HEADLINES

The Longest-Tenured Head Coaches In The NFL

July 13th, 2021 at 9:09am CST by Zachary Links

Things move fast in today’s NFL and the old adage of “coaches are hired to be fired” has seemingly never been more true. For the most part, teams change their coaches like they change their underwear. 

A head coach can take his team to the Super Bowl, or win the Super Bowl, or win multiple Super Bowls, but they’re never immune to scrutiny. Just ask Tom Coughlin, who captured his second ring with the Giants following the 2011 season, only to receive his pink slip after the 2015 campaign.

There are also exceptions like Bill Belichick, who just wrapped up his 21st season at the helm in New England. You’ll also see a few others on this list, but, for the most part, most of today’s NFL head coaches are relatively new to their respective clubs. And, history dictates that many of them will be elsewhere when we check in on this list in 2022.

Over one-third (12) of the NFL’s head coaches have coached no more than one season with their respective teams. Meanwhile, less than half (15) have been with their current clubs for more than three years. It seems like just yesterday that the Cardinals hired Kliff Kingsbury, right? It sort of was – Kingsbury signed on with the Cardinals in January of 2019. Today, he’s practically a veteran.

Here’s the list of the current head coaches in the NFL, ordered by tenure, along with their respective start dates:

  1. Bill Belichick (New England Patriots): January 27, 2000
  2. Sean Payton (New Orleans Saints): January 18, 2006
  3. Mike Tomlin (Pittsburgh Steelers): January 27, 2007
  4. John Harbaugh (Baltimore Ravens): January 19, 2008
  5. Pete Carroll (Seattle Seahawks): January 9, 2010
  6. Andy Reid (Kansas City Chiefs): January 4, 2013
  7. Mike Zimmer (Minnesota Vikings): January 15, 2014
  8. Sean McDermott (Buffalo Bills): January 11, 2017
  9. Sean McVay (Los Angeles Rams): January 12, 2017
  10. Kyle Shanahan (San Francisco 49ers): February 6, 2017
  11. Jon Gruden (Las Vegas Raiders): January 6, 2018
  12. Matt Nagy (Chicago Bears): January 7, 2018
  13. Mike Vrabel (Tennessee Titans): January 20, 2018
  14. Frank Reich (Indianapolis Colts): February 11, 2018
  15. Bruce Arians (Tampa Bay Buccaneers): January 8, 2019
  16. Kliff Kingsbury (Arizona Cardinals): January 8, 2019
  17. Matt LaFleur (Green Bay Packers): January 8, 2019
  18. Vic Fangio (Denver Broncos): January 10, 2019
  19. Brian Flores (Miami Dolphins): February 4, 2019
  20. Zac Taylor (Cincinnati Bengals): February 4, 2019
  21. Ron Rivera (Washington Football Team): January 1, 2020
  22. Matt Rhule (Carolina Panthers): January 7, 2020
  23. Mike McCarthy (Dallas Cowboys): January 7, 2020
  24. Joe Judge (New York Giants): January 8, 2020
  25. Kevin Stefanski (Cleveland Browns): January 13, 2020
  26. Urban Meyer (Jacksonville Jaguars): January 14, 2021
  27. Robert Saleh (New York Jets): January 15, 2021
  28. Arthur Smith (Atlanta Falcons): January 15, 2021
  29. Brandon Staley (Los Angeles Chargers): January 17, 2021
  30. Dan Campbell (Detroit Lions): January 20, 2021
  31. Nick Sirianni (Philadelphia Eagles): January 21, 2021
  32. David Culley (Houston Texans): January 28, 2021

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