Head coaches with no previous experience

[AFJF]

Been a fan for about 35 years.  Trying to recall how many times I've seen a first-time head coach take over a bad team and win a ring.  Off the top of my head I can think of Doug Pederson and Mike McCarthy.  I guess Billick did it too but what an aberration..."offensive guru" whose team couldn't find the end zone but had arguably the best defense of all time.  Oh, Harbaugh and Payton too.  So four or five times in 35 years?

Who am I missing?

Edited January 13, 2021 by AFJF

[morny]

Cowher and Tomlin as well. 

Out of the last 15 years, think 6 have been first-time HCs.

Also, likes of McVay, Shanahan, Riviera, Quinn, Caldwell and (other) Harbaugh have all made it to the Superbowl as a first-time HC, and there'll likely be at least another one this year (only Arians and Reid who could stop them). 

 

[AFJF]

9 minutes ago, morny said:

Cowher and Tomlin as well. 

Out of the last 15 years, think 6 have been first-time HCs.

Also, likes of McVay, Shanahan, Riviera, Quinn, Caldwell and (other) Harbaugh have all made it to the Superbowl as a first-time HC, and there'll likely be at least another one this year (only Arians and Reid who could stop them). 

 

Ehhhh..I think Cowher took 100 years to win one so I left him off.  Tomlin took over a SB winner so not exactly a bad team.

[morny]

8 minutes ago, AFJF said:

Ehhhh..I think Cowher took 100 years to win one so I left him off.  Tomlin took over a SB winner so not exactly a bad team.

By that rationale, you shouldn't hold it against any first-time head coaches taking over really bad teams then? 

If the line you're trying to push is that first-time head coaches don't have success, then if add enough conditions to it (can't have coached for too long, can't have took over too good of a team) then you'll probably be able to work-it to fit your point. 

At the same time, i can point out that 6 of the last 15 have been won by first-timers. In fact, in that 15 year span, as first-timers have won it (6) than coaches with previous experience (also 6). 

I wouldn't like us to limit ourselves to only coaches with previous experience because, well, the pot ain't full. It'd be Pederson or then onto someone like Anthony Lynn, Vance Joseph, Jason Garrett etc..... 

 

 

[football guy]

Doesn't help that the Patriots played in 9 of the last 20 Super Bowls, winning 6 of them.

[AFJF]

8 minutes ago, morny said:

By that rationale, you shouldn't hold it against any first-time head coaches taking over really bad teams then? 

If the line you're trying to push is that first-time head coaches don't have success, then if add enough conditions to it (can't have coached for too long, can't have took over too good of a team) then you'll probably be able to work-it to fit your point. 

At the same time, i can point out that 6 of the last 15 have been won by first-timers. In fact, in that 15 year span, as first-timers have won it (6) than coaches with previous experience (also 6). 

I wouldn't like us to limit ourselves to only coaches with previous experience because, well, the pot ain't full. It'd be Pederson or then onto someone like Anthony Lynn, Vance Joseph, Jason Garrett etc..... 

 

 

Maybe I should asked how many win within their first decade or two on the job?

[Jetster]

1 hour ago, AFJF said:

Been a fan for about 35 years.  Trying to recall how many times I've seen a first-time head coach take over a bad team and win a ring.  Off the top of my head I can think of Doug Pederson and Mike McCarthy.  I guess Billick did it too but what an aberration..."offensive guru" whose team couldn't find the end zone but had arguably the best defense of all time.  Oh, Harbaugh and Payton too.  So four or five times in 35 years?

Who am I missing?

Sorry, the Patriots with Brady & BB have skewed all history regarding the Bowl. 

[AFJF]

36 minutes ago, Jetster said:

Sorry, the Patriots with Brady & BB have skewed all history regarding the Bowl. 

Looking at 35 years history.  What about the 29 years that they didn't win it?

Edited January 13, 2021 by AFJF

[ZachEY]

I too think we should hire an experienced “CEO-type” coach from the offensive side of the ball with a history of “program building” and a relatively unblemished track record.

What’s his name again?

[Jetster]

14 minutes ago, AFJF said:

Looking at 35 years history.  What about the 29 years that they didn't win it?

Oh, you mean B4 free agency? 
Steelers, Cowboys, Packers, 49ers, Raiders, Redskins 

[morny]

49 minutes ago, AFJF said:

Maybe I should asked how many win within their first decade or two on the job?

If we hire Salah, and he wins a Superbowl but it takes him 13 years to win a Superbowl.......I'll accept that yeah. 

[varjet]

In the past the Jets have hired coordinators as HCs with the criteria that they be good coordinators without even considering if they could run and lead a team.  

Everyone has to start somewhere.  Herm Edwards actually became somewhat of a CEO leader.  I don’t think he was a coordinator.   We used to like to joke about him, but he made the playoffs a bunch.  

[AFJF]

25 minutes ago, Jetster said:

Oh, you mean B4 free agency? 
Steelers, Cowboys, Packers, 49ers, Raiders, Redskins 

Which coaches?  Which years?  Which teams sucked when they took over?

