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Chip Kelly’s All-Time Ranking Among San Francisco 49ers Head Coaches

By Bryan Knowles

January 20, 2016; Santa Clara, CA, USA; Chip Kelly (left) and San Francisco 49ers general manager Trent Baalke (right) address the media in a press conference after naming Kelly as the new head coach for the 49ers at Levi's Stadium Auditorium. Mandatory Credit: Kyle Terada-USA TODAY Sports
January 20, 2016; Santa Clara, CA, USA; Chip Kelly (left) and San Francisco 49ers general manager Trent Baalke (right) address the media in a press conference after naming Kelly as the new head coach for the 49ers at Levi's Stadium Auditorium. Mandatory Credit: Kyle Terada-USA TODAY Sports /
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Jun 17, 2014; Santa Clara, CA, USA; San Francisco 49ers former head coach George Seifert addresses the media regarding his selection to the 49ers Hall of Fame at the 49ers headquarters. Mandatory Credit: Kelley L Cox-USA TODAY Sports
Jun 17, 2014; Santa Clara, CA, USA; San Francisco 49ers former head coach George Seifert addresses the media regarding his selection to the 49ers Hall of Fame at the 49ers headquarters. Mandatory Credit: Kelley L Cox-USA TODAY Sports /

The Untouchables

Bill Walsh (1979-1988)
George Seifert (1989-1996)
Buck Shaw (1946-1954)

Kelly could lead the 49ers to the first 19-0 season in NFL history, bring home the 49ers’ sixth Super Bowl championship, convince Jed York to sell the franchise to a more open and cutting-edge owner, solve the NFL’s concussion problem and cure cancer, and he still wouldn’t knock these three men off the top of the list. They are the 49ers coaching royalty, and there’s no way any one season, no matter how great it was, could knock these men off the top of the list.

Bill Walsh needs no introduction of course; he sits in the Hall of Fame and is pretty much solely responsible for the 49ers being considered a classic franchise with a great history, rather than the scrapping team it was in the ‘60s and ‘70s. He’s fairly clearly the best coach in franchise history.

By some metrics, George Seifert was even better, though that’s more of an argument against blindly relying on metrics rather than saying he should trump Walsh. When he left the team, Seifert had the best winning percentage of any coach in NFL history and is one of only 17 men to have won five or more championships. His time in Carolina was terrible, but we’re not concerned with that here—Seifert’s a pretty clear number two.

Buck Shaw was the first coach in franchise history. The team was clearly the second-best squad in the AAFC behind the Cleveland Browns, and a lot of that can be chalked up to Shaw. When the 49ers were one of three teams from the failed league to move to the NFL, Shaw continued a high level of success, with winning seasons in four of his five seasons as an NFL head coach. The sheer difficulty of starting from nothing and developing a team that could go toe-to-toe with the likes of Bobby Layne and Norm Van Brocklin and those great NFL teams of the ‘50s earns him a lot of respect.

If Kelly wins back-to-back Super Bowls, maybe we can talk about him knocking Shaw off this list.  If he follows that up by leading the 49ers to an unprecedented Super Bowl three-peat, maybe we can bring Walsh and Seifert into the discussion. The 49ers’ top-three is just incredibly difficult to crack; the only three franchises with a tougher top three are likely the Green Bay Packers (Lambeau/Lombardi/Holmgren), the New York Giants (Owen/Parcells/Howell, thanks to their dominance in the pre-Super Bowl era) and the Pittsburgh Steelers (Noll/Cowher/Tomlin). These guys aren’t going anywhere.

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