Don Banks Archives - Head Coach Ranking

The NFL’s 10 Most Under-Appreciated Head Coaches

By Don Banks | July 13, 2018

As much as any storyline at the heart of the magical season and rise of the 2017 Philadelphia Eagles, the rapid transformation of Doug Pederson’s head coaching reputation from unproven novice to invaluable leader takes a backseat to nothing.

Pederson’s handling of his talented but unaccomplished team was pitch-perfect all year. He and his staff met every challenge that came their way, be it in the form of overcoming key injuries, or with the use of timely motivational tactics, inventive play-calling and game management.

Coming off his 7-9, last-place record as a rookie head coach in 2016, Peterson joined the ranks of Pittsburgh’s Mike Tomlin, Dallas’ Barry Switzer, Washington’s Joe Gibbs and Oakland’s Tom Flores as coaches who captured a Super Bowl title in just their second season.

Though Pederson’s head coaching skills went largely under-appreciated at this time last year, the perception of his standing in the NFL coaching fraternity has been dramatically altered by last year’s spectacular success. While the luster of Philadelphia’s championship season may naturally tend to fade a bit over the course of time, Pederson proved his coaching mettle in dramatic and memorable fashion.

Pederson isn’t the only NFL head coach who comes to mind when I think of the more unsung and under-appreciated members of his high-profile profession. Combing through the NFL’s history, here’s my list of the 10 head coaches whose work hasn’t gotten its full share of credit over the years.

* Tom Flores, Raiders (1979-87): It was really Al Davis’ team. He inherited John Madden’s team. It was Jim Plunkett’s comeback triumph. Or the byproduct of a great defense. And on and on and on. Someone else always gets the credit for the Raiders’ success besides Flores, who went 91-56 in those nine seasons, made the playoffs five times and won Super Bowls in both Oakland (1980) and Los Angeles (1983). Flores kept the Raiders at or near the top of the league while dealing with a nomadic franchise that led an often chaotic existence.

* Dick Nolan, 49ers (1968-75): Everyone thinks the winning started in San Francisco when Bill Walsh arrived, but facts are stubborn things. The 49ers had just one winning season in the six years before Nolan was hired, and then he led them to three straight NFC West titles (1970-72) and two consecutive NFC title games (1970-71) in his first five seasons on the job. The only hump he couldn’t get over was beating Dallas in the playoffs, losing three years in a row to the Cowboys in January.

* John Harbaugh, Ravens (2008-present): Yes, the Ravens have regressed from the lofty standard Harbaugh set from 2008-2012, missing the playoffs in four of the past five seasons. But he helped put a second Lombardi Trophy on the shelf with the 2012 team’s dream playoff run, and his Ravens have consistently been the only AFC club fearless enough to battle and sometimes conquer the dynastic behemoth known as New England. His record includes six playoff berths in his first seven years, a 104-71 mark including 10-5 in the postseason, and only one losing season in 10 years.

* Don Coryell, Rams (1973-77) and Chargers (1978-86): His exciting and offensively-led Cardinals won back-to-back NFC East titles in 1974-75 and earned three straight double-digit win seasons when no one else in the conference could knock off the vaunted Dallas Cowboys. Then he left for San Diego and created his famed Air Coryell attack, leading the Chargers to four consecutive playoff seasons and back-to-back AFC title game appearances in 1980-81. For his offensive innovation alone, he’s worthy of continued Hall of Fame consideration.

* Red Miller, Broncos (1977-80): The Broncos had never won a thing in their sorry 17-season existence until Miller was hired in 1977, but he led those wildly-popular underdog Broncos to their first Super Bowl appearance as a rookie head coach that year. Miller’s “Orange Crush’’ defense took the NFL by storm and Denver that season became one of the league’s most memorable Cinderella stories ever. The Broncos went to the playoffs three times and finished 8-8 once in Miller’s four seasons, and his 42-25 mark set the bar that the likes of Dan Reeves, Mike Shanahan and other Denver coaches followed.

