The Detroit Lions’ hiring of Dan Campbell was the best head coaching hire in the entire NFL over the past five years, according to Bill Barnwell of ESPN.
The ESPN senior analyst wrote a story on Thursday,
ranking every head coaching hire from the 2021 offseason through 2025. A total of 37 hires have been made over that span, and Barnwell believes Campbell has been the best of the bunch.
While Campbell doesn’t have the best record of that group—his .571 win percentage ranks seventh in this list among coaches with at least two years under their belt—Barnwell gives him credit for taking the Lions out of the dumps and almost immediately into relevancy.
“It’s worth noting just how low the Lions were before Campbell arrived,” Barnwell wrote. “Detroit had gone 14-33-1 under Matt Patricia and interim coach Darrell Bevell. It hadn’t won a playoff game since 1991. One of the first things new general manager Brad Holmes did was trade Matthew Stafford to the Rams for two first-round picks and Jared Goff, who was essentially a salary dump from an organization that had completely lost faith in the 2016 first overall pick. The only significant player from the roster Campbell inherited who is still on the team in 2025 is offensive tackle Taylor Decker. This has been a complete rebuild in Detroit.“
It’s likely to be an opinion that not all analysts share. Eagles coach Nick Sirianni is No. 2 on the list, has been to two Super Bowls, and has won one. This year’s Super Bowl competitors, Mike Macdonald and Mike Vrabel, are three and four, respectively. Sean Payton (.628), Kevin O’Connell (.632), and Jim Harbaugh (.647) all have significantly better records than Campbell.
There’s also this past year’s set of hires, who could easily jump up (or down) this list based on future results. Ben Johnson (No. 9) and Liam Coen (No. 11) had great first years, but will have to continue their success to climb up the rankings.
Ultimately, it appears Barnwell values two things about Campbell’s career: his ability to build this franchise from its very foundation and his aggressive mentality, which has undoubtedly helped the team win some of their closer games.
“Campbell’s aggressive decision-making on fourth down has been a huge plus, even if the Lions haven’t succeeded 100% of the time in those situations,” Barnwell wrote.
Perhaps the most interesting thing written by Barnwell was the thought experiment he provided in defense of his pick of Campbell at No. 1:
If you were to predict which of these coaches will still be around with their team 15 years from now, who would it be?
“My choice would be Campbell, who has become the face of the franchise in Detroit.”
