Don Shula is the NFL's winningest coach.

I was inspired to write this article by a recent debate in the FinNation forums: with New England making its fifth Super Bowl in 11 years with Bill Belichick, is the 60 year old Patriots legend now officially the greatest coach in NFL history?

My answer is simple.  Shula gets my vote as the best coach ever, every time.   Consider the objective evidence:

Shula won 73 percent of his games over a 23 year period from 1963-1985. He averaged 11 wins per year during that time frame, and for two-thirds of it the schedule was either 12 or 14 regular season games. No other coach can claim that level of sustained, consistent excellence for that long.

Imagine someone averaging 12-4 for 23 years, because that’s what it would take to do it now.  Oh, and if our hypothetical coach managed to do that, he’d have 276 wins—meaning he’d still need 71 more wins, or, if you prefer, six more 12 win seasons to pass Don Shula on the all time wins list.

True, the backers of Belichick, Lombardi and Noll will tell you there’s more to it than just compiling victories.  Indeed, there is, and during that same 23 year time period, Shula got his team to the league championship game 7 times.  In other words, he got his team to the championship game/Super Bowl once every 3 years for over two decades.   Think that’ll ever happen again?  To be fair, Belichick has a shot to match The Don…..IF he can get to two more Super Bowls in the next 6 years (he’s coached 17 seasons to date).

But with Tom Brady being 35 next season and also being the only quarterback that Belichick has ever gone to a Super Bowl with, I’d say the odds are against it.  Let’s now look at the coaches of the last 50 years who might logically be considered Hall of Famers and/or Shula’s peers, and the starting quarterbacks on their Super Bowl and/or NFL Championship teams:

• Landry: Staubach (4), Morton (1)
• Noll: Bradshaw only
• Belicheck: Brady only
• Walsh: Montana only
• Vermeil: Jaworski (1), Warner (1)
• Parcells: Simms (2), Bledsoe (1). (Maybe you could make an argument for Hostetler instead of the 2nd Simms, but Simms started 75% of that season before he was injured)
• Seifert: Montana and Young once apiece.
• Reeves: Elway (3), Chandler (1)
• Shanahan: Elway twice.
• Coughlin: Manning twice.
• Ewbank: Unitas and Namath.
• Cowher: O’Donnell and Big Ben.
• Lombardi: Starr was the QB each time.

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