Super Bowl Losing Head Coaches - almost as dismal

[walt]

Since we may be considering one guy (Fisher) who lost a Super Bowl but never won one, let's see how coaches who got their team to the Super Bowl but lost did in their next assignment with a different team. Regular season record. I exclude coaches who both won and lost a Super Bowl with the same team and then moved on (Stram and Holmgren) or who had already won a Super Bowl when they lost one (Parcells), because this is meant to cover only those coaches who had lost but not won a Super Bowl when they moved to a new team.

Don Shula 257-133-2
Dick Vermeil (Rams) 22-25
Dan Reeves (Giants) 31-33
Forrest Gregg 25-37
Sam Wyche 23-41
Bobby Ross 27-30
John Fox 8-5

The overall record is good only because of Shula, who was a young coach with a stellar record with the Colts prior to the Dolphins picking him up. Excluding Shula, the overall record is 136-171 (45% winning percentage - almost the same as for the Super Bowl winners).

 

[J. David Wannyheimer]

The overall record is good only because of Shula, who was a young coach with a stellar record with the Colts prior to the Dolphins picking him up. Excluding Shula, the overall record is 136-171 (45% winning percentage - almost the same as for the Super Bowl winners).

Dick Vermeil was the best thing that ever happened to the Rams. He rebuilt that team, turned it into a juggernaut, and won the Super Bowl. That 22-25 record is very misleading, IMO.

Vermeil is interesting because he makes the case that a Super Bowl losing coach can become a winner with another team, and also that a guy who has been a game analyst (not a studio guy, but an actual game analyst) for a TV network can come back and still be a great coach.