NFL Playoff Picks: Which Coaches Will Have Most Impact on Their Team's Success

Wildcard weekend has come and gone in the NFL, with coaches like Mike Smith having some huge impacts on their team's success, or the Falcons' case, failure. 

The divisional playoff round will be no different. There will be those gutsy moments by head coaches or some head scratching challenges across the board come next Sunday. Here are the coaches who will most directly impact their team's success next weekend.

John Fox

For as much credit that Tim Tebow will be getting all week for the Denver Broncos miraculous victory over the much favored Pittsburgh Steelers, John Fox deserves a little love too.

Fox has had to adopt an entirely different offensive scheme since Tebow took over as starting quarterback, using an offense that hasn't seen the light of day in the pros since before color television was invented. 

The New England Patriots have a healthy Tom Brady and a deadly offensive attack, but Fox can exploit the massive holes in their defense and will continue to get stellar play from his own. We'll see another miracle from Denver in Foxboro.

Gary Kubiak

Houston Texans' head coach Gary Kubiak was able to help deliver the franchise's first ever playoff appearance and victory last weekend and finds himself with a tall mountain to climb in the form of John Harbaugh's Baltimore Ravens.

The Texans will head into battle once again without their first or second option at quarterback, with Matt Schaub and Matt Leinart done for the season due to injuries. Rookie QB T.J. Yates has filled in admirably for the two but has yet to see a defense quite like the Ravens unit.

Kubiak is going to need to limit Yates' opportunities to throw interceptions, which likely limits Houston's offense to a dink and dunk approach. That being said, the Texans still have Wade Phillips' defense to hold off Joe Flacco and company. 

This match-up will be closer than many think, and if Houston is going to win for the second straight week much of that hinges on Kubiak's decisions on the sideline.

Tom Coughlin

New York Giants head coach Tom Coughlin has learned the highs and lows of being a subject of the New York media's attention over the year's and he'll be under the microscope again this week against the Super Bowl favorite Green Bay Packers.

Coughlin's G-Men will head to historic Lambeau Field in hopes of avenging their regular season loss to the Pack. In order to do so they'll need the very best from both players and head coach.

The Giants have thrived as underdogs once before when they battled their way to a Super Bowl victory in 2007, a playoff season in which they defeated the Packers in Green Bay.

It goes without saying that New York will need Eli and the offense to click the way they did this past Sunday and the defense to get pressure on Aaron Rodgers, but those players will need Coughlin to put them in the best position to do so.

This game has the potential to steal the weekend and the Giants would love nothing more than to slay another Goliath like the defending Super Bowl champions at home.

Jim Harbaugh

The San Francisco 49ers, one of the NFL's most decorated franchises, finally find themselves back in the post-season in large part due to the coaching of Jim Harbaugh.

Harbaugh took a team that had pieces in place but just wasn't living up to potential. The 49ers were 6-10 this time last season, but this year with Harbaugh sporting red and gold on the sideline they had the their division title wrapped up before any other team in the league.

The next challenge for the rookie head coach is the former Super Bowl champion New Orleans Saints, who took down another young gun team in the Detroit Lions last Sunday.

Many of San Francisco's players will be playing in their first playoff game, as will their head coach. Harbaugh not only needs to come up with a near flawless game plan to combat the Saints, but he'll need to calm the nerves of his players so they don't come out like the Cincinnati Bengals did on Wildcard weekend with butterflies in their stomach.

The 49ers will be at home with expectations the highest they've been in the Bay Area since Jeff Garcia and Terrell Owens were donning the golden helmets. If there's any coach that can continue this team's return to prominence, it's Jim Harbaugh.