Who are your top 3 worst head coaches in the last 30 years? (1 Viewer)

[JohnnyU]

My hatred of Steve Mariucci runs strong and deep.

Especially if you're a Kevin Jones owner

 

[redman]

I think we need a Crappy Head Coach Draft. Six teams seems about right.

 

[Born to Run]

Joe Bugel (Raiders and Cardinals) deserves mention

 

[Da Guru]

Morningweg took a 9-7 Gary Moeller coached Lion team that missed the playoffs because of a last second FG by Edinger, the next 2 seasons the Lions were 5-27. Nuff said!

Biggest mistake Millen made was not to retain Moeller. Gary was a hard nose coach and the players loved him.

 

[Vikes Fan]

Bill Peterson had a 1-18 record with Houston back in '72-'73. Ironically Peterson, although just missing the 30 year cutoff here, also worked with names such as Parcells, Gibbs, Henning and Bowden.

Rick Venturi has a 2-17 record with the Colts and Saints...he was really bad.

Jim Ringo has a 3-20 record with O.J.'s Bills back in '76-'77.

Buddy Ryan's punching bag, Kevin Gilbride, has a 6-16 record with the Chargers from '97-'98.

Bill Arnsparger, the well known Defensive coach of the Miami Dolphins, was just 7-28 with the Giants as a Head Coach before being fired after going 0-7 back in '76.

I cannot believe the rumors that some NFL teams are interested in Butch Davis. Davis was another poor NFL coach. Cannot believe some team would go down that road again...

I think it is all Belichick's fault. He failed with the Browns, and found success with the Pats...maybe Butch could do the same thing.(The phrase "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me." comes to mind.)

Edited because I am a terrible speller.

 

[turkishkamel]

Steve Spurrior

Art Shell

Denny Green

Very funny, multiple playoff appearances for Shell & Green and probable career winning records. Much worse than the others mentioned above

You're right. I'd keep Spurrier on there, but Shell and Green are b/c of this year. See what happens when you try to comment on times before you were born...

Green made the NFC Championships twice in the late 90sShell made the playoffs multiple times in the late 80s & early 90s?

How old are you?

Spurrier wasn't a good NFL coach, but there have been much worse listed over the course of the last 30 years

I'll second the Denny vote. You're forgetting THE KNEE. This is from ESPN (emphasis mine):"The Vikings and Falcons are tied at 27 in the NFC Championship Game on Jan. 17, 1999. Vikings ball, 30 seconds on the clock, third-and-three on their own 30 yard line. Minnesota still has two timeouts remaining, Falcons have none. Vikings have the most explosive offense in NFL history. But Green decides to play it safe, and runs out the clock. He's got Randall Cunningham at QB, Randy Moss at wideout, and a pretty good chance to get the NFL's best placekicker a shot at a game-winner. But instead, Green orders Cunningham to take a knee, hoping the Vikes will get the coin flip in OT. They do win the flip, but Atlanta scores first and wins, 30-27.

I remember screaming at the tv when Cunninham took a knee.One of the more boneheaded moves in playoff history. Doesn't put Green on the all-time worst coach though. The fact that he was in an nfl championship game more or less eliminates him by itself.

does getting that team to the NFC championship game take a lot of skill. that was the best collection of offensive talent i've seen in my 22 years of watching football. i think not getting to/winning a superbowl with that team is mind blowing. the only time Denny had to coach that team was in the second half of the NFC championship, and look what he did. The Falcons shift coverage to Moss, Denny orders up some MartyBall, Cunningham is thrown completely off rythem, offensive disappears Falcons win 30-27. Thats the kinds thing that puts Denny Green on a list.

 

[Frenchy Fuqua]

No mention of Chris Palmer yet? He was 5-27 with the Browns in 99-00. Granted it was an expansion team but he was part of the management team that drafted Tim Couch #1 overall in 1999 and Courtney Brown #1 overall in 2000. The Browns have never recovered from that.

 

[MSULions]

Wayne Fontes

66-67 in 8 and 5/16 seasons hardly qualifies him as one of the three worst in the last 30 years. He did go 12-4 and 10-6 in two of those years. Was he completely mediocre? of course...awful? no way.Marty Morninwheg on the other hand... :X

 

[Bri]

Bill Arnsparger, the well known Defensive coach of the Miami Dolphins, was just 7-28 with the Giants as a Head Coach before being fired after going 0-7 back in '76.

He's a pretty well respected football mind BTW.Parcells, Marty, BB(not certain), Fox+Henning, Coughlin, a good amount of current coaches have seeked his opinion in the past. He's had jobs with odd titles much of the last 10-15 years, meaning not traditional position coach types.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Arnsparger

Marty

http://www.nfl.com/teams/story/SD/5013112

 

[Ministry of Pain]

Wanny took a playoff contender in Chicago and set them back 5-10 years. He took a playoff team in Miami and ran them in the ground, set them back 5-10 years. He has to be up at the top of the list. Followed in Ditka and Jimmy Johnson's shoes...he really stunk.

this is an excellent observation. Wanny won enough games that he could do some real damage by depleting the talent pool for years to come. If he had gone 2-14 for several consecutive years, he wouldn't have had the opprutunity to trade away high draft picks for questionable players year after year. He actually sucked more by sucking less.

