Speaking of Belichek anyway. Which coaching tree is the most impressive?
The obvious candidates are Bill Walsh, Bill Parcells, Paul Brown, and Marty Schottenheimer. I'm gonna ignore Sid Gillman cause otherwise it wouldn't be fair cause his indirect ties are insane.
Walsh's tree is still very active thanks to Holmgren and his impressive tree. So the Walsh tree consists of the aforementioned Holmgren, Seifert, Hackett, Fassel, Green, Reid, Fisher, Shanahan, Billick, Gruden, McCarthy,Mariucci,Kubiak and both Harbaughs (John assistent coached under Reid, Jim assistant coached under Ray Rhodes who coached under Holmgren and Bill Walsh both) Something like 11 Superbowl wins since Walsh came on the scene inthe 80s have come from Walsh or one of the members of his tree.
Parcells's tree is less populated. But with 8 Superbowls coming from it (2 from Parcells, 3 from Belichek 2 from Coughlin and 1 from Peyton)
Brown had Shula, Wyche, Collier, and Ewbank after him. Similar to Parcells his tree isn't deep, but it's excellent. I had to remove BIll Walsh from his tree as well for fairness sake. Otherwise it would be a lock that he wins.
Shotty is far and away the worst coach to top a tree, but with his tree you have Dungy, Cowher, Tomlin, Lovie Smith, Marvin Lewis, Wisenhunt, making something like 5 rings from that group.
So the question becomes is the Walsh tree clearly better than the other 2 when it relies more on it's Branches? Direct Walsh connections only produced 6 lombardi trophies to Parcells's 8. Shotty's group is kind of like the misfits of the NFL with lots of long tenured coaches.
Of course as I said, Gilman tree would easily win if we took it at it's most strict, BIll Walsh was under him, Chuck Noll, Al Davis, Dick Vermeil,John Madden, Joe Gibbs, Tony Dungy, and many more.