* Jim Mora, Saints (1986-96) and Colts (1998-2001): Playoffs? Playoffs? Yeah, an incredulous Mora might have given us that epic post-game sound clip in late 2001, but he did know something about the postseason, leading his Saints and Colts teams into January six different times. Alas, his teams lost their playoff opener each time, but his 125-106 (.541) regular-season record in 15 seasons is anything but a punch line.

* Buddy Parker, Lions (1951-56) and Steelers (1957-64): Don’t know much about Parker? He was simply one of the best coaches of his era, taking the Lions (the Lions!!!) to three consecutive NFL championship games in 1952-54, winning two league titles. And then he jumped to the moribund Steelers in 1957, posting four winning seasons and five non-losing records in his eight years in Pittsburgh, which was a feat in and of itself in the pre-Chuck Noll era. Parker went 107-76-9 overall, a .577 winning percentage that still stands the test of time.

* John Rauch, Raiders (1966-68): The guy who coached Oakland after Al Davis and before John Madden went a gaudy 35-10-1 in his three seasons on the job, and that is not a misprint. Rauch’s teams won the AFL’s Western Division in 1967 and 1968, going 13-1 and 12-2 in the regular season. The Raiders won the AFL in 1967, losing Super Bowl II to Lombardi’s Packers in Miami. Again, as was later the case with Tom Flores, everybody but the head coach seemed to get credit for Oakland’s success.

* Bobby Ross, Chargers (1992-96) and Lions (1997-2000): Ross was a successful college coach who made that rare move to the NFL without losing his magic. His Chargers teams (50-36) won the AFC West twice, made the playoffs three times, and earned the franchise’s first and only Super Bowl berth in 1994, with Ross never enduring a losing season in San Diego. He went only 27-32 in three-and-a-half seasons in Detroit, but the Lions made the postseason twice in that span and had just one losing season. By modern-day Lions standards, that’s a glory era.

* Raymond Berry, Patriots (1984-89): For a Hall of Fame receiver, Berry made a pretty damn good head coach. In the first five seasons of his six-year tenure, the Patriots finished with winning records, twice posting 11-5 seasons and earning the franchise’s first Super Bowl berth in 1985. Super Bowls may be commonplace in Foxboro these days, but the Patriots went to exactly one in the game’s first three decades, and it was the soft-spoken Berry (51-41) who led them there.

NFL Column: Don Banks’ Super Bowl Prediction

By Don Banks | January 29, 2018 12pm PT

Before we actually watch it happen, it’s always so hard to imagine the Patriots losing, isn’t it? It’s rare enough, especially in a big game setting, that our minds seem to forget the experience and what it was like, as if it was a traumatic event in the past that has been blocked out. Logically we know it’s a possibility. But it never feels like a probability, so New England starts every game with some tacitly understood advantage.

But a Patriots loss very well could happen in Super Bowl LII, and the Eagles are the kind of team that could pull off the upset and make us realize after the fact that it was obvious all along. For one, Philadelphia’s defensive line can be dominant, and we’ve seen what can happen to New England in Super Bowls when its offensive line gets whipped for four quarters. Things can get rather ugly rather fast, and Tom Brady in a messy pocket tends to look downright mortal. Just ask Justin Tuck and his New York Giants cohorts.

And it’s not just the critical element of pass pressure that the Eagles defense needs to have in endless supply on Super Bowl Sunday. The Patriots are going to get their yards and their points, but Philadelphia needs to make them earn every one of them, giving up nothing cheap or easy, and forcing New England to take bite-sized chunks all game long, rather than ripping off a back-breaking big play.

The Patriots offense is known for its ability to patiently wait for the other team to make a mistake, and then it capitalizes. But if the Eagles defense can play a disciplined and equally patient game itself, keeping the New England pass catchers in front of them, it might force the Patriots offense to play near-perfect and grow frustrated at its lack of being able to exploit and attack Philadelphia’s weak spots.

If New England’s running backs — Dion Lewis, James White and Rex Burkhead — create consistent impact in the passing game, that’s when the Patriots offense is at its best and most versatile. The Eagles defense can’t shut that down completely, but they can prioritize containment, and making sure the yards after catch factor doesn’t overwhelmingly favor New England. Swift and sure tackling will be the key for the Eagles, because Brady will try to beat the pass rush by getting the ball out quickly and picking Philadelphia apart in the underneath and intermediate portions of the field.

