On Sunday, I ranked all 32 general managers across the league. Today, I’m doing the same with head coaches. Typically the face of a franchise’s management, head coaches have wide-ranging job responsibilities and are pulled in a million different directions.

Yet we typically only judge them for their performances on the sideline for three hours every Sunday. That’s the most visible part of a head coach’s job, but so much more is on their plate. They hire their staffs, are in charge of player development, scout opponents and the rest of the league, and are critical parts of a team’s draft and free agency scouting departments.

As a result, it can sometimes be difficult to pin down how much a coach is responsible for in any given organization, and it can vary dramatically from team to team and coach to coach. Some have a large say in a team’s roster building or have more organizational power than the general manager, while others are under strict hierarchies and are limited in their control.

Nevertheless, this is an attempt to rank the head coaches across the league from best to worst. As usual, first- and second-year head coaches rank near the bottom of this list (with a few exceptions). This is not meant to be indicative of what I think of those hires or where I expect them to rank in the future — just an acknowledgement that on a limited sample size, it’s tough to give them a complete grade.

Let’s dive right in:

1: Andy Reid, Kansas City Chiefs

HC since: 2013

It’s easy to forget that Reid spent 14 years coaching in Philadelphia before coming over to Kansas City. He could never quite get over the hump with the Eagles, but he made the playoffs in nine of those seasons and had his team atop the NFC East for much of that time.

He’s hit another level with the Chiefs, though. Prior to this past season, Reid’s Chiefs made the playoffs in 10 straight seasons, won the AFC West in nine straight and hosted the AFC Championship Game in seven consecutive years. Reid won three Super Bowls and played in two more in that span, and there’s no reason to think he’ll be done anytime soon.

2: Sean McVay, Los Angeles Rams

HC since: 2017

McVay and Kyle Shanahan (more on him in a moment) have been at the forefront of offensive innovation in this league for the last decade. The youngest head coach in the NFL until quite recently, McVay continues to push the bounds of what he can do and find new ways to gain advantages.

With a Super Bowl title to his name, another Super Bowl appearance and plenty of other playoff berths, McVay has the consistent postseason success to validate his other accomplishments. And now he enters the 2026 season as the favorite to win it all once again.

3: Kyle Shanahan, San Francisco 49ers

HC since: 2017

There’s a case to be made for Shanahan above McVay on this list. Really, the only thing separating them is McVay’s Super Bowl title. Shanahan lost both of his Super Bowls. But it’s impressive what he consistently does on the field despite San Francisco’s insane bad injury luck, turnover at quarterback and a constantly rotating cast of coordinators (due to Shanahan’s assistants getting head coaching gigs elsewhere).

While Shanahan shares some blame for the state of the 49ers’ roster, that doesn’t take away from the miracles he works on the field. Just last season, he overcame injuries to a slew of their best players and still won a playoff game in the toughest division in football. He’ll have his work cut out for him once again battling the Rams and Seahawks.

4: Sean Payton, Denver Broncos

HC since: 2023

For 15 years, Payton coached Drew Brees in New Orleans (one Bountygate scandal aside). He won a Super Bowl and had the Saints primed for another one in the late 2010s, coming up just short in the chase for his second.

Now with the Broncos, Payton is once again a fixture in the NFL postseason. He was robbed of the chance to play for his second Super Bowl title when his starting QB, Bo Nix, broke his ankle in overtime in the divisional round, sidelining him from the AFC Championship Game. Denver’s fortunes flipped as soon as Payton entered the building. He’s proven he’s still at the top of his game.

5: Mike Macdonald, Seattle Seahawks

HC since: 2024

Only seven active coaches have won a Super Bowl. Macdonald can count himself among their number now. The Seahawks faced some backlash for forcing the legendary Pete Carroll into retirement, but the franchise was ready for a change. It only took two seasons for Macdonald to transform Seattle.

Macdonald inherited a pretty strong roster already, but it didn’t take long for his defensive identity to permeate his unit. The Seahawks last season proved themselves to be as tough, relentless and confident as their head coach.

