The Denver Broncos have had some great head coaches throughout the team’s history? Which ones crack the list of top-five all-time for the franchise?
The Denver Broncos have a rich history and tradition of winning a lot of football games. There are a variety of head coaches behind all of that winning but some stand out among the rest.
Who are the best head coaches in Denver Broncos history?
Which coaches managed to take this team to the top? Who is the most under-appreciated coach in team history?
Let’s take a look through the top five best head coaches in the Denver Broncos’ rich history.
Denver Broncos top head coach no. 5: Red Miller
1977-1980 (four seasons)
- 3 postseason appearances
- 2 division titles
- 1 conference title/Super Bowl appearance
- 42 regular season wins (4th most)
Believe it or not, Red Miller comes from the Saban coaching tree.
Lou Saban, that is.
Miller had one head coaching gig in his entire career, and that was the four-year stint he spent with the Denver Broncos as the team’s head coach.
Miller’s 42 regular season wins are fourth-most in team history. He helped lead this team to its first-ever Super Bowl appearance.
His defense was known as the Orange Crush and Miller’s first three seasons with the Broncos resulted in a playoff appearance.
It’s worth noting that Miller is the only coach on this list — spoiler alert — who did not have John Elway or Peyton Manning to work with at the quarterback position.
Miller was finally inducted into the Denver Broncos Ring of Fame in 2017, the same year he passed away at the age of 89.
Denver Broncos head coach no. 4: John Fox
2011-2014 (four seasons)
- 4 postseason appearances
- 4 division titles
- 1 conference championship/1 Super Bowl appearance
- 49 regular season wins (3rd most)
How do you remember the John Fox era for the Denver Broncos?
I think it’s easy to forget just how critical Fox was for the Denver Broncos at the time he was hired.
Following the debacle that was the Josh McDaniels “era” in Denver, the Broncos turned to John Elway to come and save the team once again. Elway was hired in a front office role in the 2011 offseason and his first move was hiring John Fox as the team’s head coach.
Fox had taken the Carolina Panthers to the Super Bowl once before and was the ideal veteran coach to bring the Broncos some stability at a time when they desperately needed it.
Fox’s Broncos went 8-8 in his first year as head coach, but that was good enough to win the division. The defense immediately took a leap forward with him as the head coach.
In 2012, the Broncos signed Peyton Manning and Fox sort of drifted into the background at that point, didn’t he?
It wasn’t until 2014 when the tension seemed to grow between Broncos fans and John Fox, who had become notorious for his conservative decision-making and lack of aggressiveness. It was that lack of aggression that seemingly cost the Broncos dearly in the 2014 season, leading to Fox and the Broncos mutually parting ways (we all know what that really means) after the 2014 season.
He was hired on by the Chicago Bears, a job that was apparently a dream job for him, and the Broncos moved on.
Still, it’s impossible to ignore a handful of facts about Fox’s tenure as head coach. Even though Peyton Manning probably had more to do with the team’s success than anything else, Fox’s job in the 2011 season was outstanding. The team was four-for-four with division titles under his reign, and his 49 regular season wins are 3rd-most in team history.
His winning percentage of .690 is the highest in team history as well.
Denver Broncos head coach no. 3: Dan Reeves
1981-1992 (12 seasons)
- 6 postseason appearances
- 5 division titles
- 3 conference championships/Super Bowl appearances
- 117 regular season wins
For 90s kids like me, Dan Reeves was simply the head coach of the Atlanta Falcons against the Denver Broncos in the Super Bowl once upon a time.
For a different generation of Denver Broncos fans, Reeves was Mike Shanahan before Mike Shanahan was Mike Shanahan.
For the majority of Reeves’ tenure as head coach of the Denver Broncos, he was the captain of the ship with John Elway as the quarterback.
Reeves came from the Tom Landry coaching tree with the Dallas Cowboys, who beat the Denver Broncos in their first-ever Super Bowl appearance in the 1977-78 season.
So, before the Denver Broncos kicked Reeves’ butt as a member of the Falcons in the final Super Bowl of the 1990s, Reeves was part of kicking their butt in the late 70s as the Dallas Cowboys started becoming a dynasty.
He’d already won another Super Bowl just a handful of years prior to that as a member of the Dallas Cowboys roster, playing the running back position.
As the Denver Broncos head coach, the Broncos were almost like the Colts of my generation. They were outstanding in the regular season, but couldn’t get the job done consistently in the playoffs.