On the surface, it sounds silly to suggest Eagles backup quarterback Nick Foles, who didn’t even play this season until December, can go toe-to-toe with Brady and come out a winner. Same for the coaching matchup of the experienced master, Bill Belichick against the relative novice, Doug Pederson. But Philadelphia’s 15 wins this season have included no flukes, and by and large the NFC was the stronger and deeper conference in 2017, meaning the Eagles have been tested and answered almost every challenge. This clearly will be their biggest of all, but nothing indicates they’ll back down from it and whither beneath the spotlight.

The rest of the football world may not be able to comprehend Foles playing well enough to take the big confetti shower late Sunday night, but the Eagles believe in him, and he now believes he belongs after playing one of the best games of his career in Philly’s 38-7 blowout of the Vikings in the NFC title game, when the ball never touched the ground on his final 15 passes. Like Jeff Hostetler 27 years ago, Foles doesn’t have a backup’s temperament and he’s blissfully unaware of his perceived limitations.

The Patriots play nothing but tight, taut Super Bowls and this one will be no exception. But the quest for a sixth ring will be a struggle for New England in U.S. Bank Stadium, and it’ll need every bit of its legendary calm and cool in crunch time, executing in every key situation. It happened just that way in Houston last season, when the Patriots fell behind 28-3 but never blinked against the Falcons.

But this Eagles team is better and more resilient than those Birds. And with or without Carson Wentz, their DNA is to find a way to win. The journey hasn’t always been smooth, but in the end, Philadelphia never lost sight of the destination and will experience its own version of a miracle in Minnesota — the first Super Bowl title in franchise history. Andy Reid’s current team, Kansas City, handed the Patriots a defeat in the NFL’s first game of the season, and his former team, the Eagles, will do the same in the last game of the season. Winner — Philadelphia 24, New England 23.

* Last week’s picks: 1-1 (.500); Season: 63-27 (.700).

AFC and NFC Championship Game Picks

By Don Banks | January 19, 2018 10am PT

It’s not like we didn’t already realize it, but it’s worth the reminder that one year can change everything in the NFL. No matter who wins in Philadelphia on Sunday, the NFC for the third year in a row will be represented in the Super Bowl by a team that was .500 or below the season before. In the AFC, Jacksonville is merely trying to become the first team to ever make the Super Bowl after winning as few as three games the previous year.

Championship Sunday didn’t give us the predictable once again, and that’s the way we like it. New England may be anything but new as a potential Super Bowl qualifier, but the Eagles and Vikings and Jaguars have never earned a Lombardi trophy, and Jacksonville hasn’t even made the game in its 23-season history. All that novelty should make for great drama.

The preliminaries are now out of the way this postseason. We’re down to just three games left to settle the issue. Here’s hoping the best is yet to come.

* Last week’s picks: 3-1 (.750); Season: 62-26 (.705).

AFC

The mystery surrounding QB Tom Brady’s mid-week throwing hand injury certainly adds an element of uncertainty to the Patriots’ seventh consecutive AFC title game appearance, and only boosts Jacksonville’s chances of making this a competitive, four-quarter game. If it’s a jammed or dislocated thumb, and Brady can’t grip the ball as he normally would, his accuracy could easily suffer. I was of the mindset the Jaguars are a tough matchup for New England to begin with, given their speed and athleticism at each level of the defense, combined with their ability to pressure the quarterback and disrupt a passer’s timing. Yes, Jacksonville gave up 42 points to Pittsburgh last week, but it took some ridiculous Steelers touchdown catches and throws to manage that, and it may have been the best six-touchdown defensive effort I’ve ever seen. The Patriots generally wait for their opponents to make costly mistakes and then capitalize, using their consistent execution and playoff pedigree to demoralize a postseason novice like the Jaguars. But I don’t think this proud and loud Jacksonville club is going to be intimidated easily, and if QB Blake Bortles can stay away from the game-turning miscues, I foresee a one-score game in the fourth quarter. When all is said and done, though, it’ll be New England that eventually finds a way to prevail, earning a remarkable eighth Super Bowl trip of the Belichick-Brady era. Winner: New England.