6: Mike Vrabel, New England Patriots

HC since: 2024

I don’t think we appreciate what Vrabel did in Tennessee enough. He led the listless Titans to an AFC Championship Game appearance, several division titles and even secured the AFC’s No. 1 seed in 2021. Though his time there didn’t end well, it only took him two seasons to lead the Patriots back to the top of the AFC East.

Coming off a loss in the Super Bowl, the Patriots had some clear roster deficiencies that needed to be addressed. But they should once again sit near the top of the AFC and Vrabel has his squad on a clear upward trajectory.

7: Matt LaFleur, Green Bay Packers

HC since: 2019

In seven years at the helm, LaFleur has six playoff appearances. He won the NFC North three times and averages just under 11 wins per season. In his first few seasons, he had future Hall of Famer Aaron Rodgers as his quarterback, making two appearances in the NFC Championship Game. Since then, though, he’s guided the NFL’s youngest roster to impressive heights.  

The only thing missing from LaFleur’s resume is consistent playoff success. He only has three playoff wins — and just one since 2020. The Packers, while dominant during the regular season, simply haven’t been a factor in the playoffs. The NFC North has been extremely competitive in recent seasons, but that is still the elephant in the room when discussing LaFleur.

8: Kevin O’Connell, Minnesota Vikings

HC since: 2022

In O’Connell’s first season back in 2022, he led the Vikings to an NFC North title with 13 wins. That won him a Coach of the Year award and put the rest of the league on notice, but it’s been an up-and-down tenure for O’Connell since then. He has yet to win a playoff game.

The Vikings haven’t been able to figure out the quarterback position since they parted ways with Kirk Cousins. J.J. McCarthy looks like a bust and Minnesota foolishly let Sam Darnold walk in free agency, only to watch him immediately win a Super Bowl in Seattle. Still, starting a combination of McCarthy, Carson Wentz and UDFA rookie Max Brosmer, O’Connell won nine games in 2025. If Kyler Murray can give him a stable baseline of play, watch out.

9: DeMeco Ryans, Houston Texans

HC since: 2023

It’s like something out of a heartwarming sports movie. Ryans was a star at linebacker for the Texans during his playing career before becoming one of the best defensive coordinators in the league under Shanahan in San Francisco. So when the Texans needed a new head coach, it was a match made in heaven.

Even dealing with some offensive line issues, injuries on offense and an inconsistent quarterback, Ryans has the Texans as the most consistent threat in the AFC South. He’s made the playoffs in each of his three seasons, winning the division twice, and has three playoff wins under his belt already. Houston is on the verge of a postseason breakthrough — is this Ryans’ year?

10: Dan Campbell, Detroit Lions

HC since: 2021

Mr. “bite off their kneecaps” himself, Campbell is one of the league’s most infectious personalities. The Lions took a risk hiring the Saints’ tight ends coach, bypassing the coordinator market altogether, but Campbell has proven their faith right and then some.

Campbell inherited one of the worst teams in the league and within just a few years turned them into one of the most feared teams in the NFC. He has two division titles to his name, including a year earning the No. 1 seed in the NFC, though he has just two playoff wins and missed the postseason altogether last year. Proving he can still coach at the top of the sport after losing OC Ben Johnson is his next challenge.

11: John Harbaugh, New York Giants

HC since: 2026

It feels weird to write about Harbaugh and not be talking about the Ravens. Baltimore parted ways with Harbaugh this offseason after the Ravens inexplicably missed the playoffs in a weak AFC North, following years of strong regular season success but few playoff victories to show for it.

Harbaugh does have a Super Bowl title to his name, back in the Joe Flacco days. Now he’ll look to revitalize a Giants team with an improving roster. New York needs Harbaugh’s veteran leadership and steadying presence to take the next step as a team.

12: Jim Harbaugh, Los Angeles Chargers

HC since: 2024

The other Harbaugh has a pretty good resume himself. The former 49ers coach played in a Super Bowl with Colin Kaepernick under center before stepping away from the NFL to coach his alma mater, Michigan, to a national title.

