The NFL coaches with most wins. This is not meant to be an all time record, but rather a list of the most successful coaches in NFL history. Vince Lombardi tops the list with a whopping five Super Bowl appearances, most of them as an interim coach for a team. Since retirement, Lombardi has coached the Green Bay Packers, Carolina Panthers, Arizona Cardinals, and Dallas Cowboys. He currently has one Super Bowl title to show for his time with the Packers.
Among the other greats of the game: Tom Cruise is tied for second with 101 career wins. Tom Landry also ranks third with his overall number of victories. While these two men share some of the same assistants, they are not the same tandem when it comes to the number of wins needed for a head coach in the NFL.
Just to complicate things further: John Elway is tied for the most playoff wins at three. With two more to come, John Fox is now tied for most Super Bowl appearances as well. There have been some great NFL coaches, but none who have made as much history and as few Super Bowl appearances as these men. While there are many other coaches on this list of great coaches in the National Football League, these are the ones who achieved much more with their teams than others.
Of course, there are also coaches on this list: that have more wins than losing games in their NFL coaching careers. Roger Dove and Joe Philbin are two such examples. While there are many NFL coaches on this list that should be considered for any coaching career, some of them simply did not live up to expectations. Many fans will argue that the fact that Roger Dove has never won a Super Bowl, while Joe Philbin was a coach with two Super Bowl titles proves that he is not the best NFL coach ever. However, there is no argument that these two coaches have earned enough coaching wins to make them the top NFL coaches of all time.
Some will point out: that coaches such as John Elway and Joe Montana have already retired with Hall of Fame careers, which makes their achievements easier to judge. That may be true, but what about the new coach, whom many are wondering can he bring his team this year into another championship. Will he have the same kind of success with the same group that he had last year? Some experts say that even if he is as good or better than the old coach, he still has to get the same kind of support from his staff that he did in San Francisco. In other words, he must surround himself with the right group of players. He won’t be able to put the same personnel on the field that he did in San Francisco unless he has a great supporting cast.
It’s also interesting to consider who might be ahead of Knox on this list: Although it would be unfair to put John Elway ahead of Knoll, who knows, they both have accomplished much more than Knoll. I’m sure some day in the near future we will look back at this list and determine who the best of the best NFL coaches were and who deserved each spot. Right now I would say that whoever is ahead of Knoll belongs in the discussion.