Super Bowl XLVI: What's At Stake For Tom Coughlin

Few coaches with Tom Coughlin's resume have been kept out of Canton.

Seven weeks ago, Tom Coughlin was a Tony Romo wide open pass away from possibly losing his job after a third straight season collapse.  Yet on Sunday, he has the chance to win his second championship in five years.  Such is the thin line between success and failure in today's NFL.  The questions is, if Coughlin wins Super Bowl XLVI, will he be a Hall of Famer? Let's look at his case:

Coughlin's 142 regular season wins, .555 win percentage (minimum 200 games coached), and nine playoff berths puts him at 19th, 22nd, and 15th all-time, respectively. Nearly all the coaches ahead of him on those lists are in the Hall of Fame.  Some, like Bill Belichick and Bill Cowher, are not eligible for induction yet. Bill Parcells, in his second year of candidacy, is expected to make the cut this Saturday. Marty Schottenheimer, Dan Reeves, and Chuck Knox are the only coaches ahead of Coughlin that aren't in Canton.

 

However, coaching legacies are made and broken in the playoffs.  If Coughlin wins this Sunday, then his 19 postseason games and 12 victories would rank him in the top 10 of head coaches in NFL history. Reeves is the only coach of these 10 to have been denied the Hall of Fame.

A victory Sunday would also make Coughlin the 13th head coach to win two Lombardi Trophies.  Still, that's no guarantee for immortality.  Tom Flores, Jimmy Johnson, and George Seifert all won two championships and are still waiting for their call from the Hall.

Perhaps, even with two Super Bowls, Coughlin is the line of demarcation between the Hall of Fame and the Hall of Very Good. Many of the coaches behind him on these lists seem destined to fall short of the cut for Canton.  Jim Mora, Dick Vermeil, and Dennis Green were once perennial playoff contenders, but now they're known more for Coors Light ads than Gatorade baths.

Let's put all of these coaches together and see how Tom Coughlin stacks up:

	Yr-Yr	G	W ▾	L	W-L%	Yr Plyf	G Plyf	W Plyf	L Plyf	W SBwl	G SBwl
Marty Schottenheimer	1977-2006	327	200	126	.613	13	18	5	13	0	0
Dan Reeves	1977-2003	357	190	165	.535	9	20	11	9	0	4
Chuck Knox	1973-1994	334	186	147	.559	11	18	7	11	0	0
Tom Coughlin*	1995-2011	256	142	114	.555	9	19	12	7	2	2
Jim Mora	1982-2003	231	125	106	.541	6	6	0	6	0	0
Dick Vermeil	1976-2005	229	120	109	.524	6	11	6	5	1	2
George Seifert	1983-2001	176	114	62	.648	7	15	10	5	2	2
Dennis Green	1992-2006	207	113	94	.546	8	12	4	8	0	0
Tom Flores	1979-1994	184	97	87	.527	5	11	8	3	2	2
Jimmy Johnson	1989-1999	144	80	64	.556	6	13	9	4	2	2

Provided by Pro-Football-Reference.com: View Original Table

*Projected numbers with a Giants win Sunday.

One quick glance at the right side of the chart shows why Schottenheimer, Knox, Mora, and Green are rarely in the Hall of Fame discussion.  For all their regular season success, these four coaches have flopped miserably in the playoffs. With a losing record in the postseason, none of them ever reached the Super Bowl.  

Reeves is an interesting case, with a third more career wins and two more Super Bowl appearances than Coughlin.  But Reeves coached for a decade longer, and Coughlin's two championships would vastly outweigh Reeves' four losing Super Bowl efforts. Vermeil did win a Super Bowl, but the fact that he's a mere 11 games over .500 in his career hinders his candidacy.

At the other end of the spectrum are Flores, Seifert, and Johnson, who have not made the Hall of Fame cut despite two Super Bowl trophies and a solid winning percentage.  There is a sentiment among the selectors that these three coaches benefited from a talented team whose success they could not replicate in their second coaching stint.  

When Flores took over the Raiders, Oakland had had 14 straight winning seasons. He led them to two championships in five years, but was let go after not winning a playoff game in the next four. He returned to coach the Seahawks five years later, but had a 14-34 record in three losing seasons.

Seifert succeeded the great Bill Walsh and had an embarrassment of riches on his 49ers roster that included future Hall of Famers Joe Montana, Steve Young, Jerry Rice, and Ronnie Lott. He retired after eight straight winning seasons and a 10-5 playoff record. Two years later, he returned to coach the Carolina Panthers, but only mustered a 16-32 record with much less talent than he had in San Francisco.

Johnson was the architect of the 1990's Cowboys dynasty, wisely drafting Troy Aikman, Emmitt Smith and Michael Irvin in his first two years in Dallas. He won two Super Bowls in five seasons and probably would have had a third if he didn't unceremoniously part ways with owner Jerry Jones's ego. Then he joined the Dolphins for Dan Marino's twilight years and made the playoffs in three out of four seasons, but never advanced farther than the divisional round.

Coughlin, on the other hand, was given little in his two coaching starts. In 1995, he  joined the expansion Jacksonville Jaguars and led them to the AFC Championship in their second season. Three years later, he made it there again. In 2004, he took over a reeling Giants team with a rookie quarterback. After a 6-10 first year, he hasn't had a losing season since. 

Whether it be missing championships or failed  attempts to replicate their success with a second team, each of the coaches above has some black mark that has kept them out of Canton. Coughlin has no such handicap. He compares favorably to other Hall of Fame coaches with fewer wins than him, like Hank Stram, George Allen, and Sid Gillman. In his Monday Morning Quarterback column, Peter King notes that Coughlin's career numbers are nearly identical to Marv Levy, who is also enshrined in Canton despite never winning a Super Bowl.

Coughlin already has a solid case for Canton. He has the regular season wins to rank him among the best coaches of all time. He's lifted two franchises from uncertainty to playoff success. Throw in his 2008 championship, and you could argue that he already belongs in the Hall of Fame. With a second Super Bowl win on Sunday, it'll be hard to argue that he doesn't.

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In my next post, I'll analyze if a fourth Lombardi Trophy will make Bill Belichick the greatest coach in NFL history. Keep checking the blog all week as we near kickoff of Super Bowl XLVI.

 

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