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What more does Bruce Arians need to do to be a Hall of Fame head coach?


JiffyJag

What else would BA need to accomplish to have a HoF resume?  

33 members have voted

  1. 1. What else would BA need to accomplish to have a HoF resume?

    • Additional SB win
      13
    • 2 more SB wins
      6
    • another deep playoff run
      3
    • multiple deep playoff runs
      3
    • he has no chance at all whatsoever
      9


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Welcome to the offseason, folks.

 

I'm not here to make the case that Arians should or shouldn't be in the Hall of Fame based on his current resume, just posing the question to see what the consensus is.

At first glance, the thought of Arians being a Hall of Fame head coach may seem ridiculous, but consider that:

Only 5 post 2000 SB winning head coaches who aren't active (excluding Pederson who presumably has more coaching ahead of him) aren't in the Hall of Fame. They are:

Mike Shanahan

Tom Coughlin 

Brian Billick

**** Vermeil 

Gary Kubiak

2 of those, Shanahan and Coughlin, seem likely to be inducted into the HoF at some point in the near future. Billick will almost certainly not be, as he is regarded as being a decent coach who won a SB due to a great defense that was more a product of his DC rather than himself. Vermeil has an outside shot at the Hall but looks unlikely to make it, largely because he took a large amount of time off in the prime years of his coaching career and thus never had sustained success as a coach. Kubiak is actually in a fairly similar situation to Arians, where he had a few successful seasons with 1 team before moving to another team, acquiring a legendary QB, and winning a SB before retiring shortly after. However, Arians' resume on the whole is slightly better from a numbers perspective. 

So that leaves Arians, who likely only has 2-3 years left in him as a HC. Arians' resume is as follows:

.620 career win% (superior to Kubiak and Vermeil)

5-2 postseason record (same as Kubiak, superior to Vermeil, with potentially more games to add to the resume in the coming seasons)

2x AP Coach of the Year (2 more than Kubiak, 1 more than Vermeil)

1x SB champion as coach (Same as Kubiak and Vermeil, also has a ring as Steelers' OC)

Led 3 different teams to the playoffs, including 2 to the conference championship or further

So what do we think? I would think that another SB win probably guarantees him a spot in Canton. The thing working against him the most is a small-ish sample size, since he didn't become a HC until fairly late in his career.  

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7 minutes ago, Acgott said:

I think he needs another Super Bowl win as a HC.

He coached less than 10 years as a NFL head coach

He’s ranked #69 with just 67 wins.

Jon Gruden is ranked #37 with 114 wins, and I don’t see him as a HOF
 

for what it's worth, I don't think that figure includes this season. Arians now has 76 wins. However, Arians also has a much better win% than Gruden, who is almost at .500 for his career. 

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2 minutes ago, Jaguarfan said:

for what it's worth, I don't think that figure includes this season. Arians now has 76 wins. However, Arians also has a much better win% than Gruden, who is almost at .500 for his career. 

Could be, not a big difference.

Compare him with the other one SB win coaches: Reid,  Tomlin, Payton, Harbaugh, McCarthy, Carroll, Gruden.

I’ll put him above McCarthy and Gruden, but the others have him beat. 

3 more seasons with 10+ wins, and long playoff runs. That give him 100 wins, maybe he has an outside chance.

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Tom Flores had a .610 winning %, 91 total wins and 2 Super Bowl titles as coach of the Raiders. It took him more than 30 years to get in. Arians has a .603 winning %, 72 total wins and 1 Super Bowl. 

Normally I'd say he just has to have a couple more seasons like this one to be a shoo-in, but he's also gonna be 69 years old next season. It's gonna be tough for him to play catch-up. 

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I think Arians biggest obstacle is going to be longevity.

Mike Shanahan won 2 with Denver and he's still not in. And he has a lot more career wins than Arians does.

He has to at minimum:

Win another Super Bowl

Have 4-5 more seasons with 10+ wins.

I'd say the odds are stacked against him.

The Bucs may very well win against next year but tbh I don't think Arians coaches long enough to get the amount of wins he would need.

Maybe he can skirt the longevity if the Buccaneers were to 3-peat or something with Brady. But that's an extremely slim chance.

 

Just of current coaches that have career accolades ahead of him.

- Belichick

- Reid

- John Harbaugh

- Pete Carroll

- Sean Payton

- Mike McCarthy (Although I think Arians is a better coach than McCarthy, McCarthy has a lot more wins and the SB)

- Tomlin

Edited by Bolts223
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He probably doesn’t need to do much of anything else.  
 

He has an all time winning record of over 60%, 3 Super Bowls (one of them as a HC), 2X Coach of the Year.  
 

I think if you win at least one Super Bowl as a head coach, win Coach of the Year honors at least once, and walk away from the game with a winning record, then that’s probably enough to get you into Canton.  
 

I mean, that was Bill Cowher in a nutshell.  

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1 hour ago, RamblinMan99 said:

He probably doesn’t need to do much of anything else.  
 

He has an all time winning record of over 60%, 3 Super Bowls (one of them as a HC), 2X Coach of the Year.  
 

I think if you win at least one Super Bowl as a head coach, win Coach of the Year honors at least once, and walk away from the game with a winning record, then that’s probably enough to get you into Canton.  
 

I mean, that was Bill Cowher in a nutshell.  

Except for the fact that Cowher coached far longer than Arians. 

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Bill Walsh is the only modern coach in the Hall of Fame with less than 100 wins. He also has 3 Super Bowls and is credited with revolutionizing the NFL with a new offensive scheme. Vince Lombardi is another, but he's obviously Vince Lombardi

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I'd say another Superbowl possibly does it. A ring and a few playoff runs should secure it.

He has his time as OC/Assistant that netted 2 rings with some pretty stellar offenses. 

He's 1-1 in NFC Championship games and 1-0 in the Superbowl with only 7 years of coaching. 

5-2 in the playoffs.

2x NFL Coach of the Year, one being for a 12 game stint as interim HC going 9-3 on a team with no business going 9-3.

Overall he's got an 82-49-1 record to date. 

He's twice turned dumpster fire teams quickly into legitimate contenders. 

He presided over career resurgences for Larry Fitzgerald, Carson Palmer, and just aided Tom Brady to a great one (can't say career because it's Brady and that bar is high). 

It's a short resume, but a dang good one. If he has a string of a couple more 10+ win seasons, I don't see how you leave him out. 

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