Philadelphia Eagles: Best and Worst Coaches in Franchise History

Did former Philadelphia Eagles head coaches Buddy Ryan and Rich Kotite make the list? Here's a breakdown.

Buddy Ryan and Rich Kotite are names bound together forever in Philadelphia Eagles history.

Look no further than the vast wasteland that can be social media, where the question of “best coach” and “worst coach” is often posed on fan message boards.

Kneejerk responses so strong that they will leave torn ACLs are that Ryan is the franchise’s “best” coach and Kotite was the “worst.”

In reality, when placed under the microscope, neither was either.

Ryan was nowhere near the best, not even top five. Kotite was nowhere near the worst, not even bottom five.

So who are the top five coaches and the top five worst coaches?

Here's more:

Ryan's teams were perceived to play with swagger and struck fear in the hearts of opponents, but there was a degree of shrinkage when it mattered most.

Fans recall regular-season games like “The Bounty Bowl," the “Body Bag Game” and the “House of Pain” game, but not so much three playoff losses (including two at home) where he was outcoached by Washington’s Joe Gibbs and Los Angeles’ John Robinson.

Kotite, well, he came across as dopey. Fans still bitter over him replacing the more popular Ryan saw him as a real-life Fred Flintstone on the sidelines.

The reality, as shown in their records, is that Ryan wasn’t all that bright and Kotite wasn’t all that much of an ignoramus.

Ryan was 43-35-1, and 0-3 in the playoffs. However, he inherited a losing team when he took over and left one in place when Kotite was elevated from offensive coordinator to replace him.

Kotite was head coach from 1991 to 1994. He had a 36-28 record (56.3 winning percentage, as compared to 55.1 for Ryan). He was also 1-1 in the playoffs.

The retort from the Ryan people is that while Kotite won a playoff game, he “did it with Buddy’s players.”

In reality, certain key players – Randall Cunningham, Reggie White, Wes Hopkins, Andre Waters, etc. – were inherited by Ryan when he proclaimed, “You got a winner in town” when introduced to the Philly media.

When you consider that the franchise has existed since 1933, the bottom line is that no coach who made the playoffs - no matter how horrific it was when it ended – can make a “worst” list. That means no Kotite, Ray Rhodes (29-34-1), or Chip Kelly (26-21).

Buddy Ryan / USA Today

BOTTOM FIVE: Lud Wray – We will cut this franchise co-founder a bit of a break because Wray was the first coach and 1933 had to be a difficult challenge. However, in his three years, the needle failed to move with records of 3-5-1 in 1933, 4-7 in 1934, and 2-9 in 1935.

4) Bert Bell – He might be the Benjamin Franklin of the franchise and the Thomas Jefferson of the NFL, but he was not George Washington on the gridiron. Times had to be tough during the Great Depression, which is why he likely donned multiple hats and took on the coaching challenge. He was literally charged with keeping players paid and fed, but somebody in the league had to be winning games from 1936 to 1940 and it wasn’t Bell’s Eagles.

During his run, the team was 10-43-2 (20.0 winning percentage), placing them at 19-74-3 since Bell and Wray founded the team in the indirect ashes of the Frankford Yellowjackets.

3) Nick Skorich – The Eagles won it all in 1960, but the story is that Norm Van Brocklin was promised the coaching job upon quarterbacking the Birds to the title, but he was bypassed in favor of promoting Skorich.

The 1961 Eagles - with Sonny Jurgensen posting a season like that of another No. 9, Nick Foles in 2013 - fell just shy of a return trip to the league title game. Even with that 10-4 record (and a subsequent loss in the inconsequential Playoff Bowl for the second-place finishers in each division), his record was 15-24-1 through his mercy firing after the 1963 season. That means he was 5-20-1 after 1961.

2) Marion Campbell – This is a tough one on many levels. The beloved “Swamp Fox” was a two-time All-Pro defensive lineman for the Birds in 1959 and 1960, making him a key man in the trenches when they won it all at Franklin Field. He was also an innovator here as a defensive coordinator (1977-82), and his 3-4 defense helped win an NFC title.

However, and in spite of inheriting a lot of standout players (Mike Quick, the aforementioned Wes Hopkins, Jerry Robinson, Roynell Young, etc.), his teams found ways to repeatedly snatch defeat from the jaws of victory and were a frustrating 17-29-1 (37.2percent) in his three seasons.

