Players Poll from SI

Dungy is well known as being a great players coach

Players don't always evaluate coaches on their win totals: they evaluate them on their personalities, how they treat their players, and the kind of locker room atmosphere they create. Gibbs isn't on the list because no current players in the NFL know him yet (but they do know Jim Mora, who was an assistant for a while). If they redo this poll in 3 years, Gibbs will be at or near the top.

Interesting poll...

consider who voted & how many young fans actually know & remember Joe Gibbs.
I'm sure if they polled writers, the list would be much diff.

who cares what writers think? (as if they didnt let us know already). this is interesting because its what players think. what they feel, what they like, and what they hear from their friends etc. im sure win totals doesnt play as big a part as you'd think,

I think its interesting that they have Parcells as the worst coach. I mean I hate that SOB, but hes defintley one of the better coaches in the NFL. I would argue Tom Coughlin too and even Shotty.

This was a players' poll. And I don't think SI posted the question asked. "Worst coach" could mean anything depending on how the question was perceived - worst to play for, worst tactician, worst game day coach.

From the poll answers, I am thinking worst to play for is probably how the question was taken.

SI polled 354 players. Players were not allowed to vote for their own coach.
Best coach was Belichik (Gibbs didn't make the list):

Who is the worst coach in the NFL?

Tom Coughlin ................... 29%
Marty Schottenheimer .. 14%
Butch Davis .................... 11%
Dave Wannstedt ............ 11%
Mike Tice .......................... 8%
Bill Parcells ...................... 6%
Dennis Erickson .............. 4%
Jon Gruden ...................... 3%
Dennis Green ................... 3%
Jim Mora. ...........................2%

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2004/players/09/14/players.poll/

Marty shouldn't be up there; he's got a really crappy team (except for LT).

Wannstedt is one of the winningest coaches in the league.

Parcells? Excuse me? As much as I hate the Cowboys, Parcells is one of the best coaches.

Jon Gruden? Umm didn't he take the Bucs to the Big One and win it? Didn't the Bucs trade for him for two first rounders?

My candidates: Butch Davis and Jim Haslett

again, this prolly isnt about who wins as much as who they like winning for.

Yeah didnt you notice the guys on the hated coaches list are all hard assess, and the guys on the best are soft, dont pay any attention to this. Although ironically I dont think shotty and coughlin can be good coaches anymore, because the players cant deal with it anymore. At one point, I thought Shotty was one of the best coaches of all time. Now players cant handle any form of discipline. Look how we started 0-5, then won 8 out of 11, if we werent such primadonnas that season, we would have made the playoffs, but im done ranting for now...

Yeah didnt you notice the guys on the hated coaches list are all hard assess, and the guys on the best are soft, dont pay any attention to this. Although ironically I dont think shotty and coughlin can be good coaches anymore, because the players cant deal with it anymore. At one point, I thought Shotty was one of the best coaches of all time. Now players cant handle any form of discipline. Look how we started 0-5, then won 8 out of 11, if we werent such primadonnas that season, we would have made the playoffs, but im done ranting for now...

HATED is the correct word here. This wasn't a worse coach poll as it was a more HATED coach poll. Think about it. They'd vote for worse coach as one they hated to play for.