NFC

Both the Eagles and Vikings should feel overwhelmingly fortunate just to have survived last weekend, when they were one play away from likely elimination on their own home field. So which team will seize the second life it was given and make the most of it, putting forth a winning effort that erases the uneven performances on display in the divisional round? Both big-play defenses have the ability to win this game on their own, only underlining how critical it is for both Minnesota and Philadelphia to get clean, efficient quarterbacking that keeps their team in the game and doesn’t commit the key mistake. I’ve got a bit more confidence in QB Case Keenum pulling that off, but then again, when things got tight against the Saints late last week, he started throwing the ball up for grabs and making risky decisions. Obviously his daring worked out in the end, but the Vikings can’t rely on the miracle-finish game plan once again. An early lead would do wonders for the Eagles’ chances, allowing them to call a smart and somewhat conservative game with QB Nick Foles under center, while also keeping what’s sure to be a rabid Philadelphia crowd on the edge of its seat and into every play. But Minnesota feels like it has a little karma on its side with the Super Bowl being played in Minneapolis, and the Vikings overall were the strongest, most consistent team in the NFC this season. I predicted last week’s Saints-Vikings winner would make the Super Bowl, and I’m sticking with that call. It’ll be close, and rather low-scoring, but it’s Minnesota’s moment. Winner: Minnesota.

NFL Column: 10 Things to Consider as Championship Sunday Looms

By Don Banks | January 15, 2018 2pm PT

There’s a lot of history on the line next weekend on Championship Sunday, and no matter who the Super Bowl participants wind up being, we’re going to have an interesting matchup on the evening of Feb. 4 in Minneapolis. Here are 10 things to consider about the looming AFC and NFC title games:

1. Jacksonville is in its 23rd season since being a 1995 expansion team, and the Jaguars are this year’s only final four qualifier that has never reached the Super Bowl. If Jacksonville ends that streak with an upset in New England, it will become the NFL’s greatest worst-to-first team of all time by at least one barometer. No club has ever made the Super Bowl a year after finishing with three wins or fewer, as the Jaguars would do (3-13 and last place in 2016).
The only two teams to win as few as four games and then make the Super Bowl the following season were the 1988 Bengals (4-11 and last place in the ’87 strike season, then lost the Super Bowl) and the 1999 Rams (4-12 and last place in 1998, then won the Super Bowl).

2. As has been well-noted, Minnesota is trying to become the first team to ever play a Super Bowl in their home stadium. But these Vikings have already made history, in that no team before them has ever reached the conference championship round in the season its city has played host to the Super Bowl.

3. The Eagles and Vikings have two of the NFL’s most tortured fan bases when it comes to their dearth of titles. The Eagles haven’t won a league championship since beating the Packers in the 1960 NFL title game, a drought currently in its 57th season. They are 0-2 in the Super Bowl and 2-4 in NFC Championship games.

Coincidentally, the Vikings, a 1961 NFL expansion team, are also in their 57th season of existence, and still waiting for their first Super Bowl championship. They are 0-4 in Super Bowl play — tying Buffalo for the worst record — reaching the game four times in an eight-season span of 1969-76. Minnesota is 4-5 in NFC title games, having lost the last five times they made the game. The Vikings only league championship of any sort was the 1969 NFL title, in the fourth year of the Super Bowl era and the last season before the AFL and NFL merged.

4. Minnesota’s 41 years between Super Bowl berths is the third longest current such streak in league annals. It’s topped only by Kansas City, which hasn’t been in the game since the 1969 season, and the Jets, who haven’t made it back since 1968. But at least the Chiefs and Jets won Super Bowl rings for their trouble.

5. The past eight AFC/NFC title games have been won by the home team, which obviously bodes well for Philadelphia and New England, the top seeds. The last time the road team won on Championship Sunday came in the 2012 season, when both San Francisco and Baltimore (coached by the Brothers Harbaugh) prevailed and met in Super Bowl XLVII in New Orleans.

6. Jacksonville made the AFC Championship game twice in its first five years of existence, last going in the 1999 season, which was almost the entire Patriots dynasty ago. As the No. 1 seed, the Jaguars were upset at home in that game by Tennessee, 33-14, failing to fully capitalize on a franchise-best 14-2 season.

