've written about it we've talked about on this podcast but it was one of the best short-term coaching jobs in the last 20 years and maybe ever um it's definitely on the short list and so he's a good coach that's a good organization i'm interested to see what he does with the two

quarterback thing i think that's something they've been they've been throwing around for a while and i'm intrigued to see it jenny kelly number eight all right so number eight i'm going to going to go with Mike Tomlin, the Steelers. Steelers, I guess, have been a little bit underwhelming, obviously, over the last couple seasons, but, you know, throughout Tomlin's history, he's always,

there's just, like, let's see here, there's one, do they are four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. Double-digit wins seasons under his, in his tenure. He's had to deal with a lot of big personalities and always seems to manage to kind of, like, smooth that out, I think.

You should get some retroactive of Coach of the Year awards for us not finding out what was going on in that locker room with Antonio Brown and other and and and and Levy on Bell. I mean like the guys like Antonio Brown obviously had his issues and then Levy on Bell like is kind of a completely different category but like he's not having a great time in New York and it's like it's pretty amazing um I was at those practices in training camp and Latrobe and stuff and I saw some kind of evidence that these guys, there were personalities that needed

to be managed in a big way, but I didn't know it was this, that Mike Tomlin's working the miracles he was working. Yeah. I think like being a head coach is a, it's like a CEO type job where you have like all these, you have a million

different things they have to manage, you have to manage the overall, I guess, like philosophy, identity of the team and you're the head of HR, you're the head of everything essentially. And I think just like the long-term, like level-ness that he's had, you know, it's just like, you know, just keeping him on the straight and narrow, I think it has been very, very impressive.

So I don't know if there's like any one thing about him that I think is like, so that makes me think he's like this elite coach, but just the, I guess the breadth of what he's done over all the years. Yeah, I mean, he literally just went eight and eight with Duck Hodges. That's the biggest argument. I think that Mike Tom one actually rose a couple of. spots for me. Same with you, Pat? Just one spot, but he rose from me.

I'll just, I'll just jump. So Mike Tomlin, you know, it's, he's always one of those guys. He's so difficult to rank. It's always difficult to rank guys who don't call the plays on one side of the ball. I feel like that's always makes him harder to evaluate. And then people are always hard to evaluate. Like, when, like, every coach has flaws. And when like their flaws are so front and center, like, say with Andy Reed and

clock management, you know, it was like when Andy Reid, you know, his worst flaws, like, so magnified and so easy to spot. And it's kind of always been the same thing. Mike Tomlin, just like very questionable, like in-game decisions, you know, like Tomlin, so you won't be surprised because he makes like a horrible challenge. And so like sometimes his flaws are very like front and center and easy to spot. But I mean, he can't, so like he can coordinate his side of the ball if he wanted to. And he did last year. There was an anecdote from ESPN's Diana Rossini about how he basically blackboarded like a new game plan at halftime. I think when they came out and won the game then.

And clearly he's amazing at the CEO role. Clearly he's amazing from a leadership perspective. Last year, not just losing Antonio Brown and then losing the quarterback in week one. And he's just one of those guys. I feel like the track record is long enough at this point where we need to accept that we can't maybe necessarily see everything that makes him special, but it's clear to the Steelers and his players what makes him special. He should have more playoff victories, but I say this in my article.

That's true of every other long-term coach who's not Bill Belichick. This is kind of the nature of being in the NFL. Also, so I think that every coach, I think that they get judged, obviously, on their entire body of work, but I think that you really have to judge them when things go wrong. And I think that, you know, famously, a couple of years ago, Jack Doe Río was asked what he learned about the Raiders when Derek Carr went down and they obviously did not progress in the playoffs. And they said, what did you learn this year? And Jack DeLrio said, I learned not to lose my starting quarterback.

And I don't know, that seems like a bad attitude to have. You know, a little more philosophical than that. And so it's being able to do something with nothing is impressive. and not that the Steelers weren't talented. Obviously, not only do they have a really good defense, but they added Mank up Fitzpatrick in September. But the quarterback position was a mess. They had lost two of the best at one point offensive weapons

in the NFL with Brown and Bell. And I just think that his ability to eke something out of that team last year was pretty impressive. I got to make one more point in favor of Mike Tomlin, just from my article. I was rereading my article. I got to get this on the podcast. They went eight and eight last year.

And one of their losses was a two-point loss to the Seahawks. One was a four-point loss to the 49ers. And one was a three-point loss to the Ravens. So, I mean, they were close. It was a good season regardless. But they were close to having an amazing season under the circumstances. And they didn't lose their quarterback late in the year. It was like pretty much the whole season, more or less.

So, yeah, Mike Tomlin, number one, I think we all. Yeah, exactly. Now I kind of want to move him up, actually. Yeah, this became Mike Tom above Belichick conversation. So I've got Sean McVeigh at number seven, and I think he probably would have been higher before last season. There's kind of like all these narratives now, like, oh, Belichick and Patricia or whatever figured out McVey and all that

and kind of exposed him or whatever. But I do think what he showed over the second half of the season, they kind of shifted gears from predominantly like an outside zone running team. to more gap stuff in the middle. Predominantly 11 personnel to 12 personnel. They basically, he had to really, I think, like coach his ass off for them to do that. And the results were really strong

over the second half of the year, especially late, late towards the end of the season. I expect them to, I expect McVeigh and the Rams offense to bounce back even more, I think, this season. I'm still very confident overall and just his ability to coach up an offense, scheme and offense,

get the most out of his players, I appreciate how aggressive he is as a coach. Not only, part of it is the GM2, but in player acquisition, that's come back to bite them in the ass some. But I would prefer if a team is aggressive and realizes they're in like a Super Bowl window and go for it than be like super conservative or whatever.

And so I think, you know, the shine has come off a little bit over the last couple, over the last like 12 months or so, but I still think McVeigh is a very good offense, or a very good coach, ascending coach. And the other thing is like he's, what, like 35 or something like that? And the ability to command the room and, you know, be the dude in an locker room full of like alphas is pretty impressive. Like just his ability at that age to be so like a dominant force in the philosophy and identity of the team, I think is pretty impressive.

Pat, is it you, speaking of the Bella Chats? ended Sean McVeigh's career narrative. Is it you who compared Belichick to Daniel Day-Lewis making the kid in there will be blood quit? Actually, that sounds like it's actually stunning that wasn't me, but I don't think it was me. Oh, I thought it was you. You know how Daniel-Day-Lewis was so intense on there will be blood

that the original actor quit? That was, someone said that Pelichick did that to Sean McVeigh at the Super Bowl. Pat, I think it was you. That's all I think. I know that there will be blood story. I know a lot of there will be blood trivia, but I think it was you, dude. I actually am shocked that wasn't me, but I don't think it was me. All right, I'm going to look this out.

All right. I think that McVeigh's on my list, too. I agree. Pat, is he too low? Or is he just right? I might have him too low on my. I have him seventh. Danny, is that where you had him?

Yes, he's seventh on mine as well. I have him 10. If I was starting a franchise, I mean, I really don't think I would take six. I think my list is a fraud because I don't think I would take six other coaches ahead of Sean. Yeah, but there's, there's, there's, there's, I was thinking about this when I was putting my list together too. There's multiple different ways to build a best coaches list. And I think part of it is like track record over time. And then part of it is like, okay, if you're choosing between these two guys, who are you going to take?

Because I agree with you. Like, there might be a few players higher on this list that I would, that I would take McVeigh over right. now if I'm starting a team, but I still think he still isn't to me in that tier of like the elite coaches in the NFL, if that makes sense. I think that he and Sean and Kyle Shanahan, I think that Kyle Shanahan overtaking Sean McVeigh. And this is the amazing thing about this list. If we were to do it 12 months ago, Sean McVeigh is third, fourth. I think I had a third last year.

