This question of whether Doug Pederson is actually thought of as a reasonably competent head coach only because he won Super Bowl LII has come up so frequently of late that it made me wonder where Pederson actually ranks among the coaches who have won a Super Bowl.

The answer, as you might imagine:

Not that great.

In fairness, 34 of the 54 Super Bowls have been won by coaches who ultimately won it more than once: Bill Belichick (six and possibly counting), Chuck Noll (four), Joe Gibbs and Bill Walsh (three), Vince Lombardi, Don Shula, Tom Landry, Tom Flores, Bill Parcells, Jimmy Johnson, George Seifert, Mike Shanahan, and Tom Coughlin (two each). Eight of these coaches are already in the Hall of Fame and a few more are going to get in soon enough. If Marv Levy is in for losing four straight Super Bowls, then it’s going to be pretty tough to keep, say, Shanahan out. Regardless, there is no point in trying to compare Pederson to any of these guys, so we won’t.

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That leaves the one-hit wonders. And just like in music, some of these one-hit guys are Gotye and some of them are Psy.

We aren’t going to try to pick a winner between Pederson and any of the men who won the three Super Bowls after Lombardi won the first two ever played. I don’t know much about Weeb Ewbank, Hank Stram, and Don McCafferty and neither do you.

The following coaches are demonstrably superior to Pederson for the following (unscientific, often subjective) reasons:

  • John Madden: Madden would have won this comparison with Pederson even if he didn’t become the Godfather of rage-quitting.
  • Mike Ditka: It was just one win for Ditka, sure, but the 1985 Bears defense, 35 years later, is still a thing of legend.
  • Mike Holmgren: This might have been closer but for the fact that Holmgren also lost two Super Bowls. Three total appearances is impressive (as long as you win one)
  • Dick Vermeil: Vermeil is another “yeah, but the one he got really mattered” coach because it was the Greatest Show on Turf. And, yeah, he also lost a Super Bowl (sorry).
  • Bill Cowher: To me personally, Cowher is wildly overrated, but he won 149 games and eight division titles. It’s no contest.
  • Tony Dungy: Coach Dungy won one fewer game than Cowher, but more importantly, Dungy became the first Black head coach to win a Super Bowl.
  • Mike Tomlin: Tomlin has one win and one loss in the big game, has already won 143 games at the age of 48, and is 10-0 in 2020.
  • Sean Payton: Payton is a bit of a compiler, with eight playoff appearances, 139 wins, a .638 winning percentage and four separate 13-3 seasons. He has also done a lot less with a decade and a half of Drew Brees than he could have.
  • John Harbaugh: Lacks a signature moment, maybe (his Super Bowl win came in that weird game where the lights went out in the Superdome), but he has 124 wins in 12+ seasons and went 14-2 last year.
  • Pete Carroll: Would not even be on this list of one-time winners if he had just given Marshawn Lynch the ball. Carroll has won 140 games with a .600 winning percentage to date. At 69 years of age, it is fair to wonder how many more seasons he will coach. But even if he retired tomorrow, it would take some doing by Pederson to catch Carroll.
  • Andy Reid: You didn’t see that coming, did you? We’re saving the best for last here. Big Red finally got his ring last season after many heartbreaks. He has 216 wins in his career, he has a win and a loss in the Super Bowl (sorry again), and he’s 9-1 this season defending the crown.

 

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Taking all of those legends, semi-legends, and men still to be legends out of the discussion, here’s who you’re left with: Barry Switzer, Brian Billick, Jon Gruden, Mike McCarthy, and Gary Kubiak. Pederson is better than all of those guys, because none of them beat Belichick and Tom Brady for a championship with Nick Foles at the controls. But Pederson’s pure numbers as a head coach (41 wins, .561 winning percentage, two division wins and that Super Bowl) don’t overwhelm.

If the Eagles somehow lose the NFC East this year despite leading it through eleven weeks to, say, a 6-10 Dallas Cowboys team led by Andy Dalton, Pederson’s ability to dine out on 41-33 could run out faster than anyone could have imagined.