[AFJF]

26 minutes ago, morny said:

If we hire Salah, and he wins a Superbowl but it takes him 13 years to win a Superbowl.......I'll accept that yeah. 

So the Johnsons will suddenly decide to retain a coach who wins nothing for a decade?  Okay.

[AFJF]

28 minutes ago, TeddEY said:

I too think we should hire an experienced “CEO-type” coach from the offensive side of the ball with a history of “program building” and a relatively unblemished track record.

What’s his name again?

His name is Matt Rhule...oh wait....

Maybe Pat Fitzgerald?  Todd Monken?  

I dunno, somebody who has won some football games as a head coach instead of a guy with 4 years as a DC, two of which were among the worst in the NFL?

[morny]

2 minutes ago, AFJF said:

His name is Matt Rhule...oh wait....

Maybe Pat Fitzgerald?  Todd Monken?  

I dunno, somebody who has won some football games as a head coach instead of a guy with 4 years as a DC, two of which were among the worst in the NFL?

Fair enough, each to their own, I understand wanting to bring in somebody who's got experience of being a HC, although they also have risks - your examples have the same NFL HC experience as Saleh, and in the case of Fitzgerald he has no NFL coaching experience as far as I know. 

Point being, no candidate is going to be perfect - any experience, good NFL HC is unlikely to shake free (Pederson is as close as it gets).

Maybe Saleh is rubbish, but based on everything he seems like a sound, logical hire regardless of whether he's a first-time HC or not.

It's nice to be excited about a hire and looking forward to moving forward as opposed to the last appointment of (experience, NFL Playoff HC) Gase, so personally I'm going to enjoy it. 

[jgb]

Every HC was once a first-time HC

[Jetster]

14 minutes ago, AFJF said:

Which coaches?  Which years?  Which teams sucked when they took over?

Did Pederson win a Super Bowl B4 he became a head coach? Asking for a friend. 

[choon328]

2 hours ago, AFJF said:

Ehhhh..I think Cowher took 100 years to win one so I left him off.  Tomlin took over a SB winner so not exactly a bad team.

So should anybody even respond if you're just going to keep changing the criteria????

[Barkus]

1 hour ago, AFJF said:

Maybe I should asked how many win within their first decade or two on the job?

Only one team wins a super bowl each year, that really limits the criteria. A better criteria may be how many times did first-time coach get to 10wins within 1-2yrs or so.

[AFJF]

6 minutes ago, choon328 said:

So should anybody even respond if you're just going to keep changing the criteria????

Already commented on that.  I should have been more specific and asked which coaches did it in under a a decade or two.

[FidelioJet]

The "HOT" DC...

Back to mediocre football.  I guess it's better than picking in the top 5 every year...

But it seems like the Jets goal is to be in the wild-card hunt in perpetuity..

[AFJF]

6 minutes ago, Barkus said:

Only one team wins a super bowl each year, that really limits the criteria. A better criteria may be how many times did first-time coach get to 10wins within 1-2yrs or so.

Depends on what you're hoping for.  I've seen 10-win seasons and they're fun.  At this point I'd like a SB though.

[AFJF]

11 minutes ago, jgb said:

Every HC was once a first-time HC

Correct.  How many of them turned bad teams around in their first gig and won a ring?  Oh, and within their first 15 years.

[Scott Dierking]

First, let's start with the premise that there have been only 33 super bowl winning coaches. 

Then, when you start listing first time coaches (I guess the list is excluding those that coached in college), That shortens the list even more.

Then, when you want to say they started with "bad teams", that shortens the list further.

This site has a case of "this player looks like" and "this has never happened, so it can't happen". And those ideals are based upon people and teams. and circumstance. None of which are exactly alike and they forget that every person and team situation are different. 

Stop putting people and teams in boxes and making analytic statements. It is silly. 

 

[Barkus]

7 minutes ago, AFJF said:

Correct.  How many of them turned bad teams around in their first gig and won a ring?  Oh, and within their first 15 years.

Just to be devil’s advocate I don’t believe a HC has ever won 2 Super Bowls with different teams. Holmgren and parcells went to SB with different teams but did not win them (Seahawks and pats)

[choon328]

3 hours ago, AFJF said:

Been a fan for about 35 years.  Trying to recall how many times I've seen a first-time head coach take over a bad team and win a ring.  Off the top of my head I can think of Doug Pederson and Mike McCarthy.  I guess Billick did it too but what an aberration..."offensive guru" whose team couldn't find the end zone but had arguably the best defense of all time.  Oh, Harbaugh and Payton too.  So four or five times in 35 years?

Who am I missing?

I don't know why any Jets fan is concerned about winning a SB. How about we win more than 2 games? Let's start with that. 

In the last 25 years 18 HC's won the SB. 9 of the 18 were first time HC's.

