The Best Chicago Bears Coaches of All Time

Ranker NFL
Updated March 3, 2022 5.9K votes 1.0K voters
Over 1.0K Ranker voters have come together to rank this list of The Best Chicago Bears Coaches of All Time

Throughout their time as a football franchise, the Chicago Bears have had a variety of coaches, but who is the best Chicago Bears head coach of all time? We want you to help us answer that question by voting for your favorite Chicago Bears coaches, keeping stats like Super Bowl wins and playoff runs in mind. These are some of the greatest NFL coaches of all time.

It's hard to argue against George Halas being the greatest Bears head coach in the history of the team, seeing that he coached the team to 6 NFL Championships as a coach, and saw two more as the team's owner. He was an innovator and left a lasting impact on not just the Bears organization, but the entire NFL in general.

Mike Ditka is another legendary Chicago Bears head coach, winning Superbowls with the team as both a coach and player. In fact it was George Halas who offered Ditka the head coach position in 1982, where Ditka quickly turned the team into a major threat.

If the Chicago Bears had a best of all time team, who would coach it? Vote for your favorites below, even if the coach never won a championship with the Chicago Bears.

Ranked by
  • George Halas
    1

    George Halas

    Chicago, Illinois
    429 votes
    George Stanley Halas Sr. (; February 2, 1895 – October 31, 1983), nicknamed "Papa Bear" and "Mr. Everything", was a player, coach, and owner involved with professional American football. He was the founder, owner, and head coach of the National Football League's Chicago Bears. He was also lesser known as a Major League Baseball player for the New York Yankees. Halas was one of the co-founders of the National Football League (NFL) in 1920, and in 1963 became one of the first 17 inductees into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
  • Mike Ditka
    2

    Mike Ditka

    Carnegie, Pennsylvania
    446 votes
    Michael Keller Ditka (born October 18, 1939) is an American former football player, coach, and television commentator. A member of both the College Football (1986) and Pro Football Hall of Fame (1988), he was the 1961 UPI NFL Rookie of Year, a five-time Pro Bowl selection and five-time All-Pro tight end with the Chicago Bears, Philadelphia Eagles, and Dallas Cowboys of the National Football League (NFL). He was an NFL champion with the 1963 Bears, and is a three-time Super Bowl champion, playing on the Cowboys Super Bowl VI team as well as winning as an assistant coach for the Cowboys in Super Bowl XII, and coaching the Bears to victory in Super Bowl XX. He was named to both the NFL's 50th and 75th Anniversary All-Time Team. As a coach for the Bears for 11 years he was twice both the AP and UPI NFL Coach of Year (1985 and 1988). He also coached the New Orleans Saints for three years. Ditka and Tom Flores are the only people to win an NFL title as a player, an assistant coach, and a head coach. Ditka, Flores, Gary Kubiak, and Doug Pederson are also the only people in modern NFL history to win a championship as head coach of a team he played for previously. Ditka is the only person to participate in both of the last two Chicago Bears' league championships, as a player in 1963 and as head coach in 1985. He is known by the nickname "Iron Mike", which he has said comes from his being born and raised in a steel town in Pennsylvania.
  • Paddy Driscoll
    3

    Paddy Driscoll

    Evanston, Illinois
    166 votes
    John Leo "Paddy" Driscoll (January 11, 1895 – June 29, 1968) was an American football and baseball player and football coach. A triple-threat man in football, he was regarded as the best drop kicker and one of the best overall players in the early years of the National Football League (NFL). He was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1965 and the College Football Hall of Fame in 1974. Driscoll played college football as a quarterback and halfback for the Northwestern football team in 1915 and 1916. In 1917, he played Major League Baseball as an infielder for the Chicago Cubs. He joined the United States Navy during World War I and played for the undefeated 1918 Great Lakes Navy football team that won the 1919 Rose Bowl. Driscoll played professional football as a quarterback and halfback for the Hammond All-Stars (1917), Hammond Pros (1919), Racine/Chicago Cardinals (1920–1925), and Chicago Bears (1926–1929). He was the NFL's first All-Pro quarterback and its leading scorer in 1923 and 1926. He also led the 1925 Chicago Cardinals to an NFL championship and was selected in 1969 for the NFL 1920s All-Decade Team. Driscoll also worked for many years as a football coach. He was the head coach of Chicago Cardinals from 1920 to 1922 and at Marquette from 1937 to 1940. He spent the last 28 years of his life with the Chicago Bears as an assistant coach (1941–1955), head coach (1956–1957), and later as the director of the Bears' research and planning unit.
  • Lovie Smith
    4

    Lovie Smith

    Gladewater, Texas
    389 votes
    Lovie Lee Smith (born May 8, 1958) is an American football coach who is the head coach of the Houston Texans of the National Football League (NFL). He was previously the head coach of the Chicago Bears (2004–2012) and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers (2014–2015), as well as the Illinois Fighting Illini. Smith has been to the Super Bowl twice, as the defensive coordinator for the St. Louis Rams in 2001 and as head coach for the Bears in 2006.
  • Jack Pardee
    5

    Jack Pardee

    Exira, Iowa
    172 votes
    John Perry Pardee (April 19, 1936 – April 1, 2013) was an American football linebacker and the only head coach to helm a team in college football, the National Football League (NFL), the United States Football League (USFL), the World Football League (WFL), and the Canadian Football League (CFL). Pardee was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame as a player in 1986.
  • Abe Gibron
    6

    Abe Gibron

    Michigan City, Indiana
    155 votes
    Abraham "Abe" Gibron (September 22, 1925 – September 23, 1997) was a professional American football player and coach. Gibron played 11 seasons as a guard in the All-America Football Conference (AAFC) and National Football League (NFL) in the 1940s and 1950s, mostly with the Cleveland Browns. He was then hired as an assistant coach for the NFL's Washington Redskins and Chicago Bears before becoming head coach of the Bears between 1972 and 1974. Gibron grew up in Indiana, where he was a standout athlete in high school. After graduating, he spent two years in the U.S. military during World War II, enrolling at Valparaiso University upon his discharge. He later transferred to Purdue University, where he played football for two years and was named an All-Big Ten Conference guard. Gibron's professional career began in 1949 with the Buffalo Bills of the AAFC. The league dissolved after that season, however, and he moved to the Browns in the NFL. While he was initially a substitute, Gibron developed into a strong lineman on Cleveland teams that won NFL championships in 1950, 1954 and 1955 behind an offensive attack that featured quarterback Otto Graham, end Dante Lavelli and tackle Lou Groza. He was named to the Pro Bowl, the NFL's all-star game, each year between 1952 and 1955. After short stints with the Philadelphia Eagles and the Bears, Gibron ended his playing career and got into coaching. He served first as a line coach for the Redskins for five years, and then in a similar role for the Bears beginning in 1965. He rose to become Bears' defensive coordinator in the early 1970s, and was named head coach in 1972, replacing Jim Dooley. Gibron's three years leading the Bears were unsuccessful, however. His teams posted a combined win–loss–tie record of 11–30–1 over three seasons. Gibron was fired in 1974, and spent the following year as coach of the Chicago Winds, a team in the short-lived World Football League. Gibron, who was known for his colorful personality and large size – he ballooned to more than 300 pounds as a coach – spent seven seasons as an assistant with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers before retiring from coaching. He stayed close to the game, however, by serving as a scout for the Seattle Seahawks in the late 1980s and as an advisor to the Buccaneers in the early 1990s. He died after suffering a series of strokes in 1997.