Yes yes yes. The fact he could go 7-9, 8-8, people thought he was over the hurdle...meanwhile he was draining the swamp. This is a guy that traded a 2nd round pick for AJ Feeley...I think he traded a 2nd rounder for Arlen Harris from St Louis IIRC...There are coaches that had worse records...but when you stack up the longterm damage that Wanny did in Chiacgo and Miami...you have got to really search for that kind of suckage. Wanny really was the devil.

 

[stevegamer]

I'd go with:

Marty Morninwheg

Dave Wannstadt

And then one of the college coaches who can't coach in the pros:

Dennis Erickson - sucked with 2 teams.

Steve Spurrier - sucked with one team.

 

[Bri]

**** McPherson was one of the more popular coaches I can recall having a losing record

 

[Sonny Lubick Blowup Doll]

Has Pete Carrol been mentioned? He should.

 

[Bri]

I'm surprised no Schottenheimer mentions here. Oh I know he has a long running winning record and all but when he loses in the playoffs, and he always loses in the playoffs, the fans of his team go berzerk. Everyone's stayed even keel, which is good. I just expected one fan that felt he was like the ultimate football tease to bark about it.

 

[flranger]

Spurrier was 12-20 with the skins. Gibbs hasn't done much since coming back either. While he was bad, he is far from the worst.

My candidates:

Chris Palmer 5-27 99-00 Cleveland

David Shula 19-52 92-96 Cincinatti

Billy Peterson 1-18 70's Houston

This would help you remember some of the worst:

http://www.pro-football-reference.com/coaches/index.htm

 

[Ted Lange as your Bartender]

Marty Morningwheg - he took the wind in OT.

 

[Delusions Of Adequacy]

I'm surprised no Schottenheimer mentions here. Oh I know he has a long running winning record and all but when he loses in the playoffs, and he always loses in the playoffs, the fans of his team go berzerk. Everyone's stayed even keel, which is good. I just expected one fan that felt he was like the ultimate football tease to bark about it.

The very worst coaches don't lose playoff games.

 

[Gr00vus]

just to work off a few Charger coaches

Dan Henning never had a winning season in 7 years as a head coach, best year was 7-8, he was lousy

Kevin Gilbride - clueless as a head coach, even worse than June Jones

Mike Riley was an awful NFL head coach

moving on...

Jim Hannifan sucked pretty hard

Joe Bugel struck me as a pretty bad head coach (good offensive line coach though)

Pete Carrol was clueless as an NFL head coach

Norv Turner has a pretty bad won loss record as a head coach 58-82-1 (compare to Wannstedt at 82-86), and never seemed like he was really belonged as a head coach (great offensive coordinator though)

but

Morhinweg was truly rancid - my candidate for worst ever

Also Halas' record is amazing: 318-148-32 - are you kidding me?

 

[Josh the FunkDOC]

Chris Palmer is an interesting case...he gets extra bonus points for not even being a competent OC, but on the other hand he actually had the right idea in the 2000 draft.

Specifically, he wanted Tomlinson, but the rest of the organization overrode him and felt they needed defense. Thus, Courtney Brown. =/

As a Browns homer, however, I think Butch Davis was easily worse than Palmer, and actually a legitimate candidate for top 3 on this list. Consistently overvalued his own talent, for one - he hyped up some of our O-linemen like they were Pro Bowlers, and truly thought Jeff Garcia would get us to the playoffs a couple years ago. He was also guilty of the same college homerism as Spurrier, bringing in duds from The U (James Jackson and Andre King, anyone?). Then there was his belief that he could "coach up" anybody, leading us to draft a bunch of shaky character guys who never worked out.

Most notably, he had total control of every Browns draft during those years. I already mentioned the character issues, but he gave us a few other winners to boot:

1. In 2001, his scouting department targeted Richard Seymour, and he agreed with them. Then, on draft day, he took Gerard Warren literally out of nowhere, going against the entire rest of the organization. Another example of the Miami connection here, by the way.

2. The next year, in the first round, he had a shot at Clinton Portis and passed because he coached him at Miami and didn't like his character. So instead, we get William Green, who at the time had already been suspended for a bowl game after getting caught with weed.

3. Best one of all...he remains the only man ever to get completely owned by Matt Millen in a deal. The case in question was in 2004, when ol' Butch traded up one spot in the draft for Kellen Winslow. He was legitimately afraid the Lions wanted him, when in reality Roy Williams was their man all along.

Next up is a front-office struggle: In early 2004 (I believe), we hired Ron Wolf, who was the Packers GM during their Super Bowl days in the late 90s. Butch didn't want to give up any of his power, and somehow had enough people on his side to get Wolf fired after only a few days.

And one final deed: He put the team into "win now" mode in 2004 because, as I mentioned earlier, he signed Jeff Garcia and thought that would make us playoff-bound. He seemed to be the only person unaware that we didn't have enough talent to pull it off, and this decision (combined with his previous draft record) left the organization in such rough shape that we are still rebuilding to this day. Then of course, when things didn't work out, he quit the team late in the season.

Hopefully I have made a strong enough case for Butch's inclusion on the list, and made you all understand why he should never get another chance in the NFL.

-Josh

 

[SeniorVBDStudent]

#3. Steve Spurrier, lips flailing in the wind

#2. Lou Holtz, teaching the fellas a fight song

#1. Pete Carroll, "hey guys, let's go out for ice cream!"

That college to pros transition is a #####.