[Rain Man]

I'm looking up Tony Dungy to try to find any justification for him being selected.

He was a head coach for 13 season, which is tied for 34th all time. There are three other 13-year head coaches: Dennis Green (.546 winning percentage), Marvin Lewis (.543 winning percentage), and Norm Van Brocklin (.398 winning percentage). So on sheer longevity, not much justification.

He had a .668 winning percentage, which ranks 12th all time. He coached 208 games. The coaches right above him are Don Shula (.677, 490 games), Paul Brown (.672, 326 games), and the coaches right below him are Bill Belichick (.664, 336 games) and Jim Lee Howell (.663, 84 games). That's some pretty good company, even if he coached a lot of fewer games.

Let's look at postseason records. His postseason record is 9-10, which ranks 57th out of 92 coaches with postseason records. The coaches nearest to him are Jim Lee Howell (2-2), John Rauch (2-2), Chuck Pagano (3-3), Jeff Fisher (5-6), and Bud Grant (10-12). Grant is in the Hall of Fame as a coach with a regular season record of .621 in 259 games. This is not particularly impressive as a peer group.

I recognize that we're counting the entire record, but what's notable about Dungy is his record with two different teams. He coached Tampa for six years and had a record of .563 in 96 games, with a 2-4 record on the playoffs. Then in 2002 he went to Indianapolis, where he had a .759 record in 112 games, with a 7-6 playoff record.

.759 is really good. It would be 2nd place all time as a regular season record, following only Guy Chamberlain's .784 record with three teams in the 1920s. John Madden's cheating teams gave him a .759 and next up are Vince Lombardi (.738) and George Allen (.712).

He's one of 56 NFL coaches to have a championship, with 1. Of those 56, 25 had two or more championships.

Based on my subjective opinion, the coaches that he's probably closest to in overall performance would be:

Reference:
Tony Dungy (208 games, .668 record, 19 postseason games, .474 record, 1 championship)

Peers:
Marv Levy (259 games, .621 record, 19 postseason games, .579 record, 0 championships) - In the Hall of Fame
Bill Cowher (240 games, .623 record, 21 postseason games, .571 record, 1 slightly tainted championship) - NOT in the Hall of Fame
Mike McCarthy (160 games, .653 record, 15 postseason games, .533 record, 1 championship) - Still active
George Seifert (176 games, .648 record, 15 postseason games, .667 record, 2 championships) - NOT in the Hall of Fame

In looking at this record, I'll objectively note that his record appears to place him in the running of actual contenders. That surprised me a little bit, but he's legit in that regard.

However, it's clear that he's in the Hall of Fame because he showed up in Indianapolis right when Peyton Manning hit the prime of his career. He was the coach in Manning's 5th through 11th year of the league, and surprise! Indianapolis won a lot.

There's really no other justification for Dungy other than his regular season record when Manning was the quarterback.

He was an above-average but not spectacular coach in Tampa with a bad playoff record there.
Overall, he has a losing playoff record.
He has only one championship (acquired during Manning's prime).
He didn't even draft or develop Manning. Manning was mature when he arrived.

Terrible, terrible choice for the Hall of Fame.