Yeah. And as an experiment the day after the Super Bowl, think, Danny, you were sitting next to me at the hotel. And I just put on Twitter, I just said, who would you rather have as coach, Kyle Shanahan or Sean McVeigh? And it was like 90% Kyle Shanahan. It was like, if I had just done this five months earlier, it would have swung the other way. So it's actually pretty incredible how much the perception has shifted in that regard. And Danny, you made a good point about putting together his list because I would probably take Sean McVeigh over Mike Tomlin if I were an owner starting an NFL for a

franchise, but he said you have to, we can't pretend the track records don't exist. Right. Sean McVeigh will probably be better, but I mean, Mike Tomlin has been doing this for over 10 years. And even if we sometimes don't understand how his teams are always so good, I mean, he's doing something right. And yeah, you have to just kind of defer to the track. I mean, the track record should not be the end, I'll be all, but there are situations where you just have to defer to the track record.

I have Mike Tomlin ranked ahead of Sean McVeigh. And I think I'll get to it when I get to my list. That's all. Next up. All right. Speaking of Shanahan, I got Shanahan at six. And I think a lot of the,

it's basically a lot of the same things I just said about me. They, you know, do you have Pete Carroll is a top five coach or you do not have one of this list? I have them at number five.

Okay. I just wanted them, I just, I didn't know if this is going to be the take or not. You were either going to have them at number, you were going to have them really high

or it wasn't going to be on the list. Number one or number 28. Yeah, number one. Yeah. I was kind of alluding to it earlier because I think the track record argument is Pete Carroll. And so we can get to that in a minute.

But Shanahan, I think, is a very similar kind of discussion as McVeigh. Like, his scheme is absolutely bonkers good. You know, the way he uses the run, the way he uses that to set up play action, the way he can scheme guys open. I don't know if there's an offense in the NFL that has like a more clear identity than the 49ers. I'm sure like the chiefs are another one too, but like you know exactly what you're getting with the 49ers. and everywhere he's gone, it's been really effective, you know. And so obviously it took a little bit of time for him to kind of get his groove in San Francisco

because of the injuries to quarterback and all that. But I think we finally saw last year kind of like his potential as a coach long term. And so he and McVeigh, I guess, are kind of like in the same tier for me. Like if I'm starting a team with a young quarterback, I want these two guys over pretty much every. except for the top two maybe. Just because, well, maybe the top three, but just because, like, they understand offensive football.

And they understand that, you know, both of them, honestly, like, both of them are very, very into the run game, too, which is kind of a weird, like, contradiction, because everyone talks about, you know, how, like, that's, like, going the way of the Buffalo or whatever. But, like, the way that they balance, like, the way that they play balanced offense and scheme everything up for their quarterbacks

and get the most other quarterbacks. I think that's the kind of guy I want around my young quarterback if I'm like a franchise looking for a head coach. All right, Pat, 10 through 6 for you. All right, let's go. Mike Zimmer and number 10. So you're the only person

who's going to have Mike Zimmer on their list. Make your case for Mike Zimmer. I think Mike Zimmer is a very good coach, but I don't have him as a top 10 coach. Hit us with the Zimmer take. He is right on the borderline. I kind of wanted to maybe get Sean. McDermott in there over him.

But you know, so the first, the first bar you want any head coach to clear is to take care of his side of the ball. You know, we have a few CEO style coaches, but most head coaches, one of them, they're usually still coordinating one side of the ball. And if you're going to do that, like, you're not worth your salt as a head coach if you're not taking care of your side of the ball. And Mike Zimmer always takes care of the Vikings defense. And so he clears that bar.

And then, you know, the next step after that is, you know, you. you need to find kind of like the right leaders for the side of the ball. You don't lead. And he's consistently done that. You know, even with the fire and brimstone rushing ways, which kind of annoyed everyone on Twitter, he got his offensive coordinator a head coaching job last year.

He also got Norv Turner just quit his job. Yes, exactly. So you can go either way on that. So yeah, he's got the right bosses on offense. Because even after losing Stefansky, now he has Gary Kuback, you know, one of the better coaches. Love that. First century.

I love that. too. His Kurt cousins, he has Dalvin Cook. So he takes care of his business, and he's got the right people in charge and the other side of the ball. And we can argue about if his offensive approach is the best way to do offensive football in 2020.

But yeah, within, you know, like the world, football world, he's winning at the football world he's created, basically. Like, he's put down his conditions and he's, like, succeeding within them. So I think Mike Zimmer's a top 10, a borderline, but I think he's the top 10 coach. I had Zimmer and McDermott in that tier with Ariens. I was trying to decide between those three for my number 10 spots.

So I think I'm on the same page with you on that one. I do think it's funny. Mike Zimmer is what we would all agree as an old school coach. And he is not only run his defense in a very efficient way, but he certainly has certain things he likes on the offensive side of the ball, as you said. And what I do think is interesting is almost all. of these coaches are what we would consider old school guys. And a lot of that is just kind of survivors bias in the sense that if you're, with the exception of McVey and Shanahan, if you have a track

record right now, you started 10, 15 years ago and you started an assistant even earlier than that. And thusly, you will come from a different generation of football. But then as you said, Danny, Shanahan and McVeigh are run heavy or at least float through the run game as well. And so this goes back to something that I've talked about, which is that I think that the media and the actual game of football in very different places right now where we sit around talking about passing efficiency and listen we're going to get to Andy Reid here in a second and that's someone who is extremely actually a while because he's going to be both all of our top fives but he obviously is the master pass efficiency but I still think that there's I think if you kind of gave a questionnaire

to the top 10 coaches in our list they would consider toughness and a run game and all of these things way more important than we do and I think that's an interesting observation when we start to look at these lists. All right, Pat, number nine. Speaking of the run game, speaking of toughness and all that, I have Pete Carroll at number nine, which feels way too low.

Like, it is too low. I almost always have had it. But this is where I came up like upon where it's really hard to distinguish between like overall legacy and like current. Pete Carroll is frustrating because Pete Carroll is one of the greatest coaches in football history, Not just NFL history, but football history.

You can't, you can never take away from him, cliche alert what he did at USC and now what he's done in Seattle. Like, are some about like Mike Zimmer. Both situations, by the way, both situations that were not easy. When Pete Carre went to Seattle, nobody was like, home run higher, they're going to be good in two years. People in Seattle are pissed. I remember.

I don't remember. I wasn't there. You were there. I vividly remember listening to our radio. I was like kind of at. agnostic about it. I was like, I guess. Like, okay. But I remember, like, people were like, what the hell? And they gave him like this big deal. And I think pretty quickly people kind of bought into him, though. It was like a one step ahead of the sheriff type of thing, too.

So it was like an element of it. Two, two, Pat's point, though, and I don't know if this gets talked about. I don't hear people talking about this, but Pete Carroll is one of three coaches ever to win a national championship in the NCAA and in Super Bowl. Yeah, he's one of the greatest coaches in football history. Who's the third besides Jimmy Johnson? Switzerland. Switzer. Oh, man.

Jerry Jones is getting after it. And yet pretty soon he'll get it with Lincoln Riley too. Lincoln has to win national championship. I was going to say, I forgot Lincoln's definitely going to win a Super Bowl with that with $45 million year quarterback Dak Prescott in 2028. But yes. So yeah, with Mike Zimmer, I've someone who puts constraints on themselves.

