Ranking NFL HCs from the Bill Belichick coaching tree
The NFL has officially pruned the Bill Belichick coaching tree.
With Tuesday's firing of Joe Judge, none of the league's 32 staffs currently employ a head coach that previously served as an assistant under Belichick. Holdouts at the college level remain. Kirk Ferentz has been an Iowa staple since 1999. Bret Bielema and Jedd Fisch started at Illinois and Arizona this season, respectively, but, at this time, no Belichick disciples are set to hold head coaching roles.
Therefore, it's safe to say that the apples have fallen rather far from the tree. But SK looks back on the 10 coaches that have followed in Belichick's NFL coaching footsteps and tries to find the best that followed the best.
Which Bill Belichick disciple fared best as an NFL head coach?
10. Joe Judge (NY Giants, 2020-21)
Call it recency bias, but Judge is likely the worst the bunch has to offer. It certainly means a lot that he took the reins for a downtrodden Giants team, one that had lost 36 games in three seasons, and plunged them deeper into a disturbing new normal with a 10-23 record at the helm. If this is Belichick's revenge for the Giants ruining his chance at a perfect NFL season, he might be even more of a cunning genius than we previously thought. Known for his hard-nosed tactics and increasingly tense press conferences, Judge lost his final six games in New York by a 17.8-point margin.
9. Matt Patricia (Detroit, 2018-20)
Being a head coach in the NFL ain't rocket science...RPI alum Matt Patricia found that out the hard way when he took over the Detroit Lions in 2018. Patricia faced a surprising amount of pressure from Detroit as he was taking over for Jim Caldwell, the first full-time head coach to leave the Lions with a winning record since Joe Schmidt in 1972. Patricia's second game at Ford Field saw the Lions top the Patriots in prime time, but it all went downhill from there. After a 6-10 season in 2018, the win total was sliced in half in his sophomore season. Detroit bid Patricia farewell with five games to go in the 2020 season, after which he returned to Belichick's staff as a "senior football advisor."
8. Romeo Crennel (Cleveland, 2005-08/Kansas City, 2011-12/Houston, 2020)
A staple among NFL defensive staffs since the 1990s, Crennel has earned five Super Bowl rings, but, as you know by now, none of them were earned as a head coach. His first opportunity came with the rebooted Cleveland Browns after the first Patriots dynasty. Despite guiding the Browns to their first 10-win season since their return at the turn of the century, he failed to reach the playoffs in four seasons. Todd Haley's firing in 2011 gave way to Crennel, who produced a win over the previously undefeated Green Bay Packers, which earned him the full-time job. Alas, he could only match the total from his three-game interim tenure, going 2-14 in his sole full season at the Chiefs' helm. A dozen more games with the primary headset awaited last year in Houston, where he took over for another man on this list. Crennel now serves as the Texans' senior advisor for football performance.
7. Al Groh (NY Jets, 2000)
Groh was part of Belichick's previous staff in Cleveland and took over the spot previously reserved for his former boss in New York, part of the infamous "I resign as HC of the NYJ" incident. While he's a rare coach on this list because of his winning record, that probably stems from the fact that he coached on a single season, going 9-7 before leaving to pursue the top position at his alma mater of Virigina, where he'd go on to coach nine seasons.
6. Josh McDaniels (Denver, 2009-10)
Renowned as Belichick's offensive guru for the past decade, there's a reason McDaniels' brief time as a head coach is spoken about in hushed tones for all the wrong reasons. Chosen to succeed the two-time champion Mike Shanahan in Denver, McDaniels won each of his six games as a head coach, despite almost immediately losing the trust of his franchise quarterback Jay Cutler, who was later dealt to Chicago. Again, you're reading this list, so you know how the story ends: McDaniels' first team went 2-8 the rest of the way and, in the vein of "Spygate," he had to deal with a videotaping controversy of his own, one involving the Broncos' director of video operations taping a San Francisco practice prior to their matchup in London. After the scorching start, McDaniels went 5-17 the rest of the way, leading to his firing in the midst of his second season. After a year with the Rams, he returned to the Patriots, where he's been stationed ever since.