GroganCountry

Phil Jackson is the most overrated coach of all-time...and I live in L.A. It's not that he isn't a great coach, he is. It's just that basketball coaches do less to determine the outcome of the game compared to football. I'd say the same thing about Red too. He was actually a better GM than he was a coach for that reason. The team with the best "talent" wins more often than not in basketball, that's not the case in football. A football coach can "coach" a team up a hell of a lot more than a basketball coach can.

eagle eye

I said last three, not the first three. Jordan, Pippen, Kukoc, Longley, Rodman, Harper, Kerr et al. That team was unstoppable.

And that Lakers team with Kobe and Shaq was unstoppable too. Either of them teams could have won it with decent coach in charge.

I like Phil Jackson and I respect him for what he has done in his career, the first three with the Bulls was an impressive achievement and he can take a huge amount of credit for his latest win too.

dhamz

The whole "he only won so much because he had great players" argument ignores 2 facts:

1 - Not a single coach on that list achieved his success without having great players. It simply is impossible for a coach to achieve that level of success without great players - always has been, always will be.

2 - The list of coaches who never won a thing despite having great teams is incredibly long.

WelshPat

Don't have a clue about NBA or MLB, but Lombardi and Gibbs are too high BB and Bill Walsh are too low.

Gotta love the double standard, people rip Parcells for the job he did in Dallas, but noone cares that Gibbs did a really average job with the redskins his last time there.

Lombardi has the mystique but if your gonna say Phill Jackson is overrated look at those Packer teams he coached, most of the players he had are HOF'ers.

WelshPat

"1 - Not a single coach on that list achieved his success without having great players. It simply is impossible for a coach to achieve that level of success without great players - always has been, always will be."

Of course but some had more great players than others

dhamz

But are all those guys Hall of Famers if they didn't play for Lombardi's Packers? There are definitely some who don't make it if they didn't win all those championships which they wouldn't have done if they played somewhere else.

The same thing goes for Red's Celtics teams. Everyone points to the number of hall of famers as evidence that he coached overwhelming talent but does anyone think KC Jones 7.4 career points per game gets him in the hall if he played somewhere else?

FFDan

If you ask me, he took great 50 coaches from the 4 major pro sports, and a couple college coaches, ranked his top five or ten, and threw the rest up there arbitrarily. Frankly, I doubt I will cite this article for any major research I will be conducting anytime soon.

PatsFanSince74

That's a good list. I'll stay out of the discussion of coaches from other sports, but will say that it's hard to argue with John Wooden at the top of the list.

As for the NFL coaches, the list should note that BB isn't "finished" yet.

That said, there can be no argument with Brown, Halas, Landry, Lombardi, and Noll being ahead of him today (with the emphasis on "today'). Brown, Halas and Lombardi at their times transformed the game. Noll won four SB's in six seasons. There's nothing to say. Landry "only" won two SB's, but he was a giant of the game for decades, won 250 games and took his teams to five SB's.

Some have argued about Shula's place on the list. I don't like Don Shula and I like the Colts and Dolphins even less, but he did take two different NFL teams to seven SB/NFLCG games. He "only" won three, but two of his losses in those games were to the Landry/Staubach Cowboys and the Walsh/Montana 49'ers; that's pretty good company. He also posted a career regular season record in 490 games of 328-158-6 (.678). Landry comes in a distant second in the win department with 250. The only HOF coaches to post better W-L percentages were Lombardi at .706 over a total of 136 regular season games, George Allen at .690 over 168 games and John Madden at .763 over only 142 games. It's pretty hard to argue with the rings, the longevity and the Championship games. He belongs where he is.

I have a serious issue with Joe Gibbs being placed above Coach, though. His regular season W-L record of 154-94 (.621) is awesome and his three rings with three different QB's rightly put him in Canton. But, IMO, he tarnished his coin with his failed "comeback" and, while it was an official season, one of his Lombardi's was won in a strike shortened year. I don't see how he's placed above BB.

Coach's stats over 224 regular season games now stand at 138-86 (.616), three rings and four SB's (he's now won more games than Lombardi coached and nearly as many games as John Madden coached). With another ring, he belongs ahead of Landry and Noll because he accomplished what he did in the Cap/Free Agency era. I think he would slot nicely right behind Paul Brown and Papa Bear on the list as it stands today.The only force standing between him and a unanimous first round election to Canton are the Spygate haters, whatever else he does.

__________________
It is what it is. It wasn't what it wasn't.

jmt57

From the first paragraph of the article: "as selected by a panel of 118 Hall of Famers, championship coaches and other experts."

There's a few rankings I disagree with (e.g., Paul Brown and Bill Walsh should be higher in my opinion), but this isn't some hack writer throwing together a list without any thought. Here's the list of voters, you can blame them: Who helped SN pick the 50 greatest coaches? - Sporting News staff reports - General - Sporting News