I mean, Pete Carroll takes this to the extreme. where, you know, he has like, he's basically like a nuclear weapon at quarterback. And it's very frustrating to see him treat him like the Red Baron basically. Like he's like a World War I like dog fight. So it's so frustrating for us on the outside to watch. But I don't know, he's averaged 10 wins since they won the Super Bowl. So it's not even like he's really falling off. It's just, I think the narrative though is correct that for as good of a job as he does,

it should be even better than it is. Like if they would just open up the offense a little bit, the Seahawks, this insistence on making everything as difficult as possible. Oh, God. I don't know, man. I get that argument, but I don't know.

It's very complicated. I'll say that. Kevin, I mean, Kevin, you're the one who tweeted the Seahawks have never played in a normal game ever. I'm aware that I tweeted that. Unlike Pat,

I know what I tweeted. I'm kidding. I looked it up. You did not tweet. that you did not tweet that Belichick McVeigh thing. Maybe I just made it up and it was an incredible joke that I assigned to you. Yeah, yeah.

No, it was someone out there. I promised I apologize because I even like searched it to try to find out who did it and it's not there. So someone did it and someone's very funny and we congratulate them. All right. So yeah, I think that there's kind of a

I don't think Pete Carroll's going to change. Yeah, I don't think Pete Carol is going to change. I don't think tomorrow he's going to go and hire some 29-year-old college coordinator and just say open it up for Russell Wilson. And I think that on balance

Pete Carroll is a huge net positive. He is. It's basically become like a vision quest for him. Like winning is no longer good enough. Like it has to be his way. It's winning forever, Pat. It's winning forever. Yeah. You try

winning forever. I mean, maybe it's just bored. When you've won that much, I don't know. Maybe it's just like, screw it. Like these final five years, I'm just running the ball 4,000 times a game. I don't care. I have Pete Carroll at six and Danny has him at five. And we cherish our ringer colleague, Pete Carroll.

I actually thought Danny, I love Seahawks fan, Pete Carroll's psychodrama. I thought Danny would have him lower. Seahawks Twitter is one of the most entertaining because of just like the constant triggering by Pete. I mean, yeah, like, believe me, I share in all of those frustrations. It's a very difficult, like, cognitive dissonance or something like that. Like, on one hand, he's brought, he's ushered in the greatest era of Seahawks football, and it's been so much fun. And every year, they're competitive. Like, literally every year since 2012, they've been competitive.

Even before that, they made the playoffs at 7 and 9. it's early white versus. Even that, even like two years ago, as Cable Thanos reminded us, on this very podcast, RMA said they had the worst roster in football. And yet Pete Carroll just got them into the playoffs

and they almost beat the Cowboys. And one of those classic, that Cowboys playoff game was a classic if someone other than Pete Carroll was coaching and they would have won game. But if someone other than Pete Carroll was coaching, they wouldn't have been playing in that game. They would have gone like five and 11.

So that's it. That's Pete Carroll. Again, he's a net positive. This is a pro Pete Carroll podcast. I think he's one of the best coaches of all time. Who's next for you, Pat? It's Kyle Shanahan, who, again, eight, you know, is low for someone, if I was starting a franchise,

again, that caveat. But, you know, he's still under 500 as a head coach. It was so weird about, like, so basically what happened with Kyle Shanahan last year, it was like kind of like, too, like a young coach having trust and like his key like lie lieutenants was like a huge deal like letting John Lynch shape the roster letting Robert Sala. How do I, how do you pronounce Sala by the way?

I think it's that. Like letting him do his thing on defense and it's so scary about the 40. It's like, you know, they were undermanned in the backfield. They were undermanned in the receiver core. And it was it's not like they were like overflowing with like excellent individual performances. Like this really was like a triumph. of scheme over, players are still executing it.

Like I was to say scheme over skill. Obviously there's a ton of skill. But this was like truly a triumph of scheme. And like that's what really like hints at this, basically the unlimited upside for Kyle. Yeah. Wasn't even close to the best personnel he's going to have during his 49ers coaching career.

And like you guys said earlier, I mean, he did it with the Falcons. He did it with the Redskins. He even did it with the Browns before they went off the rails that one year. They were like scoring a ton of points. of Brian Hoyer. And so if the track record, for like track record political reasons,

I got to keep him at eight. But yeah, I mean, he's one of the best young coaches. I think it's amazing. I went up to do a story on George Kittle in December. And the week I was there,

everybody I talked to was like, man, we're getting our ass kicked with injuries. And I think that because they were so dominant, especially in the NFC playoffs, then for the first three quarters of the playoffs, I think we forgot how much they kind of overcame. people like real football people were like man that western richberg injury is really going to hurt them

and because west ritchburg is a good player meanwhile they just kicked everybody's ass after that they didn't have either their tackles either right they didn't have either i mean it was just unbelievable the coaching job he did to to really round that team into a dominant force and by the way i mean i i the jury is still out on whether or not jimmy gropolo is a great quarterback i think he's good he's obviously good enough to win a super bowl because we saw that And I think that there's Jimmy Gropolo with Kyle Shanahan as a great quarterback. But how many guys with Kyle Shanahan are a great quarterback? And how many guys need to make $26, $27 million, especially next year when he goes to a $2 million dead cap hit?

There's just more questions and answers there. But the only thing I know for sure is that Kyle Shannon's a really good coach. He's an amazing coach. And number seven got Sean McVeigh, which again is too low. Like, Kevin, I know you're a tennis fan. Like McVeigh and like Shanahan, they're kind of like, Nadal and Federer, I feel like, of the young coaches. They're going to be like forever intertwined.

Like always being compared to you. What evidence do you have that I'm a tennis fan? I'm not a tennis fan. I thought I've seen you tweet about tennis before. You're confusing me with someone. This is like the Belichick Daniel Daylor-Li-Lis. We're like very frequent. Have we ever, do we follow the wrong people?

Am I following just a different person? Do you think I'm someone else? We are very frequent favoriters of each other's tweets. I've never. I'm going to, you keep talking and I'm going to see if I've ever tweeted about tennis. Anyways, they remind me, yeah, they're going to be forever intertwined, like Nadal and Federer. It's like they came up at the same time together, kind of, they're in the same division, directly competing with each other. And if Sean McVeigh, Danny alluded to it, too, or maybe was you, Kevin.

I can't remember anything about Kevin, apparently. McVeigh, maybe where he's hurting himself more, it's kind of in the front office. You know, he's not the GM, but maybe he's biting off more than he can chew in some of these other areas that aren't, like, scheming offense and it's like a really over leveraged roster at this point. But even show me, you can make the case from McBay, even that 2019 was a positive because everything about his success the first two years was like managing and manipulating Jared golf. And that became so much more difficult with the offensive line going off the rails last year.

And with Todd Gurley not being an effective safety valve and they still went nine and seven, you know, an extremely tough division. And we might have also seen with Shawman Gaveh last year, kind of like, you know, like the limits of like scheme and like a great coaching mind. Like you can't question Shaan McVey's coaching mind. But the whole recipe is like manipulate Jared Gough. Like it's not, you know, a ton of margin for error, which we kind of saw last year too. So but he seemed, as Danny alluded to or Kevin, one of you,

one of you ran out much different, different formations last year. And he's going to be a factor for decades. Is there anything more important than managing and scheming up things to make your, make your quarterback's life easier in the modern NFL? Like, if you have a elite superstar quarterback, like, we call that the anti, the anti- Freddy Kitchens award. Right. So, like, is there anything more important for all the coaches that don't have like a future Hall of Fame quarterback right now? Is there anything more important? Sean McVey could go 0 and 16 this year

and next year I'd still rank him in the top 10 because of what he was able to do with Jared Goff who went from one of the worst rookie seasons in history under Jeff Fisher in history like truly Danny we did a podcast around then his comps were like Andrew Walter

and those guys this was not a positive Jimmy Clausen he was around those guys and Sean McVeigh turned him into a guy who was worth the mega contract. Now, obviously made the Super Bowl a year later. I mean, that was an unbelievable coaching job. And I understand the track record part of it. And that's the reason I have most guys in my top five. But with some of these guys in the top 10, they just did one or two individual

coaching jobs that were so good that in my mind, they are elite elite coaches. Yeah. All right. Did you go through your six? I already, I didn't, but I did. It was Mike Tomlin, who we've already decided, Actually, not the sixth best coach, but the best coach. All right. I have, I will go through mine quickly because I only have one that is different from you guys. And I will say the one person that you guys did not have as borderline that I would like to add in as borderline is Mr. Mike Vrable. This is another guy in the Tomlin zone. where I'm not sure why he's,

I can't pinpoint one thing like Sean McVeigh, improving Jared Gough or whatever. He's not the offensive coordinator who turned Ryan Tannahill into an elite quarterback in the second half of last year. That was the God Arthur. But he did a hell of a coaching job this year. I think that teams, we know that team's identity.