That national title was well-timed, as it happened at a time when Harbaugh was under scrutiny for some cheating scandals and felt the time was right to jump back to the league. In two seasons with the Chargers, he’s won 22 games and made the playoffs both years as a wild card team. With a healthier offensive line, this could be Harbaugh’s breakthrough year.

13: Shane Steichen, Indianapolis Colts

HC since: 2023

At first glance, ranking a coach with a .500 record and no playoff appearances this highly might seem odd. But Steichen is on the verge of a major breakthrough. The Colts were a play away from the division title in 2023 and started the 2025 season 7-1 before losing their starting quarterback and three best defensive players to season-ending injuries.

Steichen is definitely on the hot seat entering this season, but all the coaches from this point on have some pretty big question marks. Indianapolis had to pull Philip Rivers away from his high school coaching career to fill in at quarterback down the stretch last season. Steichen is widely considered one of the league’s best playcallers — he’s running out of time to put it all together with the Colts.

14: Nick Sirianni, Philadelphia Eagles

HC since: 2021

Sirianni is easily the toughest coach to rank. On the surface, his resume would put him in the top 5, probably as high as No. 2. In five seasons, Sirianni has averaged nearly 12 wins per year, made the playoffs each year, won a Super Bowl and played in another, and notched three division titles. His worst season involved winning nine games and earning a wild card berth.

The problem is, Sirianni’s tenure has been weird, to say the least. Despite fielding one of the best rosters in the league, the Eagles have been rife with dysfunction and locker room turmoil. Philadelphia’s offense falls apart whenever Steichen or Kellen Moore (two current head coaches) aren’t leading it. Sirianni is firmly on the hot seat entering the season and the question remains: are the Eagles this good because of Sirianni (at least in part), or is he just along for the ride? The answer, like most things, is probably somewhere in the middle.

15: Ben Johnson, Chicago Bears

HC since: 2025

Considered the top head coaching candidate for years as the offensive coordinator in Detroit, Johnson turned down so many jobs people began openly speculating if he would ever make the jump. Turns out, he was just waiting for the right opportunity, and he found it in Chicago.

In one year, Johnson led the Bears to a division title in the extremely competitive NFC North, beat the Packers in the playoffs and took the Rams to overtime. It’s just one season, so I’m being a bit cautious with this ranking. But another season like that, and Johnson will rank much higher next year.

16: Dan Quinn, Washington Commanders

HC since: 2024

The former head coach in Atlanta, Quinn didn’t have an exceptional tenure with the Falcons but he did make a Super Bowl appearance. He spent some time after that as a defensive coordinator in Dallas before making the jump back to the top with the Commanders in 2024.

In his first season, Quinn took one of the league’s most listless teams and dragged them to the playoffs, winning a pair of playoff games on the road and making the NFC Championship Game. Last season was a disaster, due in part to injuries to some key players. There’s already a little smoke to the idea that Quinn has some stuff to prove this year. Another bad year wouldn’t be a good look, but I’m confident he can bounce back.

17: Liam Coen, Jacksonville Jaguars

HC since: 2025

For a few years there, Coen bounced between offensive coordinator positions with the Rams and Kentucky in the college ranks. After a strong year in the same role with the Bucs, Coen got a look as the head coach in Jacksonville. His awkward introductory press conference was the only real low point of his first season.

Winning 13 games, the division and hosting a playoff game is an impressive debut season for anybody. Coen’s offense translated well to the Jaguars’ personnel, and his hire of Anthony Campanile as defensive coordinator was a home run. Much like Johnson, Coen could easily rank much higher on this list next year.

18: Kevin Stefanski, Atlanta Falcons

HC since: 2026

The two-time Coach of the Year winner in Cleveland, Stefanski took one of the most underwhelming rosters in the league to the playoffs in 2023. Before that, he won the Browns’ first playoff game in decades with Baker Mayfield at the helm.

The Browns fired him this offseason after a couple of dismal seasons in a row, but it’s hard to argue that Stefanski was the problem in Cleveland. They had a terrible roster, bogged down by the awful Deshaun Watson contract, and little in the way of promising offensive talent. The Falcons are getting a proven, offensively-minded head coach.