The Broncos averaged almost 10 wins per season with Reeves as the team’s head coach, but that wasn’t enough to get the job done on the biggest stage as they were embarrassed in the three Super Bowl appearances they made in his 12 seasons.
Still, reaching the Super Bowl three times is no small accomplishment and Reeves has been a member of the Denver Broncos Ring of Fame since 2014.
Denver Broncos head coach no. 2: Gary Kubiak
2015-2016 (Two seasons)
- 1 postseason appearance
- 1 division title
- 1 conference championship/Super Bowl apperance
- 1 Super Bowl victory
- 24 regular season wins
Is it a flaming hot take to have Gary Kubiak as the second-best head coach in Denver Broncos history?
I don’t think so.
Flashback to the 2015 offseason when the Denver Broncos had just suffered a massively disappointing loss to the Indianapolis Colts in the playoffs. The year before that, a crushing defeat in Super Bowl 48 against the Seahawks.
Gary Kubiak had been an assistant with the Baltimore Ravens in 2014 and did a great job with them, helping Joe Flacco to probably the best overall season of his NFL career.
After being let go by the Houston Texans, Kubiak — who had some health scares in the past — vowed to only be an assistant coach due to the immense pressure put on NFL head coaches.
The Broncos convinced him to come out of head coach “retirement” and join the team he had played for and been a prominent assistant with for so many years.
Kubiak becoming head coach of the Denver Broncos was a cathartic experience for longtime fans of the team, and it was the move that ultimately galvanized the entire roster.
The Denver Broncos in 2015 had no business winning the Super Bowl, but they did under Gary Kubiak’s watch.
The late-game heroics for that particular team were nothing short of miraculous. The fact that the Broncos had as bad of quarterback play as they did that season and still managed to become the top seed in the AFC is remarkable.
Peyton Manning was injured, Brock Osweiler replaced him.
Kubiak made difficult decisions throughout the year and ultimately, it’s hard to argue he really made any wrong ones.
He helped the Denver Broncos reach the pinnacle once again, calling a couple of absolute masterpieces in the 2015 postseason, notably his early game scripts against the New England Patriots and Carolina Panthers.
Given all the work Kubiak did with the Broncos as John Elway’s backup and as Mike Shanahan’s top assistant, how could he not be considered one of the best head coaches in team history, regardless of what happened in the 2016 season?
Speaking of the 2016 season, Kubiak took a dismantled roster with Trevor Siemian as the starting quarterback to nine wins. He had health issues that forced special teams coordinator Joe DeCamillis into an emergency interim head coach role, but Kubiak came back and nearly coached the Broncos to the playoffs, but nine wins weren’t enough.
Including the playoffs, the Broncos were 24-11 under Gary Kubiak.
Denver Broncos head coach no. 1: Mike Shanahan
1995-2008 (14 seasons)
- 7 postseason appearances
- 3 division titles
- 2 conference championships/2 Super Bowl appearances
- 2 Super Bowl victories
- 146 regular season wins
You had to see this one coming, right?
There’s no way this spot could go to anyone but Mike Shanahan.
Averaging more than 10 wins per season in the 14 years of Shanahan’s reign, the Shanahan era is extremely fondly remembered by everyone in Broncos Country.
He helped lead this team to seven postseason appearances and the first two Super Bowl wins in franchise history.
It’s hard to top that.
What’s amazing about Shanahan’s reign with the Denver Broncos is the fact that the team only won three division titles despite averaging over 10 wins per season.
The Broncos were not only consistently competitive with Shanahan as the head coach, they became one of the winningest franchises in pro sports history thanks to his innovative offensive scheming and play calling.
I won’t soon forget the emotional goodbye in the 2009 offseason from Shanahan and owner Pat Bowlen, who made the decision he felt was best for the Denver Broncos at the time as the team fizzled near the end of the 2008 season.
Regardless of how anything ended with Shanahan as head coach, the way the team performed under him as a whole was incredible.
It seemed like Shanahan could make any running back into an NFL superstar, and for a number of guys, he did.
More than just being a great coach in Denver Broncos history, Mike Shanahan is one of the godfathers of the modern NFL as we all know it today.
Many of the best offenses we see in the league today are derivatives of Shanahan’s offense, including his son Kyle who runs one of the best offenses in the league out in San Francisco.
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