NFL Head Coaches with Best Winning Percentages

Welcome to the list, Pete Carroll! Probably soon farewell from the list, Mike McCarthy!

No active coaches are particularly close to making it onto the list at this point. Bruce Arians could make it if he coaches 3 more seasons and averages at least 10 wins/season, but that seems like a tall order.

Here's how active head coaches are looking after 2021:

Bill Belichick, Mike Tomlin, and Andy Reid are all safe. They will still be on the list even if their teams go 0-17 next season.

John Harbaugh needs the Ravens to win 9 games to stay on the list. Certainly not impossible, but not a gimme, either.

Mike McCarthy needs the Cowboys to win 9 games to stay on the list.

Pete Carroll needs the Seahawks to go 12-5 next year to get back onto the list. That's a tall order, especially if Russell Wilson leaves.

Bruce Arians' winning percentage is good enough to be on the list now, but he's only been a head coach for 8 seasons. If he coaches two more years and wins at least 18 games, he'll make it. Seems unlikely, given his age (turns 70 later this year) and Brady's retirement.

Sean McVay is off to a great start (.679 winning percentage), but he needs a few more seasons under his belt to be eligible for the list.

No other current coach is worth mentioning . . . yet.

Changed the minimum cutoff to be a number of games rather than a number of seasons. It skews the quiz a little more contemporary because they play more games in a season now, but overall only one coach dropped off (RIP Potsy Clark, the least frequently guessed answer from the old version of the quiz) and one coach jumped on (congrats, Bruce, you don't even have to unretire just to get on this quiz!)

As usual, a look at the active coaches:

Belichick, of course, is safe; he won't fall off even if the Patriots go 0-17 next year. If he maintains his post-Brady winning percentage of exactly .500, he would need to coach for 17 more years to drop off the list. He would be 87.

Reid is safe. In fact, if he has a *very* good year next year, and Belichick has a *very* bad year, he could even pass him in terms of win percentage. Not likely, though.

Tomlin is not completely safe. He needs to win at least one game next year to stay on the list. I like his odds.

McCarthy needs to win 7 games next year to stay on the list. Probably not too hard. On the other hand, he could lose in the first round of the playoffs and get canned by Jerry Jones immediately, in which case he wouldn't even need to worry about it ;)

Harbaugh needs a winning record to stay.

A 13-4 record would get Carroll back on the list juuuuuuuuust barely.

Best active coaches who have coached between 50 and 120 games:

Matt LaFleur: .712 winning percentage, 66 games coached

Sean McDermott: .639 winning percentage, 97 games coached

Sean McVay: .612 winning percentage, 98 games coached

Mike Vrabel: .585 winning percentage, 82 games coached

I think out of these four I like McDermott's odds to make the list the best, but that's assuming Josh Allen can stay healthy.

Update:

Belichick and Reid can't drop off the list next year. Reid continues to creep closer to becoming the active winning percentage leader.

Tomlin just needs to not be awful to stay on. McCarthy, Payton, and Harbaugh just need to not be really bad.

Sean McDermott needs 6 wins to make the list in his first year of eligibility. Similarly, Sean McVay needs 10 wins. One of these seems a lot more likely than the other. Kyle Shanahan technically could as well, though he'd need 16 wins to do it.

Pete Carroll keeps slipping further and further away. He'd need 15 wins to get back on the list next year. Seeming more and more likely that he doesn't get back on.

Matt LaFleur and Nick Sirianni look like they could have a future on this list, though they're both still a few good years away.

Update:

Welcome to the list, Seans! McDermott needs only 3 wins next year to remain on the list, while McVay needs 10. I've doubted McVay in the past and he still made his way on here, so we'll see . . .

I'm not going to bother checking in on Reid (guaranteed not to drop off) or Tomlin (never has losing seasons anyway). Harbaugh also should be pretty safe. Payton's been doing this long enough that even he only needs 6 wins to stick around another year.

Best active coaches who are not currently on the list:

Nick Sirianni: .706, 68 games coached

Jim Harbaugh: .685, 81 games coached

Matt LaFleur: .670, 100 games coached

Kevin O'Connell: .667, 51 games coached

Pete Carroll: .586, 170 games coached

Sirianni, Harbaugh, and LaFleur all seem like locks if they can stick with their current franchises for long enough (LaFleur only needs a little more than 1 more season). O'Connell is way too early to call. Carroll honestly probably only slips further at this point now that he's coaching the Raiders.

Well that was a wild year for the folks on or around this list:

Sean McDermott made the playoffs and would've been the highest ranked active coach on the list, but he got fired.

Belichick had a disastrous first season coaching at UNC, surprising almost no one.

Reid failed to win his division for the first time in a decade and dropped below Belichick.

Tomlin made the playoffs and resigned.

John Harbaugh missed the playoffs and got fired.

My comment about Carroll sliding even farther away from the list turned out to be prescient (again surprising almost no one).

Payton and McVay did pretty well for themselves, though.

And now for next year's Danger Zone:

Reid and Payton should be fine, I'm not going to bother checking on them.

McVay needs 8 wins to stay. If I was a betting man I'd probably bet on it, but stranger things have certainly happened.

Harbaugh needs 6 wins to stay. Doesn't sound like a lot, but then again the Giants have only won 6+ games 3 times in the past 9 years.

McCarthy needs 8 wins to stay. I honestly have no idea on this one.

Up-and-comers (min. 60 games coached):

Nick Sirianni: .694, 85 games coached

Jim Harbaugh: .679, 98 games coached

Matt LaFleur: .654, 117 games coached

Kevin O'Connell: .632, 68 games coached

Mike Vrabel: .586, 117 games coached

Everyone on this list except Vrabel saw their percentage drop this past year. Still sticking with the top three as locks, assuming Sirianni doesn't get randomly fired and Harbaugh doesn't suddenly retire for some reason. Vrabel seems like better bet than O'Connell at this point.