Grim, determined, and emotionally unavailable to even their closest friends and family, great NFL coaches have served as inspiration to millions of American leaders for over almost a hundred years. Here is The Onion’s list of the greatest NFL coaches of all time.
2 / 17
Vince Lombardi: The Packers legend revolutionized professional football by being the first coach to use nonsensical platitudes about winning to endear himself to the media.
3 / 17
Tony Dungy: The first African American coach to ever win a Super Bowl, Dungy’s intense intellect and remarkably empathetic leadership probably should not have been wasted on something as trivial as football.
4 / 17
Bill Walsh: As the inventor of the West Coast offense, Bill Walsh still collects royalties every time a pass of ten or fewer yards is attempted.
5 / 17
Curly Lambeau: Helped found the Green Bay Packers and reformed the once slow, slogging game by inventing the forward run.
6 / 17
Bill Belichick: Winning six Super Bowls after dumping an injured Drew Bledsoe for Tom Brady, Belichick proved that great leaders ascribe no value to relationships, human life, or basic decency.
7 / 17
Your Dad: Coached the Panthers to a .875 winning percentage and six Super Bowls over 22 consecutive winning seasons, if they only would have listened to him.
8 / 17
Chuck Noll: A modern coach for the 1970s, he was the first to explain to players specifically why he was screaming at them.
9 / 17
John Madden: Hall of Fame coach for the Raiders from 1969-1978, John Madden is most famous with today’s fans for his global phenomenon video game series Silent Hill.
10 / 17
Tom Landry: Known for his iconic fedora, we couldn’t tell you much about Landry besides the fact he always wore a fedora.
11 / 17
Adam Gase: Sorry, just making sure you’re paying attention.
12 / 17
Don Shula: With only two losing seasons throughout his 33-year coaching career, Shula is a bit of a showoff, wouldn’t you agree?
13 / 17
Marv Levy: Despite never winning a championship....wait, is that right? Okay, forget it. Levy shouldn’t be on this list and he deserves to be forgotten by time.
14 / 17
Rod Marinelli: Despite overseeing perhaps the worst team in NFL history, Marinelli’s coaching limited the Lions to only 10 double-digit losses over the course of their historic 0-16 season.
15 / 17
Paul Brown: Brown is often credited with introducing film study as a means of game preparation, teaching his players the auteur theory that treats films as a reflection of the coach’s vision and art.
16 / 17
Bill Parcells: Famous for brutal psychological motivation, the Tuna told us we were too chickenshit to rank him on the list, and we showed him, didn’t we?