19: Mike McCarthy, Pittsburgh Steelers

HC since: 2026

The retread hire of all retread hires, Steelers ownership pivoted to McCarthy when longtime HC Mike Tomlin chose to resign this offseason. McCarthy is far from an infusion of youth or new ideas, but he’s a proven winner at multiple stops who won double-digit games most of his tenure in Dallas.

It’s been well over a decade since McCarthy won his Super Bowl in Green Bay. And he hasn’t had much postseason success since, either with the Packers or Cowboys. Still, he has a steady floor as a coach and is plenty familiar with QB Aaron Rodgers.

20: Brian Schottenheimer, Dallas Cowboys

HC since: 2025

Schottenheimer was a surprising hire last cycle, despite the fact that we knew Cowboys owner Jerry Jones had zeroed in on promoting Dallas’ offensive coordinator pretty early on in the process. My expectations for Schottenheimer were pretty low, but he impressed me in his first season.

Dallas missed the playoffs with the league’s worst defense for reasons largely out of Schottenheimer’s control. But he had their offense rolling once again and kept his team competitive and invested late in the year when they didn’t have much to play for. With a retooled defense, the Cowboys should be real playoff contenders again.

21: Dave Canales, Carolina Panthers

HC since: 2024

Part of me wants to rank Canales higher than this. His overall record in his two seasons isn’t great, but he’s on the path to rehabilitating Bryce Young’s career and had the defense playing above its talent level last year. The Panthers largely punched above their weight class, winning the NFC South in a three-way tiebreaker, made the playoffs and pulled off upsets during the season of the likes of the Packers and Rams.

Still, it would be an exaggeration to say Carolina was good last year. If they don’t take a step forward, Canales will be on the hot seat at minimum. There’s a world in which a down third season dooms his job.

22: Kellen Moore, New Orleans Saints

HC since: 2025

Coming off winning a Super Bowl as the offensive coordinator in Philadelphia, Moore has the Saints on the upswing. He stayed patient with his plan to bring rookie second-round QB Tyler Shough along slowly, and that paid off. Shough finished second in Offensive Rookie of the Year voting and now enters a promising second season.

New Orleans is a popular pick to win the NFC South this year and return to the playoffs. If they do, that’ll reflect well on Moore, and he had this group playing well down the stretch of last season.

23: Robert Saleh, Tennessee Titans

HC since: 2026

It took just one year back with Shanahan in San Francisco for Saleh to get his second head coaching opportunity. His time with the Jets didn’t go well, but he was stuck with poor quarterback options and a crumbling roster.

Undeniably, Saleh is a defensive savant. Issues cropped up in New York, however, and he wasn’t up to that challenging task. Few coaches have escaped the Jets to find opportunities elsewhere, so we’ll soon learn if Saleh was a victim in New York or if he was part of the problem.

24: Jesse Minter, Baltimore Ravens

HC since: 2026

My favorite new hire of the cycle is Minter without a doubt. He followed Harbaugh to the Chargers from Michigan and also worked with Macdonald in the past. The Chargers had one of the league’s best defenses without many star players, with advanced metrics loving this unit and categorizing it as one of the best-coached groups in the NFL.

It’s easy to see the parallels between Minter and Macdonald. He needs to go out there and prove it, of course, but the Ravens may have gotten one in Minter.

25: Klint Kubiak, Las Vegas Raiders

HC since: 2026

The other splashy hire of this offseason was Kubiak. Much like the Saints with Moore the year prior, the Raiders had to wait for Kubiak to complete his Super Bowl run with the Seahawks. But his resume as an offensive coordinator is pretty impressive — he took a middling Seahawks offense talent-wise and turned it into one of the most explosive offenses in the league.

Kubiak is now tasked with shepherding the development of Las Vegas’ No. 1 overall pick, Fernando Mendoza. But he’ll also need to build and lead the team as a whole, not just manage the offense.

26: Jeff Hafley, Miami Dolphins

HC since: 2026

Just three years ago, Hafley was the head coach at Boston College. Looking to get back into the NFL coaching ranks, he stepped down from that position and joined LaFleur in Green Bay as defensive coordinator. It didn’t take long for him to earn an NFL head coaching gig.

