List of Washington Commanders head coaches

The Washington Commanders are a professional American football franchise based in the Washington metropolitan area. They are members of the East division in the National Football Conference (NFC) of the National Football League (NFL). The Commanders were founded in 1932 as the Boston Braves, named after the local baseball franchise.^[1] The franchise changed its name the following year to the Redskins and moved to Washington, D.C. in 1937.^[1] In 2020, the team retired the Redskins name after longstanding controversies surrounding it and briefly played as the Washington Football Team before becoming the Commanders in 2022.^[1]

There have been 31 head coaches for the franchise, four of which played for the franchise during their career. Joe Gibbs is the only coach to have more than one tenure with the team.^[2] Two different coaches have won NFL championships with the team: Ray Flaherty in 1937 and 1942, and Joe Gibbs in 1982, 1987 and 1991.^[3] Gibbs is the all-time leader in games coached and wins, and Dudley DeGroot leads all coaches in winning percentage with .737.^[4] Of all the coaches, seven have been elected into the Pro Football Hall of Fame: Flaherty, Turk Edwards, Curly Lambeau, Otto Graham, Vince Lombardi, George Allen, and Gibbs.^[5]

Coaches

#	Number of coaches^[a]
GC	Games coached
W	Wins
L	Loses
T	Ties
Win %	Winning percentage
00†	Elected into the Pro Football Hall of Fame as a coach
00‡	Elected into the Pro Football Hall of Fame as a player
00*	Spent their entire NFL head coaching career with Washington

#	Image	Name	Term	Regular season					Playoffs			Awards	Reference
#	Image	Name	Term	GC	W	L	T	Win%	GC	W	L	Awards	Reference
Boston Braves
1		Lud Wray	1932	10	4	4	2	.500	–				^[6]
Boston Redskins
2		Lone Star Dietz*^[b]	1933–1934*	24	11	11	2	.500	–				^[7]
3		Eddie Casey*	1935*	11	2	8	1	.200	–				^[8]
Washington Redskins
4		Ray Flaherty †	1936–1942	78	54	21	3	.720	4	2	2		^[9]
5		Dutch Bergman*	1943*	10	6	3	1	.667	2	1	1		^[10]
6		Dudley DeGroot*^[c]	1944–1945*	20	14	5	1	.737	1	0	1		^[4]
7		Turk Edwards* ‡	1946–1948*	35	16	18	1	.471	–				^[11]
8		John Whelchel*^[d]	1949*	7	3	3	1	.500	–				^[12]
9		Herman Ball*^[e]	1949–1951*	20	4	16	0	.200	–				^[13]
10		Dick Todd*	1951*	9	5	4	0	.556	–				^[14]
11		Curly Lambeau †	1952–1953	24	10	13	1	.435	–				^[15]
12		Joe Kuharich	1954–1958	60	26	32	2	.448	–			Sporting News Coach of the Year (1955) UPI NFL Coach of the Year (1955)^[16]	^[17]
13		Mike Nixon	1959–1960	24	4	18	2	.182	–				^[18]
14		Bill McPeak*	1961–1965*	70	21	46	3	.313	–				^[19]
15		Otto Graham* ‡	1966–1968*	42	17	22	3	.436	–				^[20]
16		Vince Lombardi †^[f]	1969	14	7	5	2	.583	–				^[21]
17		Bill Austin	1970	14	6	8	0	.429	–				^[22]
18		George Allen †	1971–1977	98	67	30	1	.691	7	2	5	AP Coach of the Year (1971) Pro Football Weekly Coach of the Year (1971) Sporting News Coach of the Year (1971) UPI NFC Coach of the Year (1971)^[16]	^[23]
19		Jack Pardee	1978–1980	48	24	24	0	.500	–			AP Coach of the Year (1979) UPI NFC Coach of the Year (1979)	^[24]
20		Joe Gibbs*^[g]	1981–1992*	184	124	60	0	.674	21	16	5	AP Coach of the Year (1982, 1983) Pro Football Weekly Coach of the Year (1982, 1983) Sporting News Coach of the Year (1982, 1983, 1991) UPI NFC Coach of the Year (1982)^[16]	^[2]
21		Richie Petitbon*	1993*	16	4	12	0	.250	–				^[25]
22		Norv Turner	1994–2000	109	49	59	1	.454	2	1	1		^[26]
23		Terry Robiskie^[h]	2000	3	1	2	0	.333	–				^[27]
24		Marty Schottenheimer	2001	16	8	8	0	.500	–				^[28]
25		Steve Spurrier*	2002–2003*	32	12	20	0	.375	–				^[29]
–		Joe Gibbs*^[g]	2004–2007*	64	30	34	0	.469	3	1	2		^[2]
26		Jim Zorn*	2008–2009*	32	12	20	0	.375	–				^[30]
27		Mike Shanahan	2010–2013	64	24	40	0	.375	1	0	1		^[31]
28		Jay Gruden*^[i]	2014–2019	85	35	49	1	.418	1	0	1		^[32]
29		Bill Callahan	2019	11	3	8	0	.273	0	0	0		^[33]
Washington Football Team / Commanders
30		Ron Rivera	2020–2023	67	26	40	1	.396	1	0	1	George Halas Award (2022)	^[34]
Washington Commanders
31		Dan Quinn	2024–present	0	0	0	0	–	0	0	0		^[35]