Top 10 Worst NFL Head Coaches from the Bill Belichick Coaching Tree
Bill Belichick is undoubtedly one of the best coaches in NFL history. He won six Super Bowls with Tom Brady. He has had a decorated legacy and will most definitely be in Canton when it's all said and done.However, if there's one flaw in an otherwise outstanding career, it's his coaching tree. Most of these coaches have been terrible. Teams think they can copy and paste New England's homework, but they would be mistaken.
Here are the worst coaches from the Belichick coaching tree. Oh, and by the way, I'm only considering coaches who were head coaches in the NFL at one point. College résumés do not count.
Having spent time with Penn State prior, Bill O'Brien was actually decent for a bit. To be fair, he had three big stars (Watson, Hopkins, Watt) to help his long tenure as well. The Texans were at least always in the playoffs during his coaching tenure. You could say it was an overrated period, seeing he underachieved with Watson's greatness.
Things went really off the rails, however, when O'Brien pulled a Chip Kelly, trading away DeAndre Hopkins to the Cardinals following his choke job loss to the Chiefs. The team struggled to win the first four games, and thanks to a win-or-go home game against the Vikings, O'Brien was finally gone. Although, the lingering dysfunction within the Texans franchise lives on.
Is there a bigger hack than this guy? I'm a Bears fan, and even I have some sympathy for Lions fans. He did beat Bill Belichick in Week 3 of the 2018 season in Detroit's version of the Super Bowl. But outside of that, what's he known for? Being a bum on the sidelines? That's all I can think of.
He drove an already mediocre team into the ground. He didn't utilize Stafford right at all, and for being the Patriots' defensive coordinator, the Lions had a pretty terrible defense. He was rightfully fired in 2020 after back-to-back last-place finishes in the division. He is currently back in New England, where he is an assistant and basically a resource for Belichick.
Romeo Crennel was affiliated with Belichick back in their Giants days. He was with Belichick on the Patriots in two separate stints and the Jets. Romeo Crennel is a five-time Super Bowl champion as an assistant coach.
As a head coach, he hasn't had that same success. He coached in Cleveland, Kansas City, and Houston and has mainly had bad luck. He was 24-40 in five seasons with Cleveland, then 4-15 in about two seasons in Kansas City. Including his latest stint with Houston, he's 32-63 all time as a head coach.
Romeo Crennel knows the game pretty well, but unfortunately, like many others, he is not a head coach type. He'll occasionally have his awesome moments, like snapping the Packers' undefeated streak when he was with the Chiefs. Then he'll take over the next year, and what happens? The team is all of a sudden ill-prepared for 90% of that duration.
Eric Mangini coached the Jets and Browns for very short tenures. He was affiliated with Belichick in the 90s with New York and New England. He also played a big part in the Spygate scandal, and apparently, his relationship with Bill Belichick has kind of dissolved because of it. He was 33-47 in five seasons, and outside of one 10-6 season, he was a mediocre coach overall.
Eric Mangini did manage to have some success in Cleveland, but of course, that didn't last long. Especially in a division owned by Baltimore and Pittsburgh, what did you expect? He also did try with the Jets, but aside from Rex Ryan, that team has proven to be a curse to whoever has gone there.
Josh McDaniels is somebody who is meant to be just an offensive coordinator. Why do I say that? He definitely mishandled things with his players. If you see his tempers towards Tom Brady for many years, and he basically took a note out of Spygate his first season, he went undefeated the first half, only to rightfully lose the last nine games and just miss the playoffs.
If that wasn't insulting enough, he was part of the draft room when they traded up to get Tim Tebow after his firing. He was expected to be the Colts' next hire a few years back. Thankfully, Jim Irsay had a great plan going after Frank Reich. McDaniels would have set the team back if I'm being honest.
Jim Schwartz was a scout under Belichick in 1993 in Cleveland. He was a linebackers coach/defensive assistant in Baltimore and Tennessee before coaching the Lions from 2009-2013. He went 29-51 with Detroit, making just one playoff appearance in that span.
He had one 10-6 season, but other than that, he was pretty mediocre, which is a damning statement considering what franchise we're talking about here. He would be the defensive coordinator for the Buffalo Bills and Philadelphia Eagles, where he actually beat Bill Belichick in Super Bowl 52. He is currently the senior defensive assistant for the Tennessee Titans.
Yes, I realize that Nick Saban has been dominant at Alabama, and he's one of the best coaches in college football history. However, we're not here to discuss that. We're here to talk about his coaching career in the NFL.
He was with Belichick on the Browns in the early to mid-90s, which he called the "worst years of his life." So I'm guessing that Belichick and Saban didn't always see eye to eye. He got the Dolphins coaching gig in 2005-06, going 9-7 and 6-10, respectively. His NFL coaching career was mediocre, but his college coaching career is a different story.
Joe Judge was kind of a surprise hire. He was in New England from 2012-2019, working his way up to Special Teams Coordinator. Prior to that, he was at Alabama on Nick Saban's staff.
In 2020, he got the Giants coaching job and led them to a 6-10 record, which almost made the playoffs in the NFC East, which is just sad. Anyway, the jury's still out on him. The next 2-3 years will be very telling of how he will fare as an NFL coach. Quite honestly, I don't know if I trust him or not.
It's too early to tell, but the Giants job isn't going to be an easy grasp either. I question the idea, seeing he was a Dave Gettleman hand-picked yes-man, pulled out of a hat it felt like. Maybe by his third year, things can change for the G-Men.
Dying on a hill with Danny Dimes would be his biggest issue moving forward. From what I see, this defense looks like it will have to do some carrying from the coaching prowess Judge has shown in the second half of 2020 to carry over into this upcoming season.
Al Groh spent time with Belichick on the Giants, Browns, Jets, and Patriots. Yes, Bill Belichick was affiliated with the Giants for a period. He was actually on the Lions, Broncos, and Baltimore Colts coaching staffs as well in the 70s.
Anyhow, Groh was the replacement in New York for the Jets after Belichick left for New England. Groh spent one season with the Jets, going 9-7. After that, he left to coach his alma mater, Virginia, from 2001-2009.
What's both hilarious and sad is he's one of only two Jets coaches with a winning record, the other being Bill Parcells. It's hard to put him higher when he was barely in the NFL to begin with. He's nothing more than a forgettable coach from a bygone era in Jets football and the NFL as a whole.
I feel like it is a bit disrespectful to have Brian Flores on this list. So far, he's been a complete outlier. He's established a culture around himself and has the Miami Dolphins in a good position for the future.
He's currently 15-17 in two years, but remember, they were supposed to be awful in 2019. He has the most upside of any of these other coaches. Time will determine how his career will pan out, but if you're a Dolphins fan, you have to be intrigued for the future of your team.
Players have bought into his culture, and last year they proved themselves as legitimate. I have high hopes that Flores will break the Belichick Coaching Tree curse and actually be a successful coach in this league, but we'll have to wait and see.