What Would Make an Eagles Superbowl Winning Coach?

Only 30 men have been able to coach a team to a Super Bowl victory. But before they were household names and legends cast in bronze, guys like Vince Lombardi and Tom Landry were just coaching candidates, fighting their way through the ranks just like the names we have been hearing since Chip Kelly was fired last week.

But are there similarities between the men who have coached the past 49 NFL champions? Is there a way to cheat the system in order to pick the perfect candidate who has the experience necessary for your franchise to make a run at a Lombardi Trophy?

Well, yes and no.

For instance, Hank Stram was an assistant coach for SMU before getting hired by the franchise that would become the Kansas City Chiefs. He’s the only coach to make that jump and become a champion. And John Madden is the only Super Bowl winning coach to jump from coaching linebackers to the head coach position.

But there are some similarities and tendencies that fans can use to roughly gain an understanding of where Super Bowl coaches come from.

Offensive State Of Mind

Jeff Lurie has an infatuation with offensive coaches, and by looking at the current candidates for the Eagles job, it looks like that trend is still continuing. Duce Staley, Adam Gase, Pat Shurmur and Ben McAdoo all come from an offensive background and have reportedly met with the team or are planning to in the coming days.

That’s good, because 16 of the 30 Super Bowl winning coaches came from an offensive background. Twelve had defensive expertise and the two outliers were Stram, who never hired coordinators on either side of the ball, and John Harbaugh, who spent 18 years as a special teams/secondary coach before being hired by the Baltimore Ravens.

Also, seven coaches were offensive coordinators before being hired, more than any other position. That’s good news for Gase, Shurmur and McAdoo.

No Experience? No Problem

One thing that seems to scare off a lot of teams is the lacking of any NFL head coaching experience on their resume. Analysts often point to Bill Belichick’s time in Cleveland as a prime example of a coach who needed to fail before becoming a champion. The only thing is, Belichick is in the minority.

Twenty-one coaches had no head coaching experience before being hired by the team that they would led to the promised land and most of the coaches who had that experience were not fired from their previous job. Guys such as Jon Gruden, Dick Vermeil and Don Shula left via trade, retirement or to pursue another job, respectively.

However, coaching experience in the NFL is important for a candidate that wants to win. Only three coaches had no experience prior to being hired as a head coach: Stram, Jimmy Johnson and Barry Switzer. Of the other 27 coaches, 23 had at least five years of NFL coaching under their belt at various assistant positions. In fact, the average Super Bowl winning coach has 8.53 years of coaching experience in the NFL upon his hiring.

Of the Eagles current candidates, Staley has coached with the Eagles for six seasons, Gase has 11 years of experience, Shurmur has 17, with two of those years coming as head coach of the Cleveland Browns, and McAdoo has 12 years of experience. All good, but bad news for Staley: No coach has immediately gone from offensive position coach to Super Bowl winning coach.

Buy New, Not Used

Based on the Eagles current search, this may not need to be said, but I have space to fill and there are still some irrational people out there who think hiring a guy who has already won a Super Bowl is a good idea. Hint: It’s not.

12 coaches have been hired by another team after being dismissed from their Super Bowl winning squad, half never made the postseason. Only two made the Super Bowl and neither won the big game. Not only have coaches had limited success in the postseason, but their futility has run rampant in the regular season too.

Super Bowl winning coaches have compiled a .439 winning percentage at their next jobs, with only two lasting five years at one job and posting an above-.500 winning percentage. Bill Parcells is the only coach to be re-hired more than once, getting shots with the Patriots, Jets and Cowboys, but he never lasted more than four years with those teams.

So please stop wishing for Gruden or Bill Cowher to come save the Eagles, because the numbers say they won’t.

(Fun fact: The first two coaches to get rehired, Lombardi and Don McCafferty, coached one season with their new team, then died in the off-season. So go ahead and impress your friends with your new-found, terribly grim knowledge. You’re welcome.)

Who Fits?

So how do the candidates stack up against the prototypical coach who comes from an offensive background, has over eight years of NFL coaching experience, has never been an NFL head coach and like 24 of the 30 coaches is under the age of 50 upon their hiring?

Staley is out due to his lacking of service and no coordinator experience, as is Shurmur for failing with the Browns, although folks in New England may say to not read into that too much. So that leaves Gase and McAdoo.

Both are under 39, which would make them younger than any offensive coach who has won the Super Bowl. But Gase has three more years of experience as an offensive coordinator, while McAdoo has been an NFL coach for one more season.

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Hell, both will be branches on the Sid Gillman coaching tree, a diagram that represents 25 Lombardi trophies and is the who’s who of coaching.

So it is a wash. Both guys check the same boxes, but seem to be a bit young to be taking over an NFL team. But I’ll give the edge to Gase for one reason: he’s 37 years old. The only Super Bowl winning coach who was hired at the age of 37? Chuck Noll. Obviously age doesn’t guarantee four Lombardi trophies, but after 50 years of waiting, I’m sure fans are looking for any sort of signs of a savior.