I think that's important. I think that the ability to, even though he wasn't a defensive coordinator, Dean Pease was. Dean Peas is not coming back after retiring this year. But to go into Baltimore and kind of dismantle a Ravens team, it was I thought the far and away favorite. It was weird because going into the playoffs, I felt like everyone had strangely forgotten how good Patrick Mahomes was.

And then after divisional weekend, we'd somehow forgotten how good Lamar Jackson was because of just the way things had gone. I kind of think that the Titans, you know, there have been people, someone sent me a question. We did a mailbag thing a couple weeks ago, and somebody sent me a question that was like, what are the Ravens you to do, get over the hump? And it's like, wait a second. They were the best team of football last year, and they have the MVP.

Let's not go writing off anybody. But that Titans game was so impressive. And obviously they get to the AIT championship game as well and have that lead. And so I'm in on Mike Vrabel. I just think he's a good coach. and he's my borderline. Number 10 for me is Shaw McDermott. Love Sean McDermott.

I like that. I love Sean McDermott. And this is, Sean McDermott took over in 2017, made the playoffs in his first year at 9 and 7. He made some unfortunate missteps on the way. He started Nathan Peterman for a handful of games. Oh,

I forgot about that. Played in a Jaguars Bill's wildcard game that we should all just go ahead and forget. I had. I already did, yeah. Yeah. It takes a step back. 2018 at 6 and 10 and then gets the bills at 10 and 6 with Josh Allen at quarterback to real

aFC East contention and with a couple breaks they could have done it and I think that going into this year he's a coach I would want to have unfortunately the number one coach on my list spoiler is also in this division but I think that the culture he's been able to build with brandon being very quickly they took one of the biggest dead cap hits in the history of football um to to flush that roster and the ability to build it back up that quickly and build a defense with an identity and identify talent and know what they want. And really,

you know, one of the things I think is interesting about Sean McDermott and Brennan is that they've been able to integrate mid-level veterans in a way the Patriots have as well and that's something I've talked to both of them about. But that's the sign of a good coach to be able to acclimate those guys really quickly.

And I'm in on Sean McDermott and I think that he is definitely a top-10 coach. Anything on McDermott, guys? I mean he's like the defensive version of like McVay and Shanahan but he's like the best young defensive you know we're always going to be drawn to the offensive coaches more I feel like that's why McDermott is like starting out lower and they haven't won a playoff game

he just knows defense like period it's not even up for debate anymore and I feel like his downfall he doesn't have a downfall but it's kind of been similar to McVease or I think maybe he bit off more than he could chew in the front office where he's already got I know he's not the GM, but they're not taking Josh Allen to Sean McDermott. He was probably a driving force of the Josh Allen to say.

And now he's got a big problem on offense, in my opinion. So like Sean McVeigh, maybe he could have some more growing pains to work through because of some unforced errors in the front office. But he's one of the best young defensive minds in the NFL. Just very quickly said, I agree with Rabel too. He kind of passed the Zimmer test. He takes care of his side of the ball, put the right people in charge, You know, made a bold decision with benching the quarterback last year.

Rayble is another guy, like, right on the periphery in the top 10. Yeah, I'm impressed with both of them. And I will send Bill's fans to at Roto Pat for the Josh Allen shot. Oh, yeah. Okay. I'm not exactly from McDermott. No, no, no, no, the Josh Allen thing. Because there's nothing, what's wrong with being good as a coach with Josh Allen,

a quarterback, Pat? Perfectly, perfectly acceptable quarterback. I don't know why you would say that. Yeah, you know, Josh Allen's going to be a flashpoint this off season. I've learned that very quickly. I agree. I want a running bit to be, I'm just scared to say anything bad about Josh Allen. I'm just terrified to say it.

All right. Sean McVeigh is my number nine. Pretty obvious there, as I said, he will, he's on this list for as long as there is a list because of what he was able to do and changing the culture in the foundation post-Chefisher, which really, I mean, listen, there's a hand. handful of coaches that you've had to take, that guys have had to take over from, where if you turn it around quickly,

it's a miracle. I think that if, Kevin Stefansky can take over this year with a Zoom off season and no OTAs or whatever and build on whatever Freddie Kitchens laid to waste in Cleveland, I think that's an incredible coaching job. That's sort of similar to what McVeigh did,

except Jeff Fisher was the coach for like seven years, six years. Like, it was unbelievable. that he had that long of a of a tenure and that he was able to whatever the opposite of culture is, that's what Jeff Fisher built. And Shaw McVeigh's ability to improve on that almost overnight is one of the best coaching jobs in a very long time. Number eight, Doug Peterson, as I said, not just the Super Bowl year, but last year to win with what I consider a backup team in a starting quarterback. I mean, there were some dire names

in that 53-man roster at the end of that season, man. There were some dire names. And also, by the way, they went in New Orleans a couple years ago and almost won a playoff game against them and they would have put them on track for another Super Bowl.

I mean, this is... And again, with a backup quarterback. Yeah, Doug Peterson is a legitimately good coach. Number seven, Mike Tomlin. Again, he should probably be number one in this list as we've all talked to ourselves into it. But he's just a phenomenal coach. Number six, Pete Carroll.

I'll let Danny Kelly expand on that if he wants to. It's number five, but that is my number five. Danny Kelly, number five. Yeah, I mean, just real quick for Pete Carroll, I guess, since I don't want to let my Seahawks homerism shine through too much here. But I do think just the overall culture and he would call it like program building. It's kind of like the college throwback. But the program that they have there with explicitly defined philosophies and everything is very, very much.

like spelled out. There's a specific plan for everything. I think there's nothing worse you can do as a coach than go into something without like a plan. I just hate it when you have coaches that it's like, what is the plan here? What is their identity? What are they trying to do?

Bill O'Brien? There you go. I mean, I will say... Can we take a quick Bill O'Brien break? Because I don't want to say something. Yeah, yeah. I want to say something. None of us, I bet,

when we're naming candidates for our worst coach are going to say Bill O'Brien, because Bill O'Brien is not one of the worst coaches in the NFL. Bill O'Brien is a top half coach. He's one of the worst GMs in front. So let's get that out of the way. That horrible GM, pretty good coach, Bill O'Brien. Agreed.

He's just a figure of utter bafflement. Just like nothing about him will ever make sense. We can stop. Because like even when you think he's a bad on the field coach, like last year I kind of like found the offensive scheme to be very stale. Then you like forget that he won divisions with Brock Osweiler and Brian. Right. Yeah.