Hafley has certainly talked the talk since coming to Miami and knows how to work a microphone. He has previous head coaching experience at the college level and has worked with some of the league’s best coaches. I like his chances to stick in Miami.

27: Joe Brady, Buffalo Bills

HC since: 2026

The Bills took the interesting approach of resetting to try and spark something in a languishing team without really changing anything. They fired longtime HC Sean McDermott, but kept GM Brandon Beane and promoted Brady from offensive coordinator.

Brady’s been on this path since he led the star-studded 2019 LSU offense, the best offense in college football history. That unit was led by Joe Burrow, Ja’Marr Chase and Justin Jefferson — maybe you’ve heard of them. But Brady’s proven himself a capable offensive playcaller at the NFL level in Buffalo. We’ll see if that translates to the head coaching role.

28: Zac Taylor, Cincinnati Bengals

HC since: 2019

A former assistant under McVay in Los Angeles, Taylor was hired in 2019 to oversee a major rebuild. The early returns were great: the Bengals earned the No. 1 overall pick in 2020 and selected Burrow, followed by Chase at No. 5 the following year. In 2021, the new-look Bengals ran through the AFC playoffs and were so close to winning a Super Bowl. That next year, they fell in a close loss to the Chiefs in the AFC Championship Game.

Since then, however, Taylor’s limitations have been exposed. Despite employing two of the best players in the entire sport, Cincinnati hasn’t made the playoffs since that loss to the Chiefs, and each year it gets harder and harder to believe they’ll bounce back. This is a big year for Taylor: Burrow enters the offseason healthy, they added some real pieces on defense, and the offensive line is expected to take a step. If they falter again, he’ll be out of excuses.

29: Todd Bowles, Tampa Bay Buccaneers

HC since: 2022

To be honest, I’m surprised Bowles still has his job. The Bucs fumbled the incredibly winnable NFC South despite a hot start to the season, losing seven of their last nine games, some in embarrassing fashion.

And it’s not like Bowles was a widely respected head coach before last season. Bruce Arians won a Super Bowl as the Bucs’ head coach then made sure Bowles would be his successor, but Bowles failed with the Jets in New York and hasn’t dominated his division with the clear-cut best team the way he should. Under Bowles, Tampa Bay made the playoffs three times and won one game.

30: Aaron Glenn, New York Jets

HC since: 2025

Glenn played for the Jets for the first eight years of his NFL career. After transitioning to coaching and spending four seasons as the defensive coordinator in Detroit, he was hired last offseason to return to New York and hopefully — finally — make them competitive this millennium.

Much like Jets GM Darren Mougey, whom he was hired alongside, Glenn enters the 2026 season in a weird spot. The Jets were awful last year, though they also showed signs of some coaching concerns (they gave up four fourth-quarter leads in their first six games). New York has a significantly better roster this year, but it’s still not good, and if the Jets struggle again this year, ownership may want a clean slate with the new quarterback they’ll presumably draft.

31: Mike LaFleur, Arizona Cardinals

HC since: 2026

The younger brother of Packers HC Matt LaFleur, Mike now gets a team to call his own as well. Most recently, he was the offensive coordinator for the Rams under McVay, and he also worked with Saleh in New York and Shanahan in San Francisco.

LaFleur’s offenses in New York were never good and he was the first domino to fall when that staff started to see the writing on the wall. We’ll see if he can revitalize the Cardinals, but they’re looking up at three expected playoff teams in the NFC West.

32: Todd Monken, Cleveland Browns

HC since: 2026

A veteran of both the college and NFL coaching ranks, Monken gets his first head coaching gig since Southern Miss over a decade ago. It’s also a return to Cleveland for Monken, where he was the offensive coordinator in 2019.

From 2020 through 2025, Monken led Georgia’s offense to new heights, helping bring two national titles to Athens, before joining the Ravens and working with Lamar Jackson. He’s earned this opportunity and performed well as an assistant at each stop.