It isn’t really talked about enough when discussing Ryan’s peculiar and almost immediate popularity (despite not having a winning season until his third year), but Campbell’s “boring” years explain a lot.

1) Ed Khayat – Another former starting defensive lineman on the 1960 championship team, he had plenty of street cred walking in the door, but seeing was disbelieving in his one season of 1972. The Eagles were 2-11-1 (17.9 winning percentage) and that doesn’t even tell the whole tale. 

A few days after Thanksgiving, on Nov. 26 of that year, the Eagles endured a 62-10 drubbing at the hands of the New York Giants. For context, that Giants team was a pedestrian 8-6. Rubbing salt in the wound was that former 1960s Eagles’ quarterback Norm Snead was under center for the Giants.

TOP FIVE: (Note - Nick Sirianni is not included, as his story is still being written as an active coach):

5) Andy Reid – Sometimes ranked No. 1 (as an alternate to Ryan), but the Reid era really goes down as one of winning battles only to lose the wars. His teams reached an unprecedented five NFC title games, including three at home, but were 1-4. The years after the loss in the Super Bowl following the 2004 season were largely uneven.

The Eagles only reached one more title game and the playoffs four times in his last eight years, and not all in his last two seasons (12-20). The era of general good vibes – as the Eagles moved from the Vet to the Linc – is remembered by Reid saying, "The time is yours” at press conferences. 

However, a lot of time was also lost with poor clock management that he finally seemed to get right winning two Super Bowls, including one against the Eagles, in Kansas City.

4) Dick Vermeil – Like Reid, Vermeil got to one Super Bowl with the Eagles, where they were destroyed by the Raiders, 27-10. However, the mere fact they were there with what was really a ragtag group of overachieving players was nothing short of a miracle. 

Vermeil took over for McCormack in 1976 with no high draft picks and no first-rounder until 1979. They made the playoffs in 1978, won the franchise’s first playoff game since 1960 in 1979, and beat the dreaded Dallas Cowboys for the NFC title the next year.

After a disheartening loss at home in the wildcard round in 1981, Vermeil’s Eagles struggled to a 3-6 record in a strike-shortened 1982 season. He then stepped away, citing burnout.

Vermeil returned to coaching with the Rams, winning a Super Bowl, and then with the Chiefs. He still resides in the Philadelphia area and remains beloved by those whose memories go back farther than Ryan.

3) Doug Pederson – Fact stranger than fiction? Pederson was the first starting quarterback of the Reid era. In just his second season, after going 7-9 with a rookie quarterback (Carson Wentz) starting all 16 games, Pederson won the franchise’s only Super Bowl over the heavily favored New England Patriots with a backup quarterback (Foles). 

While it would be hard to rank him ahead of Reid or Vermeil, the coveted ring is the thing. He got one; they didn’t.

2) Buck Shaw – The former coach of the 49ers did not inherit much of a team in 1958, and the Eagles went an unceremonious 2-9-1. The following season, with Van Brocklin acquired from the Rams, they improved to 7-5. In 1960, his last of three here (and 12 in the league), the Eagles went 10-2 and won it all, meaning he holds the only distinction of beating Vince Lombardi in a championship game.

1) Greasy Neale – There weren’t 32 teams in the 1940s and the road to a championship game before the Super Bowl era was not as difficult. Still, three straight appearances – and back-to-back titles in 1948 and 1949 – is impressive. 

Neale took over in 1941 and coached during the difficult World War II years of attrition that saw the Eagles combined with the Pittsburgh Steelers (the Steagles) in 1943. He still managed a 63-43-5 (59.0 percentage) record and helped turn a franchise that had been a laughingstock into a winner.

Honorable Mention: The only occasional variation from Kotite as the “worst coach” in unscientific online polls is for Chip Kelly. It would seem that the faithful are conflating his coaching acumen with being a general manager, which proved to be his Kryptonite. Kelly took over for Reid and, a year after the team went 4-12, the Eagles went 10-6 and made the playoffs (losing in the first round at home to New Orleans).

The following season, they were also 10-6 but a late-season collapse left them out of the playoffs. In his final go-round, while wearing both the coach GM visors, and maybe a propeller on top, Kelly went 6-9 before being alleviated of his responsibilities with a game to go. Still, his career mark of 26-21 put him over .500 (55.3).