Kubiak has, IMO, better HC skills than Wade.
I think Kubiak has a public persona and a private one. Very Tom Landry'ish.
I still don't think he's a complete HC, though. Otherwise, he would have had a functional defense from day one. To me, a HC has to cover all the bases...not just the one that he has been really good at doing.
Wade Phillips and Dom Capers both had a team (Bills and Panthers, respectively) that probably played a bit over their own heads...and Capers and Phillips look like 34 geniuses in my book.
Remember when Capers was here? Our defense looked functional, it was the best part of the team actually. Sure, vets got old and some got released, but still...our defense was not as bad as anything we saw the past five years under Richard Smith and Frank Bush. That's because Capers still had his fingerprints on the defense, though he was a HC of the team.
Flash forward to the past five years, the offense gets better and the defense regresses exponentially each year. Not a coincidence. One HC, Capers, was a defense-minded guy and had the chance to lend a hand in the creation and implementation of his defense...until Fangio found a way to muddy the waters with his complex ways (according to some research by Texans Chick, IIRC). The other HC, Kubiak, improves the offense and the defense slides...because Kubiak, the archetype to Capers did what he (Kubiak) does best: Make an offense better than it was.
All this is to say that out of the three men in this conversation--Kubiak, Capers, and Phillips--it sure appears that Kubiak by a very small fraction is a better HC than Capers and Phillips. Granted, Phillips and Capers took their respective teams into playoffs and Kubiak didn't, but I think Kubiak has shown more HC resolve and savvy nature in how he handles things that happen. Just my 0.02.
Capers is making hay as a 34 d-coord. He could cement his legacy if he stays there and wins another SB or two somehow. Though that's hard to do.
Wade could do the same thing here.
And I totally agree that coordinators should have a presence in Coach of The Year awards. Does the NFL or media associations have categories for OC and DC of the Year awards? They should, IMO.