Four days after that AFC title game in late January 2000, Patriots owner Robert Kraft hired Bill Belichick away from the Jets as his head coach, and the rest is history. Later that spring, New England drafted Tom Brady in the sixth round, and the Patriots have virtually owned the AFC ever since.

While the Jaguars haven’t been back to this level of the postseason since, the Patriots have made it their annual January excursion, qualifying for the AFC title game 12 times in the past 17 seasons. They are 7-4 in those games entering Sunday’s matchup, including an NFL record seven consecutive championship game appearances. There are 10 NFL teams that haven’t played in even one conference final in that span.
And how this for a mind-boggling stat? The longest New England has gone without making the AFC title game in the Belichick/Brady era is a three-year streak from 2008-2010, and Brady missed almost all of 2008 with a knee injury.

7. Jacksonville entered 2017 with nine consecutive non-winning seasons, and six straight double-digit loss records. They produced a league-worst 22-74 (.229) mark from 2011-2016 and even Cleveland did better than that, going 24-72 (.250) in that same span.

And yet here are the Jaguars, preparing to take on the vaunted Patriots, who just logged their 17th consecutive winning season, and 15th in a row with at least 10 wins. You can very nearly flip Jacksonville’s 22-74 regular season mark from 2011-16 and get New England’s record in those same six years: 75-21 (.781).

But all that matters now is that No. 3-seeded Jacksonville is 12-6 this season and will go into Gillette Stadium to face the 14-3 top-seeded Patriots with a world of confidence after Sunday’s 45-42 shootout win in Pittsburgh. The Jaguars’ 1-10 career record against New England feels like ancient history at the moment.

8. The Eagles on Saturday beat Atlanta 15-10 to earn their first playoff victory since the 2008 NFC Divisional round. The Vikings on Sunday got that miracle Stefon Diggs 61-yard touchdown catch to stun the Saints 29-24 and collect their first postseason win since the 2009 NFC Divisional round.

In the preseason, if you had the Vikings and Eagles making it this far, it would have been with Sam Bradford and Carson Wentz at quarterback. Instead it’ll wind up being a matchup of Case Keenum and Nick Foles, the two former 2015 Rams part-time starters on that 7-9 team in its final dismal season in St. Louis.

9. Making this Minnesota-Philadelphia saga even more interesting is that Bradford and Foles were once traded for each other, when the Eagles shipped Foles to St. Louis in exchange for Bradford and picks in March 2015. Foles didn’t last long with the Rams and Bradford didn’t last long with the Eagles, and now Bradford will back up Keenum as he takes on Philly and Foles. Small world, this NFL.

10. We have three of the top four seeds advancing to the conference finals, which gives us a pretty good chance of continuing the recent trend of the Super Bowl featuring nothing but No. 1 and No. 2 seeds for a fifth year in a row. It’s No. 1 Philadelphia versus No. 2 Minnesota (both 14-3) in the NFC, with No. 1 New England (also 14-3) hosting in the AFC.

But then there’s No. 3 Jacksonville. The last time a No. 3 seed in either conference made the Super Bowl was back in 2006, when the Colts and Peyton Manning won it all, beating the Bears in South Florida. Since then, the No. 3 seed in the AFC has been anything but a launching pad for Super Bowl dreams.
The only No. 3 seeds in that span to even make the AFC title game were the 2016 Steelers and the 2007 Chargers, and both lost — don’t tell the Jaguars — at New England.

NFL Divisional Round Picks

By Don Banks | January 11, 2018 12pm PT

The divisional round of the playoffs usually give us some surprises, like when the top-seeded Cowboys fell to the No. 4 Packers a year ago, and to a lesser degree when the No. 2 Chiefs couldn’t handle the visiting No. 3 Steelers last January.
This year’s eight-team field produces legitimate hopes for three of the road teams, and the fourth, Tennessee, at least has the Cinderella factor going for it as it ventures into Foxboro against the defending Super Bowl champion Patriots. The Falcons are favored in Philadelphia, the Jaguars have already won this season in Pittsburgh, and the Saints are seen as a Super Bowl-caliber club as they prepare to meet Minnesota in what everyone considers the glamor game of the weekend.
It’s the best weekend of the season on the NFL calendar, and it’s about to unfold in four cold-weather, football-mad cities.