He's just a figure of utter bafflement. I'll never know. I'll spend the rest of my career basically trying to find the essence of Bill O'Brien and I might fail. What a fruitful journey that sounds like. He didn't even want to be his own GM, but his pursuit of the guy, he wanted to be GM was such obvious tampering

that he had to back off, the Patriots Nick Casero thing. So he's just a fascinating. He accidentally became the GM. Yes, yes. This is like a plot to one of those 80s movies? movies with, uh-oh, accidental GM. All right, anything else on Pete Carroll?

No, I think, I mean, that's basically kind of the gist of it, especially when you kind of look at like some of his protégés that have gone on and trying to try to do like the Pete Carroll program, like Gus Bradley, Dan Quinn. There's something, there's something to be said about, and this is something we brought up earlier, like the CEO of a organization. And Pete Carroll is that. that said, I'd share all the, I guess, reservations about his game management, his decision to, you know, not neuter Russell Wilson, but certainly not maybe maximize what he can do. So, yeah, he's a tough one for me, but overall, like, I think he's a really, really good coach.

And the proof is in the pudding over, like, his whole, I guess, Renaissance after he got fired from the Jets and the Patriots, in discovering who we wanted to be as a coach and all that, I think there's certainly something there to compete. He learned to compete. Always compete, win forever. I mean, it's totally cheesy, but I really do, I'm a believer in, like, his program building.

You made a really point. People don't make very often about Pete Carroll. You're talking about this as a CEO. He's one of the rare coaches that sets the tone on both sides of the ball. Yeah. Like Bill Belichick does that. Jim Harbaugh did that in the NFL, but Pete Carroll sets the tone on both sides of the ball,

and there aren't very many head coaches to do that. Yeah, Jim Harbaal was interesting to me because he was an offensive coach, obviously a former head, former quarterback, and yet he was at the helm for like a really badass defensive revolution. And a lot of that was the personnel he inherited, but like that became a really tough team.

And meanwhile, on the offensive side of the ball, he was just scheming up Alex Smith and Colin Kaepernick running by you for 80-yard touchdown. So there's that. All right. number four. Speaking of that 49ers team, Greg Roman,

it was also instrumental in that offense. And I think John Harbaugh is number four and his decision to completely change the entire trajectory of the franchise, completely change the identity and go all in on Lamar Jackson is what makes him such a great, great coach. He's another guy who's very forward-thinking, listens to new information and adapts it into his scheme,

into his program. I just have a ton of respect for Harbaugh for essentially just embracing the idea that your quarterback is by far the most important thing on a roster and designing your entire freaking team around it. You know, from the Roman hire to, you know, all the different schematic things, all the different personnel things that they've done, I just think, you know, it showed a lot of vision from Harbaugh

in trusting that Jackson was that guy, and I think obviously they got reward last year. Obviously, they didn't get as far as they wanted to, but Lamar Jackson winning the MVP, all that stuff. I just think it showed what a great coach he is. He's an amazing coach. He's on my list, and he's on Pats list too. I actually have him higher than you do, and we'll get to that.

But the job he did last year was just unbelievable. And also the thing about Lamar Jackson and the building around him, building that line and scheming the way they did was, I think that there's some football relationships that seem kind of written in the stars, right? And I couldn't imagine Patrick Mahomes with anybody other than Andy Reid. Maybe give him to Sean Payton or whatever, a couple other of those guys. but I think that there were 20 teams where some really boring coach would have just screwed up Lamar Jackson. I mean, Lamar Jackson is one of the most talented players I've ever seen play football.

He's a football genius. He knows exactly where he needs to be on the field at all times. And yet a bad coach could have easily screwed all of this up and wasted him. And I think that the coaching job they did last year to put him in the position to succeed and then kind of, exceed everybody's wildest expectations in year two. He's, by the way, younger than Joe Burrow still, something which will continue to come up. I just thought it was amazing.

Danny really, I have Harbaal also number four, and I'll say Danny really got at the essence of it, where in his 11th year on the job, he changed the entire style and substance of his offense. And he did it in the middle of the season. You know, that's like not the kind of change. Most NFL coaches, you know, like some of the most stubborn people you'll ever meet.

And it's the kind of change they would normally never make, let alone in the middle of the season. He literally changed coordinators basically in the middle of the season. He didn't, uh, who was it? Who did Greg Roman even replace? Marty morning wig. Is that Marty, my boy. Um, and like he did that,

doing that in the middle of the season just kind of speaks to like who John Harbaugh is head coached. He has, yes. The embrace of new ideas is kind of like his number one mantra and why, like he's like a lifetime coach at this point. I think that one of the things about John Harbaugh and Belichick is on this list and Andy Reid is on this list is their ability to think like a young person is really admirable. And I think that we all sit around and we think about, I think most coaches stop coming up with no ideas when they're like 50. Okay.

And that's why they're all out of the league when they're 60. And their ability to have an open mind and learn new things and just adapt. I mean, their adaptability is unparalleled. I mean, those three guys, their adaptability is unparalleled. And that's why, in a weird way from football nerd perspective, I'm excited to see Bill Belichick without Tom Brady because he's just going to have to just do tons of weird crap. But I think that John Harbaugh, in, again, as you said,

after 10 years in football, moving everything he's ever known. And listen, it's not, even though he had Joe Flacco, obviously he came up his brothers is Jim Harbaugh who's done some running stuff with Greg Roman it's not like he didn't understand how football that's type of football worked but he had Joe Flacco

for a decade and then he did the anti everything that he did with Joe Flacco he just reversed on a dime and that's just so impressive in the middle of the season and then got to the playoffs so by the by the way to add to that he's their team has also been very very, very good on defense almost every single year.

And their special teams are elite almost every single year. So, yes, yes. He's a small details coach like Bill Belichick. Yeah. That's correct. That's correct. All right. Keep going.

I got Sean Payton at number three. And I mean, I think this one's like pretty cut and dry. Like just schematically, same deal. Schematically. He's very nimble. He's kind of changed the offense around Drew Breese's evolving skill set, I would say. over the years, you know, they kind of went to a more much more run-heavy scheme over the last few seasons. The way that they've been able to kind of remake their defense and continually go all-in every year

to maximize Drew Breezes waning however long he's going to be in the NFL for, they always seem to go in every, go all-in every season and just make the best of it for some way. So I just think he's shown over the years You know not only a great offensive mind But like a good Schematic mind for for strategic planning around like Maximizing Drew Breeze I guess

I just want you to know because we're all on Zoom He gets to my face I was making a cringe face And it wasn't at your point It was it a Jeff Passing report that the A's are just not going to pay minor league players anymore Oh God Every time, I just want to, I want to take 10 seconds on this. Every time I check Twitter, there's a new baseball update that I cannot believe.

Listen, I'm a huge baseball fan. Let's just say baseball having a normal one right now. Every time I check Twitter, it's just some insane off-the-wall update. Like every other sport is like, we're moving, we're moving towards this, we're moving towards this. We're hopeful this will happen in three weeks. Every other sport. Soccer, hockey, basketball.

football, be an update. And then Jeff Passon, minor league baseball players in the A's organization just not paid anymore. Yeah, baseball is like,

we now want the players to accept rocks as money. We know this is a big fundamental change to the structure of our sport. We believe it's in the best, short and long-term interests, and we need everyone to be a team.

Oh, God. All right. I'll talk about Sean Payton. We're all of Sean Peyton in our top five, so we'll get to that. Who's next for you, Danny? I got Andy Reid at number two.

Okay. You know, obviously got the Super Bowl last year, which is a huge, huge thing for him because the narrative that he can't win in the playoffs was kind of just weighing him down. But like, you know, historically, always a great offensive mind, has done it with a whole bunch of different quarterback. So you know he's managed, like his scheme is very, very good. He's always on the cutting edge. People are always copying Andy Reed.

