According to CBS Sports Bryan DeArdo, former Indianapolis Colts Super Bowl winning and NFL Hall of Famer Tony Dungy was ranked among their Top 20 all-time head coaches in NFL history :
20. Tony Dungy
A little-known fact about Tony Dungy, he led the Steelers in interceptions during Pittsburgh’s 1978 championship season. After a short NFL playing career, Dungy rejoined the Steelers as a coach and was tabbed as Chuck Noll’s defensive coordinator before the 1984 season. That year, Pittsburgh shocked the Denver
Broncos in the playoffs and advanced to the AFC title game for the final time during Noll’s Hall of Fame career.
Dungy later spent time on Marty Schottenheimer’s staff in Kansas City, where he also worked alongside future Hall of Fame coach Bill Cowher. He then spent four years as Dennis Green’s defensive coordinator in Minnesota before receiving his first head-coaching opportunity with Tampa Bay.
In Tampa, Dungy quickly turned around a franchise that had endured 13 consecutive losing seasons. During his second season, Dungy led the Buccaneers to their second playoff win in franchise history and first since 1979. Two years later, in the NFC Championship Game, the Buccaneers held a 6-5 lead late before the Rams escaped with a five-point win.
Dungy was fired, however, following two seasons that ended in quick playoff exits. He was quickly hired by the Colts, where he was tasked with helping Indianapolis get past its own playoff shortcomings. The Colts continued to come up short in the playoffs from 2002-05 (with the Patriots defeating them twice), but they finally broke through in 2006, defeating the Patriots in a thrilling AFC title game before beating the Bears in Super Bowl XLI.
Dungy is synonymous with the Tampa 2 defense, which helped the Buccaneers win a Super Bowl a year following Dungy’s departure. Dungy is also known for his soft-spoken demeanor, which is uncommon among NFL coaches. Despite his unwillingness to yell, Dungy still got his message across to his players, who carried him off the field after he became the first Black head coach to win the Super Bowl.
After helping to turn around the league laughing stock Tampa Bay Buccaneers into a perennial NFC playoff contender, thanks in large part to building a Super Bowl caliber stingy ‘Cover 2’ defense, Dungy was hired by late Colts team owner Jim Irsay in the 2002 offseason. It was one of the best moves Irsay ever made, along with hiring Hall of Fame GM Bill Polian and drafting Peyton Manning with the 1st overall pick in the 1998 NFL Draft.
In Indianapolis, he was tasked with turning around one of the league’s consistently worst defensive units to better complement ascending superstar quarterback Peyton Manning and a prolific NFL offense to be better equipped to make a deep and even Super Bowl winning playoff run on both sides of the football.
While it took some initial time, Dungy did just that. He led by his ‘quiet strength,’ preaching leadership, accountability, and the mantra of “No excuses, no explanations.” While never one to generally yell or get overly animated, Dungy’s players highly respected him because of how he carried himself and treated them as human beings, more like a father figure, who they did not want to disappoint by their own actions and poor play.
By drafting and developing the likes of Dwight Freeney, Robert Mathis, and Bob Sanders among them, Dungy was eventually able to build a Super Bowl caliber defense in Indianapolis. In fact, it was the surging defense, upon Sanders’ late season return, that was actually the catalyst for the Colts magical Super Bowl run in 2006.
Going up against longtime friend and coaching colleague Lovie Smith and the Chicago Bears in Super Bowl XLI, Dungy and the Colts would finally scale the mountain top after some earlier playoff heartbreak, hoisting the elusive Lombardi Trophy, and Dungy, beloved, being the first black head coach in NFL history to win a Super Bowl.
With both the Bucs and the Colts, his career coaching record was 139-69-0 (.668) with a Super Bowl title to his name. He was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame’s Class of 2016.
It’s worth noting that former Colts head coach Don Shula came in at 5th overall on this list, following his coaching tenure with both the Baltimore Colts and Miami Dolphins—compiling a 328-156-6 (.677) all-time coaching record collectively. He coached the Colts to Super Bowl III, where they were upset by the AFL’s New York Jets.
Of course, Shula notably later won back-to-back Super Bowls in Miami from 1972-73, including coaching the infamous undefeated 1972 Miami Dolphins team at 17-0.
