Today's Patriots Longevity Reminder: Bill Belichick's Career Win Total
By Michael Hurley, CBS Boston
BOSTON (CBS) -- It's been a decade since Bill Belichick, during an honest moment in his car, put an expiration date on his head coaching career.
"I mean, I don't want to be like Marv Levy, coaching in my 70s," Belichick told the NFL Films crew in his car during the 2009 season. "You don't have to worry about that."
Belichick isn't in his 70s just yet, but at age 67, the Patriots' head coach has given zero indication that he plans on walking away any time soon.
Of course, Belichick has made a career out of pulling off shocking moves that nobody could have seen coming. So when he does finally retire from his head coaching position, it's likely to happen abruptly and without warning -- outside of that 2009 proclamation.
For now, though, Belichick is reporting to work every day, scouring the NFL for potential roster additions, scouting the undrafted rookies on his own squad, employing the same methods that allowed him to become one of the greatest -- if not the single greatest -- coaches in football history.
And though there are countless ways to highlight the preposterous run of success from the Patriots over the past 20 years, today's avenue involves a look at the number of victories each current head coach in the NFL has to his name. Belichick is, obviously, at the top, with his 261 total regular-season victories (he had 26 in Cleveland and currently has 225 with New England).
Out of the other 31 NFL head coaches, only one coach -- Andy Reid -- has even half of Belichick's victories.
CAREER REGULAR-SEASON VICTORIES, ACTIVE NFL HEAD COACHES
1. Bill Belichick: 261-123 (.680)
2. Andy Reid: 195-124-1 (.611)
3. Mike Tomlin: 125-66-1 (.654)
4. Pete Carroll: 122-85-1 (.589)
5. Sean Payton: 118-74 (.615)
6. John Harbaugh: 104-72 (.591)
7. Jon Gruden: 99-93 (.516)
8. Jason Garrett: 77-59 (.566)
9. Ron Rivera: 71-56-1 (.559)
10. Bruce Arians: 49-30-1 (.619)
11. Mike Zimmer: 47-50 (.485)
12. Bill O'Brien: 42-38 (.525)
13. Dan Quinn: 36-28 (.563)
14. Jay Gruden: 35-44-1 (.444)
15. Doug Marrone: 31-35 (.470)
16. Doug Pederson: 29-19 (.604)3
17. Sean McVay: 24-8 (.750)
18. Adam Gase: 23-25 (.479)
19. Anthony Lynn: 21-12 (.636)
20. Sean McDermott: 15-17 (.469)
21. Pat Shurmur: 15-34 (.306)
22. Matt Nagy: 12-4 (.750)
23. Frank Reich: 10-6 (.625)
24. Kyle Shanahan: 10-22 (.313)
25. Mike Vrabel: 9-7 (563)
26. Matt Patricia: 6-10 (.375)
T-27. Vic Fangio: 0-0
T-27. Brian Flores: 0-0
T-27. Kliff Kingsbury: 0-0
T-27. Freddie Kitchens: 0-0
T-27. Matt LaFleur: 0-0
T-27. Zac Taylor: 0-0
Even though Belichick's longevity and success have been well-documented over the years, it's nevertheless a bit startling to see the stark contrast in experience and success laid out in a neat and tidy list.
Reid provides a good contrast. The current Chiefs head coach and former Eagles head coach has just one more career loss than Belichick, but he also has precisely 66 fewer victories.
The rest of the league is simply miles away. Mike Tomlin has the second-best winning percentage among current head coaches (behind Belichick), but he'll have to continue winning at that rate for 13 more years just to get where Belichick is now on the all-time wins list.
The fact that Bruce Arians can sneak into the current top 10 in wins by having just 19 percent of the wins that Belichick has just goes to show that coaches aren't supposed to last as long as New England's has in the NFL.
(If you're curious, Belichick has a ways to go in order to become the winningest head coach of all time. Belichick has 67 fewer regular-season victories than Don Shula, who went 328-156-6 for a .677 winning percentage with the Colts and Dolphins. George Halas won 318 games, 57 more than Belichick's current total. In terms of regular season and playoff wins combined, Belichick trails Shula by 55 victories and Halas by 32 wins.)
And all of that only looks at the regular season, of course. If we were to include postseason success, the gap grows even greater.
CAREER PLAYOFF VICTORIES, ACTIVE NFL HEAD COACHES
- Bill Belichick: 31-11 (.738)
- Andy Reid: 12-14 (.462)
- John Harbaugh: 10-6 (.625)
- Pete Carroll: 10-8 (.556)
- Sean Payton: 8-6 (.571)
- Mike Tomlin: 8-7 (.533)
- Jon Gruden: 5-4 (.556)
- Doug Pederson: 4-1 (.800)
- Ron Rivera: 3-4 (.429)
- Dan Quinn: 3-2 (.600)
- Jason Garrett: 2-3 (.400)
- Sean McVay: 2-2 (.500)
- Doug Marrone: 2-1 (.667)
- Bill O'Brien: 1-3 (.250)
- Bruce Arians: 1-2 (.333)
- Mike Zimmer: 1-2 (.333)
- Anthony Lynn: 1-1 (.500)
- Frank Reich: 1-1 (.500
- Jay Gruden: 0-1 (.000)
- Matt Nagy: 0-1 (.000)
- Adam Gase: 0-1 (.000)
- Sean McDermott: 0-1 (.000)
- 10 Coaches Have Zero Playoff Games
There are 32 head coaches in the NFL, and Belichick has more playoff victories than 26 of them combined.
Reid, Harbaugh and Carroll have combined to have exactly one more playoff victory than Belichick; together, they have 17 more playoff losses.
Put another way:
CAREER PLAYOFF WINNING PERCENTAGE
1. Bill Belichick: 31-11 (.738)
2. Reid, Harbaugh, Carroll, Peyton and Tomlin Combined: 48-41 (.539)
3. All Other Head Coaches Combined: 26-30 (.464)
To an extent, all of this is well known. Yet with another 10-plus victories likely on the horizon for the Patriots and Belichick, it's a story that's not yet finished being written.
You can email Michael Hurley or find him on Twitter @michaelFhurley.