That's always a good sign. It's kind of like the Belichick thing. Like everyone's always trying to. copy his ideas, his schemes. So yeah, I think in addition to that, like, he's another one of those guys. Like, his players all seem to just adore him. He gets maximum buy-in for whatever that's worth. I think it's probably worth a good deal in the NFL.

And, yeah, just overall, very, very successful in his career. And same deal. The proof is in the pudding. Like, he's just had 10 win teams, like, every year. Not every year, but, like, so many times during. the last decade. Yeah. Yeah.

So we all have Bill Belichick number one. Is that correct? Yeah. So why don't we just save Bill Belichick for the end? Like remember graduation ceremonies? Yeah, if they were like, graduation ceremonies, they'd be like save your applause to the end. Otherwise, we're just going to get bogged down in it.

That's our Bill Belichick is number one discussion. So we'll save that. Pat, give us five. Number five was Mr. Doug Peterson, who we've covered at length. And then John... You had them higher than everybody else, right? I did. Yeah.

When you keep... Yeah. When you make... the playoffs every year with number two quarterback Nick Fools, I take notice. Then I had John Harbaugh, number four. Another guy who, like, he was falling and rising for me for a year. I've got to just remember to always keep him in the top five. And I've Sean Payton number three, just like Danny, who he got it.

It's not even like he completely reinvented his offense, but, you know, him and Drew Reeves, they both always said they wanted to be more balanced on offense. And they finally got back to the more balanced. And then they just basically took passing offense to a place where it's never been before, like this efficient. And Drew, the top three completion, completion percentage, you know, isn't, you know, like the end-all-be-all-stat. But the top three completion percentage seasons in NFL history are Drew Breeze the past three years. And he's done that way, still averaging over eight yards for attempt and still has a very healthy touchdown percentage. And just a completely ridiculous level of efficiency on offense.

and Sean Peyton was someone who seemed like he kind of needed a change of scenery almost. You used to be like Sean Payton trade rumors. Remember that? Remember the weird era was like Sean Peyton's going to go coach at Stanford or whatever? Like it was increasingly, it was like the baseball rumors now. Like every time you checked Twitter, it was just like Sean Payton's going to go this way. I remember, yeah, there's Sean Peyton trade rumors. I remember someone told me someone in football.

I forget who it was. they've been an agent or something. I had no idea what they were talking about. They were like, Sean Payton should be, this is like four years ago. Sean Payton should be traded for John Harbaugh. No,

there was this thing. There were multiple Sean Payton trading. I believe it's because he signed a huge contract. And so it was like, what are we going to do with, like who would take Sean Payton's contract? And then his career completely, he was always a good coach.

And I think that there was some, he had some defensive problems. Obviously the efficiency with Drew Breeze was always, I mean, just incredible. And then they fixed the defense. Part of that was Peyton. Part of that was Mickey Loemis. Part of that was Jeff Ireland.

But I mean, they're damned. This is, I love, I love when coaches rebuild like this. I love second acts or third acts, whatever you want to call this. Like, this is incredible. And I like to see when guys can retool it. You know what I mean, I wrote this piece a couple weeks ago about how to rebuild in the NFL and retool or whatever. and Alex Ferguson, the former Manchester United Manager, he wrote in his book, or he wrote, I'm sorry,

I was in a Harvard Business Review study, and he said that teams have four-year windows and that you should always be kind of retooling and if there are life cycles of teams. And when you have an elite quarterback, it changes a little bit because obviously the elite quarterback can be around for more than four years. When you look at the Patriots, when you look at some of these other elite teams, it really is kind of a four-year window over and over again. And I think that the, um, the, Saints missed their window a couple of a few years ago and had a down cycle and didn't retool efficiently. And then they just rebuilt the whole damn thing with Drew Brees and Sean Payton there. And that's why they're elite now. I think it's a hell of a coaching job.

That's the reason he's in my top five as well. Yeah, he just seemed like someone who needed a change of scenery, but then he got it in their 2017 draft class, which was just incredible with Marshawn Latimore. Ryan Ramshick. Yeah. So he's, yeah, he's a, It seems like a common thread is coaches who can kind of reinvent themselves. And not that he fully reinvented himself, but he's got the adaptability you need to be like a decades-long coach for one team. There was, I did Sean Payton trade rumors. There's obviously the Cowboys rumor that there's just popped up once in a decade.

There was also a strangely a 2015 Drew Breeze trade rumor. This is like, this is kind of a dire, a hero or live long enough to have a trade rumor about yourself kind of thing. Like these guys have just been around so long that there's just going to be trade rumors about it all the time. All right. What's next, Pat? Number two, I have Andrew Reed. Wait, I'm sorry, I need to stop you right there.

There was a 2017, Sean Payton may be traded to the Rams rumor. That's, that's. This is iconic. Instantly iconic. 2015, Fox Sports. What's the report here? Jason Lockenforra Saints won't fire Sean Payton

but they may trade him This is when he was available for trade Was 2015 Including the likes of the Miami Dolphins Lockinfor also mentions The Titans Colts and Browns Are teams who could look at Peyton Meanwhile he was

He was two years away from just completely Coming all the way back So normally when there's a coach trade rumor It's because like one team like desperately wants them Like this was like a straight up like trade market which you don't like ever see for a coach. So yeah, that's pretty incredible. It never happened.

No. Fryan never even came close to happening. But Sean Payton is a way of winning the offseason news cycle. I just shouldn't say that because he got coronavirus. That's not winning the new cycle. That's a little bit. That's a different category. Yeah.

Number two, though, got Andy Reed. And Danny laid out the reasons why he's made the playoffs 15 of 21 years, said coach, and he's done that with, we talk about disparate talents, Donovan McNabb, Michael Vic, Alex Smith, and Patrick Mahomes.

Like he can win with any type of quarterback. He, Danny also said he's a trend setter. He's not in a copycat league. He's the one setting the trends. And he had checked every box except winning the Super Bowl.

And he would have been one of the greatest coaches in league history regardless. But thank God for him. He got to Lombardi. Yeah. And he has nothing left to prove one of the greatest coaches of all time. Sean Payton was a candidate for the Michigan job in 2014.

What is going on with this? I'm telling you, it's amazing. I didn't know there was like this much of like world building with Sean Payton trade rumor history. This was, I think 2014 was the golden age for him to be linked to college jobs. And then next year he was linked to other NFL jobs because it was also David Shell remaining at Stanford. I mean, there was a, there were a million puzzle pieces like momentum, just putting it all together. But the key with the Sean Payton was connected to ever. It really is.

It's really amazing. For your head coach candidate, you can create college rumors and pro trade rumors. You were doing something right as an agent. And, you know, I have not seen it with Sean Payton, but I'm sure it exists. TV rumors. That's true. He would be great on TV. That's how, that's like the final boss.

I think there's a little bit of Nick Saben there where it's just like, oh, he could go to Texas, but he also might go to college game day. Kevin, he was on the athletics list of must follow Twitter accounts that you made as well. Was I higher or lower than him? That's a good question. I think you might have been higher. So that's, wow, look at you. That's it. Kevin?

I'm going to go to coach Michigan. All right. fine we all have the same too top two yeah believe so pat hit us with andy reed hit you with you want me to hit you with bill with uh because i hit you with reed already at least oh i'm sorry i'm sorry i'm sorry uh with bill yes hit you with bill uh you just overrated uh just not a good coach actually bill bellichick i agree with that he's just been getting a free ride too long so yeah i like i'm very excited i think bill bellichick is going to continue to be amazing coach and yeah I hadn't been excited about the Patriots winning.

And so I respect greatness, of course. But, you know, I was over it. I will admit it. But now, like, I really want the Patriots to be good. Because I just think Bill Belichick is so brilliant. And I want Bill Belichick to win 11 games with Jarrett's did him so bad. And kind of, like, the angle in my piece I took is, like, you know, like everyone's going to want to make 2020 a referendum on who deserve more credit, Bill Belichick or Tom Brady.