Anyway, here's a list of 1st time HC's who won SB's with their original team:

Vince Lombardi

Hank Stram

Tom Landry 

Chuck Knoll 

John Madden

Tom Flores

Bill Walsh

Joe Gibbs

Mike Ditka

Bill Parcells

George Seifert 

Jimmy Johnson 

Barry Switzer

Mike Holmgren

Brian Billick

Bill Cowher

Mike Tomlin

Sean Payton

Mike McCarthy

John Harbaugh

Doug Pederson

 

 

21 of the 33 HC's to win SB's did it as a 1st time HC.  The majority of every HC on this list was an NFL assistant before becoming a HC. A few of them came right from college. 

[HighPitch]

Better to gather data on how many got winning records or playoff spots. With the pats winning every other sb, the assumption is bogus

[Sonny Werblin]

1 hour ago, choon328 said:

I don't know why any Jets fan is concerned about winning a SB. How about we win more than 2 games? Let's start with that. 

In the last 25 years 18 HC's won the SB. 9 of the 18 were first time HC's.

Anyway, here's a list of 1st time HC's who won SB's with their original team:

Vince Lombardi

Hank Stram

Tom Landry 

Chuck Knoll 

John Madden

Tom Flores

Bill Walsh

Joe Gibbs

Mike Ditka

Bill Parcells

George Seifert 

Jimmy Johnson 

Barry Switzer

Mike Holmgren

Brian Billick

Bill Cowher

Mike Tomlin

Sean Payton

Mike McCarthy

John Harbaugh

Doug Pederson

21 of the 33 HC's to win SB's did it as a 1st time HC.  The majority of every HC on this list was an NFL assistant before becoming a HC. A few of them came right from college. 

Thank you, for saving me the time. You can’t do a multi varied analysis with general conclusions. You need data points.

So, the data shows that second time HCs are LESS likely to win a SB.

[Barry McCockinner]

2 hours ago, AFJF said:

Ehhhh..I think Cowher took 100 years to win one so I left him off.  Tomlin took over a SB winner so not exactly a bad team.

Nice cherry picking there. 

[Sonny Werblin]

3 hours ago, AFJF said:

Been a fan for about 35 years.  Trying to recall how many times I've seen a first-time head coach take over a bad team and win a ring.  Off the top of my head I can think of Doug Pederson and Mike McCarthy.  I guess Billick did it too but what an aberration..."offensive guru" whose team couldn't find the end zone but had arguably the best defense of all time.  Oh, Harbaugh and Payton too.  So four or five times in 35 years?

Who am I missing?

Flip the script. Please identify the experienced coaches who took over “losing” teams and won a SB with them. And please define a losing team.

[sec101row23]

A more interesting stat regarding Super Bowl winning coaches is that they almost always win the Super Bowl with in 5 years of joining that team.  If you go back till 1980, I think Bill Cowher is the only HC to take longer than 5 years to win a championship, and he did it in his 6th season.  If you’re going to have success, it generally doesn’t take a long time to have it.  
 

Edit:  Add Andy Reid to the longer than 5 year coaches.  For some reason I thought he took over in 2015.  

[Scott Dierking]

The original post reminds of the guy deciding to sit down at the street side cafe, having a couple of drinks. A couple of drinks, in , his eyes begin to wander and he starts gazing at some of the people as they walk by:

"Look at that blonde there with the short miniskirt. I knew a girl that had that same miniskirt. She was a slut. That girl is a slut".

"Look at that guy with that limp in his gait. I knew a friend that walked like that and he had muscular dystrophy. That guy has muscular dystrophy". 

"Look at that guy walking out of the bank. That rich mothereffer has money to burn and he is not sharing it with anyone". 

Personally, I have no idea who the Jets may hire, nor what his background will be. I do know that he will be different than any other coach the jets have hired. That is easy to say, because they are ALL different. I do hope the slutty blonde takes a look at us, because we are pretty dog ugly right now. My hope is that this new coach can get us to a level of respectability at this point. That is what happens to teams before they are Super Bowl contender worthy. That would be a great start. And, if that coach can not get us over the hump, then we move on. 

You have to start somewhere. 

 

[ZachEY]

52 minutes ago, AFJF said:

His name is Matt Rhule...oh wait....

Maybe Pat Fitzgerald?  Todd Monken?  

I dunno, somebody who has won some football games as a head coach instead of a guy with 4 years as a DC, two of which were among the worst in the NFL?

Ok, so you want a college coach?

Apply your same parameters... In the last 35 years, how many Super Bowls were won by college HCs taking over a bad team?

Monken would also be a 1st time HC taking over a bad team, no?  So, unclear why he’d be included on your list.  As for Matt Rhule, his NFL record is 5-11.

[rangerous]

1 hour ago, Jetster said:

Oh, you mean B4 free agency? 
Steelers, Cowboys, Packers, 49ers, Raiders, Redskins 

Yep and noll, Landry, madden, Flores, and Gibbs were also first time head coaches that won super bowls. Walsh was a college head coach. I don’t think it’s that uncommon.  It’s just uncommon for the jets.  At the same time the jets have had some good first timers like Michaels, and even herm and Rex to a degree.  And who knows if Bowles would’ve done better has Mac not been such a bad gm.