2. Sid Gillman
Regular-season record: 122-99-7
Postseason record: 1-5
Los Angeles Rams, 1955-1959
Los Angeles/San Diego Chargers, 1960-1971
Houston Oilers, 1973-1974
It could be said that there was a football offense before Sid Gillman and a football offense after Sid Gillman, and the one after Sid Gillman is the one most NFL teams are using today in some form or fashion. Everybody from Bill Walsh to Al Davis swore by Gillman’s offensive expertise, which he first showed at the professional level with the Rams in 1955. Coaching a team in transition, Gillman got his Rams to the NFL championship game in his first year, only to lose to the Browns. He accepted the Los Angeles Chargers’ offer to become their head coach in 1960, moved with them to San Diego in 1961, and went about creating an offense, with its multiple route concepts and pre-snap shifts, no pro league had seen before. Gillman’s Chargers won the 1963 AFL Championship, and offered to NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle the opportunity for the Chargers to play the Bears, the 1963 NFL champions, in what would have been the Super Bowl before its time.
Rozelle refused, the Chargers lost the 1964 and 1965 AFL title game to the Buffalo Bills, and he was never able to make the playoffs after that. Not with the Chargers, and not with the Houston Oilers, who he coached for two seasons, setting Bum Phillips up for success. Though he never appeared in a Super Bowl as a head coach, Gillman is owed a debt by every modern offensive coach, and that will be true for a very long time.