And the way I kind of frame it. And we kind of already saw what Bill Belichick, will look like post-Bradie because in a lot of ways they had a post-Bradie offense already last year and part of that was GM Bill Belichick's fault such a poor supporting cast on offense last year but you know Brady regressing in his twilight years and bill just counters with the best defense of his Patriots life about 225 points and this bill talk about adaptable no one is more adaptable no one is he's just the man no one will probably ever approach him, man.

He's adaptable. What we talk about like, okay, John Harbaugh change this mid-season. Like, Belichick changes things mid-week all the time. Mid-game, yeah. Mid-game, mid-week, but he'll just install a new game plan week-to-week. Like, man, he's just amazing. And that's what I agree with you. I mean, I think that going back to something I said earlier, my favorite Belichick game of the last decade was when Jacopi Perci.

started against Houston. And he just, it was third string quarterback, he never played an NFL game before. And he just, and he just stuffed the Texans in a trash can on Thursday night. Against one of us like protages, too.

So it's like amazing. I mean, it was, that was unbelievable. And I kind of want to see a whole year of that. And I actually, in a weird way, I actually like he's rolling with Jared Stidham because I don't think Jared Stidham is,

so good that Belichick will be like he was with Brady and just say, okay, go out there and figure this out. Remember, this is a guy who signed Tim Tebow at one point. I think he might get a little weird with the quarterback position. And that's something that, you know, when you have Tom Brady, you don't want to do that because you have Josh McDaniels and you have Tom Brady and you can basically get out of any jam with those two guys. And now you have Jared Stidham or Brian Hoy or whomever, but it leaves him some experimentation room. And that's why I'm excited to see that. I think that's a top 10 storyline this year is just from a scheme standpoint. What innovations does Bill Belichick make?

This is a guy. He talks about the single wing all the time, especially when Tebow was doing it, or running the Wildcat. That was one of the things that was so funny about the Wildcat when it was used on him was he was kind of embarrassed because he's just a football connoisseur to where like he remembers studying this stuff, you know, the one was run in the 1920s, 1930s, 1940s. And so I would not be surprised he's. some huge huge innovations from Bill Bellocheque this year.

Yeah. I think when I think of Belichick, I think of details. And I think there's so many guys on this list, you know, and I think everybody that we've talked about today, you could say are really, really good coaches. But a lot of them have like these really glaring issues with like game management, time clock management, decision making in crunch situations.

like and Belichick is far in a way like I would say the best at those types of decisions obviously he's not perfect but um just you know whatever it is maybe it's like the stupid double penalty loophole right is Bill Belichick right and it's like he he's famous for like studying what the opposing sideline is doing at different like times well that's different well that's different I'm talking about like in the game, but also, you know, but like, that was a McVeigh thing. That was where he wanted to know, it was that he wanted to know, it was an urban Meyer thing too. He wants to know where the coach is so he can read his behavior.

Right. And, you know, not to bring up the, habitual line stepper. Not to bring up the end of Super Bowl 49 again, for God's sake, but like he was looking over at the Seahawks bench

and when, you know, the Seahawks got tackled at like the two yard line or whatever, Marshall Lynch got tackled. And he was trying to decide whether to call time out. And he's looking over at the Seahawks sideline, and they're like, it's chaos or whatever.

And he ultimately decides not to call time out. And that ended up being like an amazing decision. But like just, that's just an anecdote that goes to show like overall, like how dialed in, absolutely dialed in he is with freaking everything. Every, every layer. The other funny part about that particular is mostly in Do Your Job, that that was exposed. He made the call so casually.

He was just like, don't call time out. Nah. Like it was a mate. It was like he was like at the Greenbrier on August 13th, coaching a joint practice with the saints. The not calling time, that was like a micro controversy at the time,

like in the 40 seconds that elapsed. I remember like people arguing about on Twitter. And like that, to me, that is like the defining moment of Bill Belichick's career. the next play where, you know, very famously, you know, Malcolm Butler, they had run the play. They practiced it. Yeah.

You know what to expect. And like, that is like Bill Belichick in a nutshell. Like, that they had no, they knew what to do with that exact play and that exact moment. Like how unlikely that situation was to come up and then it did and they were ready. I need to do my top five really quickly. Kyle Shanahan is number five. Sean Payton is number four. John Harbaugh is number three.

Andy Reid is number two. Bill Belichick is number one. Does anyone have any more thoughts on Bill Belichick before we get to the worst coaches? I forgot we're doing worse too. I just do want to say that I looked it up. The Texans Patriot score 100% started was 27 to nothing.

That's so, that's such an amazing, that's just as amazing of a Bill O'Brien fact as it is a big Belmontic fact. Like you could argue who owns that fact harder, Bill Belichick. Brock, awesome. Swiler, 24 for 41, 196 yards, zero touchdowns, one interception in that game. Jacobi reset, 103 yards, zero touchdown, zero interceptions,

48 rushing yards with a rushing touchdown. Legerick Blunt scored two touchdowns. This is just unbelievable. We do rewatchables of this game that Bill O'Brien call in. All right. He might be unavailable for that. All right. Let's get to, I don't want to do a ranking of the bottom 10 or whatever.

I want to do everybody's worst coach. And then we can throw out some candidates associated with that. And the reason, again, is because I just don't think it's, it's, there's such a glut of bad coaches. Freddie Kitchens is not walking through that door. Okay. Jason Garrett's not walking through that door. And I think that it's much easier for us to just say who's the worst and throw out some candidates. Danny Kelly, worst coach in football.

I got to go with Adam Gase, I think. It came down to a couple of guys. It's a body of work thing. It's just a body. Matt Patricia has done really well the last couple years of being the worst coach in football, but Adam Gase has been doing it for years. It's a track record thing. I just think, so like, let's just run, like, quickly run through a few things that, like,

he's the opposite of what I think good coaches would do, like, extremely bizarre press conference affect. Like, what is that? Like, I know that's not the most important thing, but, like, as a head coach, you're, you're, you're kind of the face of the organization, you're the CEO, you're projecting an image of your team and Gase, like, you know, we don't have to spend too much time on that, but like, it's bizarre. Number two, he constantly alienates his own players, which I think is just not a smart thing.

Yeah, not a smart thing to do. You know, especially like the Levi-on-Bel thing is hilarious because I know that, um, the Jets had all this like shift of like personnel in their front office and all that. but like immediately alienating this guy that you paid like a bunch of money you can't get out of his contract, like immediately alienating that guy just doesn't seem like a good strategy, frankly. No. He also did not change the scheme at all. I think, you know, I didn't study the Jets super hardcore last year, but like from what I've read and what I've heard from people that I trust.

Like the Jets didn't change their offense around like what Lavian Bell does well. They just kind of like, this is Gase, I'm doing my scheme, are hugely paid running back. you know, he's just going to have to sing or swim. Like, that's not, like, that's not smart. And the things that they've done to try and develop Sam Darnel are just laughable. Like, basically everything about, you know, the gay's tenure in New York and going back, you know, further in Miami, like just none of it inspires confidence at all. Just doesn't seem like there's any plan.

It doesn't seem like he's a good leader that can, like, install, like, overall arching, like, identity, philosophy, anything like that. so I just, I don't see the plan at all. So I'll say this. Joe Douglas, I think, is a very good general manager. He has a track record that goes back to Philadelphia, helped build that Nick Full Super Bowl team with Howie. He was in Baltimore before that.