* Last week’s picks: 2-2 (.500); Season: 59-25 (.702).

Saturday

NFC

No. 6 Atlanta (11-6) at No. 1 Philadelphia (13-3) — The Falcons are certainly the trendy pick coming off their manhandling of the Rams in Los Angeles last Saturday night, with the Eagles having to stomach being the first top seed ever tabbed as an underdog in the divisional round. At this point, Philadelphia getting off to that 11-2 start with Carson Wentz at quarterback feels like ancient history, and the entire football world is expecting Nick Foles to go down in flames in his second career playoff start. Maybe it happens just that way, and the Eagles once-glorious season ends with a whimper against an Atlanta team that has at last found its stride. But I don’t think so. I think Foles will rebound and play a very serviceable game, with the Eagles dominant defensive front having its way against the Falcons offensive line. It’ll be low-scoring and a bit ugly, but for a week at least, Philly’s Super Bowl dreams will live on as the NFC Championship game returns to the City of Brotherly Love. Winner: Philadelphia.

AFC

No. 5 Tennessee (10-7) at No. 1 New England (13-3) — The Titans aren’t given much of a chance to stay with a Patriots team that has won 11 of its past 12 games and now has fresh motivation to prove its dynasty is not done yet (see last week’s ESPN story). New England quarterback Tom Brady is a mind-boggling 17-3 in home playoff games, and the Patriots in the Belichick era are 10-1 in the divisional round when coming off a first-round bye. Maybe if Marcus Mariota makes two or three plays with his legs in key situations, and Titans running back Derrick Henry has another monster game like the one he had in Kansas City, Tennessee can make a game of it and be within striking distance in the fourth quarter. The Titans gained confidence with their huge comeback from an 18-point halftime deficit against the Chiefs, but pulling off another such miracle in Gillette Stadium increases the degree of difficulty considerably. I could see Tennessee covering the 13-point spread. I can’t see the Titans making enough big plays to deny the Patriots their seventh consecutive trip to the AFC title game. Winner: New England.

Sunday

AFC

No. 3 Jacksonville (11-6) at No. 2 Pittsburgh (13-3) — The Steelers know better than anyone how the Jaguars’ superb and aggressive defense can take over a game and ruin your day. That Week 5 shellacking Pittsburgh absorbed at the hands of Jacksonville in Heinz Field was the low point of the Steelers season and even had Ben Roethlisberger questioning whether he still had it. Five interceptions with two of those returned for touchdowns can make for a crisis in confidence, even for the best of them. But the Steelers have lost just once since that meltdown against the Jaguars, and that was at home by one point to the Patriots thanks to that controversial Jesse James no-catch replay review. The Jaguars will frustrate the Steelers multi-faceted offense at times, but they won’t be able to shut Pittsburgh down enough to offset the passing-game limitations of Jacksonville quarterback Blake Bortles. These Steelers are too good to lose a second time at home to Jacksonville, and their rematch with New England in next week’s AFC Championship feels fated to occur. Winner — Pittsburgh.

NFC

No. 4 New Orleans (12-5) at No. 2 Minnesota (13-3) — The Saints’ resurgence this season was built on their productive and reliable running game and a defense that suddenly turned stingy. So what happens against Carolina in last week’s first round of the playoffs? New Orleans wins in a shootout, giving up 413 yards to the Panthers offense and getting next to nothing out of its own ground game (41 yards rushing on 22 carries). The Saints defense came through when the game was on the line against Carolina, but the task is much tougher for New Orleans on both sides of the ball. The Vikings have the No. 1 ranked overall defense and have been particularly good on third down, giving up the first down just 25 percent of the time. Minnesota has limited 12 of its 16 opponents to less than 20 points, and doesn’t give up many big plays. If Vikings quarterback Case Keenum can deal with the pressure of his first career playoff start, taking care of the ball as he has all season, Minnesota should be one big step closer to becoming the first team to play a Super Bowl on its own field. Winner: Minnesota.

ABOUT HCR