Based on Coaching Lineage, DeMeco Ryans is Broncos' Best HC Bet

The coaching tree DeMeco Ryans descends from is a big draw for the Denver Broncos.

Mentors matter. Who you learned from, can determine how good you will be when you step into a similar role. It's no different for head coaches in the NFL. 

The key to success is how well a leader has passed on their information and how “sticky” it remains as the generations get farther away from the source. There are head coaches who were innovators and changed the way football is played, and those skills can be passed on. 

Don Coryell comes to mind. However, being a head coach goes beyond the Xs and Os of game planning. The great coaches have a leadership quality that allows them to bring many people from different walks of life together so their strategy can play out on the field.

Coryell was an innovator, but his success on the field was not incredible. The coaches that followed his coaching tree, those that spent most of their time learning as an assistant from him, were not successful across the board. 

Only Joe Gibbs can be pointed to as one who had success. The others who spent three or more years with him won no playoff games, and none had a record above .500.

The further a coach gets from Coryell, the less success he has, too. Assistant coaches for Gibbs won zero playoff games, and all had a sub-.500 record. The only coach who won a playoff game from his tree is Jim Mora (the son), and it was a single win.

There are other trees that have much better success. Jim Lee Howell has one of the most successful coaching trees of all time. He coached Tom Landry, who coached Dan Reeves, who coached Mike Shanahan, and as we see today, that line is still having tremendous success. Somehow, the leadership of Howell stuck, and it was passed down on many levels.

Currently, there are head coaches from the Howell Tree, the Paul Brown Tree, the Sid Gillman Tree, and the Bill Parcells Tree (linked to the Chuck Fairbanks tree, but Parcells was only an assistant on that tree for two years). 

There are a few coaches that have a mix of more than one tree, including the Bud Grant Tree. Most coaches today have influence from many trees, but if the head coach spent most of their time in the NFL with a particular coaching tree, it can be assumed that it was the most influential.

When I examine the coaches from 2022, success starts to unfold based on their tree. The Gilman Tree has two successful coaches to four unsuccessful coaches. 

Parcells has four successful and four unsuccessful. Brown has seven successful to two unsuccessful. It can be argued that the Howell Tree has five successful coaches and no unsuccessful coaches in the NFL today. That is incredible.

Several generations of coaches from that tree have had success. For example, one only has to look at the Mike Shanahan assistants who became head coaches. 

All who spent three seasons or more with him own a record above .500. Included are 21 playoff wins and two championships. He is a descendant of the Howell Tree, three layers down.

The same cannot be said for Tony Dungy, a recent descendant of the Gillman Tree. Only two coaches who were assistants of his for three or more years have a record above .500. The entire group has only eight playoff wins.

The Holmgren Tree, a descendant of Brown, is better. Four of his assistant coaches who became head coaches have a record above .500, with 30 playoff wins and two championships. Most of that is driven by Andy Reid.

The worst record is Bill Belichick. Only two levels removed from Parcells, the wheels come off. Three previous assistants of Belichick who have become head coaches have a record above .500 and the rest, which is many, were disasters. There are only three playoff wins among them.

What it Means for Broncos

Does the leadership style that has been passed down by certain coaches only work in the right environment, while the other styles fit any situation? Or is that style so effective that it transcends generations? That is a theory I have held for some time, and intend to find out the answers.

But for now, we can look at the anecdotal evidence to find out what it means for the Denver Broncos? There are several candidates who have head-coaching experience and are still in the running for the top job with the Broncos. With that experience, it is easier to see what they have been capable of with prior teams.

However, there are three candidates who have zero NFL head-coaching experience. DeMeco Ryans and Ejiro Evero both come from the Howell Tree. That bodes very well for future success. David Shaw comes from the Paul Brown tree, which is pretty darn good as well.

Ryans has spent six NFL seasons learning from the Howell Coaching Tree. Evero has been in the Howell Tree for five NFL seasons. Shaw has seven NFL seasons in the Brown Tree, but has been away from that coaching tree for almost 20 years.

If the Broncos do decide to go with a first-time head coach, Ryans has the greatest chance for success based on the leadership lineage and how much time he has spent absorbing that information from his mentor. If he is named the head coach, it's a good indication that Broncos fans can expect success.

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