I think that he is a much better GM that Adam Gays is coach. And I think that at some point, he'll figure this out and they'll have a roster that can win. At this point, however, the thing I'm concerned about, is by the time you get rid of Adam Gase, and by the time that roster comes into focus, well, what are we going to give Sam Donald $120 million? You don't know.

You don't know. Getting coached by Adam Gase is not a way to find out if you're good. I just, it's going to be hard to tell. I think there's going to be some insane, I was on with Rucilla this morning. There's going to be some really intriguing, do they extend these guys' quarterbacks in the next couple of years?

Because especially if these guys don't pop or they don't go totally. Like I don't think any of these guys are going to go full Trubisky, right? Guys like Baker, guys like Donald, guys like Josh Allen. I think that some of them will get better. Maybe they'll get marginally worse, but no one's going to fall off a cliff. And then what kind of contract do they get? Because there haven't really been, we haven't really seen those sort of test cases. I think Ryan Tannehill was a little bit like that where he got one extension,

kind of page you go extension, then he got injured. and they let him go and obviously he flourished somewhere else. I don't actually see anybody analogous to Ryan Tannihill in this crew. But I'm really intrigued to see what Adam Gase is coaching, how he has an effect on Sam Donald's career going forward, how they build that team. And it's real bad. I would have just probably moved on from him this year.

Yeah. Pull off the band-aid. The Jets are really on the Sam Bradford plan with Sam Darnold, cycling through coordinators, struggling to put any semblance of a supporting cast around him. And what it boils down to with Adam Gase to me is so like Bill Belichick, you know, talk about someone who just like doesn't, who just like lives in the coaching moment. You give him a bag of lemons. He figures out how he's going to make lemonade out of it. Whereas Adam Gase is

like the guy who's like always focused on like what isn't there basically. It seems like he's always wanting to bring in someone new. You know, the dolphins, you know, he wasn't the GM. You know, the Dolphins, so many players, they didn't sign the second contracts. And they bring in the people like Gase once and, you know, they don't succeed. And then they get with Levyon Bell already. Also, I remember he was just randomly feuding with Jarvis Landry almost immediately. Yes. And someone was like, well, they don't like him because he's a millennial.

And I was like, well, this is going to be a problem. Before Levy on Bell ever takes a rep with the Jets, Adam Gase is already feuding with him and like, you know, dreaming of having someone else at running back. And how are you ever going to be a successful head coach if you're focused on like, what isn't there basically. Is he your worst? He should have been. He's not my worst.

He wasn't my worst either. I had Patricia and Mr. Doug Marone. He honestly should have been. All right. Let's fight about Maron real quick. I don't think, I think Maron and the 2017 coaching job and the fact that he was

decent in Buffalo, I don't think that puts him in the bottom two. St. Doug and Buffalo. With Moron, so I just can't. So again, If you're not going to coordinate your own side of the ball, I'm going to be like a tougher grader.

He's just like to me like a classic like office space gift. Like what exactly do you do here at this point? He's not his own coordinator. He let Tom Coughlin have free reign. Maybe that wasn't by the choice. Like the only concrete takeaways I have from Doug Marone's time in Jacksonville is like he can't overcome other people's problems. He can't overcome the bad roster.

He can't overcome like Tom Coughlin's toxic relationship. with the team. He can't overcome, like, his issue is a quarterback. And I just, I don't know, like, what has Doug Maron shown that he's going to be the coach to get the Jaguars out of this? You know, absolutely nothing. And it's just, it couldn't be more clear to me that he will be fired after the season. And I just don't understand, I just don't know what Doug Maron brings to the table. You know, he let someone else run this completely retrograde offense last year. I, I just don't know what What would you say you do here? Exactly.

So I got to say a couple things. Number one, I disagree. I think the 2017 coaching job he did puts him in a different. Matt Patricia and Adam Gays and their wildest dreams could not have done that and gotten Blake Bordel's national game and almost got into the Super Bowl. So Doug Marone is higher for me. I don't have him in this list. And then I think that for me, Matt Patricia walks away with this.

It's a combination of, it's a combination of bad scheme, bad hires as coordinators, completely toxic relationships with his players. We saw the Darius Lay thing. He is going to, at some point, get, Brian Curtis just texted me the A's thing, just in case I hadn't seen it. and Craig just asked me how long we're going to go we're going to go an hour more

on the Oakland A's decision not to pay minor leaguers it's, it's, I'm only laughing to prevent myself from just flying into a rage. Okay. So,

yeah, total package with Patricia, bad coach, bad relationships, terrible with the media, although that, you know, Bill Belichick was terrible

with the media, it doesn't matter. No signs, of improvement doesn't seem to make hires or anything based off of what his players do well. Matthew Stafford is amazing from grading on a curve on what he's had to deal with as far as coaching staffs and organizations, stuff like that. The fact he's still there and has put up those numbers is incredible, all things considered. It's Matt Patricia.

I think that first coach fired for Matt Patricia is just, it's one of those things where I feel like you shouldn't even be able to bet in Vegas on it. But I also think that the Ford family's been so weird about this stuff that they might have some weird noble thing where they wait for him to finish out the season. But I can't, if I was a Lions fan, I would not. We had, Danny, we had a couple weeks ago, I asked the question, I said, if any Lions fan has seen or heard of any justification for like why, like the contrary and like Matt Patricia is actually good take, like, send them my way, I'd love to see it. And it was mostly people being just like, no, you're right. I got like probably 30 mentions of people are like,

hey, just checking in on the Lions thing you guys said. No, we feel we feel terrible about it. At least Gase has made the playoffs. And had Matt Moore, at Matt Moore starting a game. Matt Patricia, like, defines like too clever by half. Like, he thinks he can like scheme his way out of like any situation. Like he thinks he's, he thinks he's Bill Belichick's heir apparent. And that has not been the case.

And, you know, he thinks he can, he's clearly, like, adopted, I guess, Bill Belichick's, like, cold demeanor with his players. But it wasn't just. Even the hire was bad. He was terrible as a defensive coordinator. Bill Belichick built one of the best defensive all time as soon as he left. That's another hilarious fact about Bill O'Brien, by the way, is that after Bill O'Brien left the Patriots, they immediately had two of the highest scoring offenses in NFL history. So maybe even Bill Belichick can hold himself back. This justifies, this justifies our selection of number one.

and in a weird way, justifies our worst number 32 as well. Good coaches just do not chase stuff. It did the same thing with Quandre Diggs. And if you're going to make a positive case for Matt Patricia, I had him second to last. Maybe the only reason I didn't have them last is they actually did adjust an offense last year. You know, they ran the much more aggressive downfield offense.

You can't blame Matt Patricia for the Matthew Stafford injury, I guess. They had a lot of really close losses with their terrible quarterbacks. But he's just for all the reasons we let he just does a laughable job on his side of the ball despite coming up with the occasional good he he schemes well against young quarterbacks it seems like that's about all he does um and he's he got he get yeah the the Jared he kind of ended Jared golf he did and uh he I think they that year they did well against Jimmy Garoppolo yeah did they do well against Sam Darnell no Sam Darnell was hurt that year did he get in on Jim Garoppolo early that year I can't yeah it was really

It was before he got hurt. Yeah. I don't know. Maybe I have pandemic brain. I can't remember. Maybe he should just be a young quarterback specialist. Maybe that can be his job next year after he gets fired in November. All right.

We could do an hour on that, Patricia. We could do an hour on the A's not paying their minor leaguers. We could do an hour on a lot of things. We've got to wrap it up here. We've done 90 minutes. Guys, thanks for joining us. Yeah. Thank you.

Truly my pleasure. Anytime, yeah, this was a blast. And sorry, one of my great skills is I typically make podcasts. go longer than normal. That's a good skill in the content industry. You've been listening to the Ringer NFL show on the Ringer Podcast Network.