by Chase Stuart
on July 7, 2019
In this series, I will be looking at the history of coaches, quarterbacks, rushers, and receivers for all 32 franchises. For coaches and quarterbacks, I will be looking at how much their franchise’s career records (regular season only) would change if we removed the games with that person. For rushers and receivers, I will note how many times that player was the team’s leading rusher/receiver over the course of their time with that franchise (regular plus postseason).
Previous Teams:
Dolphins
Cowboys
The Buffalo Bills have had a lot of disappointing coaches in their history — I’m looking at you, Harvey Johnson — and only a few good ones. Just four have winning records, although that’s not the worst by AFC East standards. In many divisions, Marv Levy would be considered a strong candidate for the best coach in division history. In the AFC East, he’s relegated to third. But when it comes to Bills coaches, nobody can match his record: [continue reading…]
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by Chase Stuart
on July 6, 2019
In this series, I will be looking at the history of coaches, quarterbacks, rushers, and receivers for all 32 franchises. For coaches and quarterbacks, I will be looking at how much their franchise’s career records (regular season only) would change if we removed the games with that person. For rushers and receivers, I will note how many times that player was the team’s leading rusher/receiver over the course of their time with that franchise (regular plus postseason).
Previous Teams:
Dolphins
For the Cowboys, it’s not hard to figure out who is the best coach in team history. Tom Landry was so good for so long, that he’s really inflated the team’s overall mark. Consider Jason Garrett, who has gone a very respectable 77-59 as head coach of the Cowboys. That’s a 0.566 winning percentage, but that’s actually lower than the team’s overall winning percentage of 0.573. In other words, Dallas has a better career record in games without Garrett than with Garrett, which is a harbinger of things to come in today’s post. Meanwhile, Dave Campo is the only coach in Dallas history who had a losing record. [continue reading…]
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by Chase Stuart
on July 5, 2019
This offseason, I’m going to look at team histories in a different way than such data is usually presented. I’ll be looking at coach and quarterback records, along with rushing and receiving milestones. Let’s begin with coaches, and start with the Miami Dolphins.
Don Shula is one of the best coaches in history. He posted a 257-133-2 record in 392 regular season games, a 0.658 winning percentage. Now consider that over the course of its entire history, Miami has played 816 games, producing a 452-360-4 record, a 0.556 winning percentage.
In this series, I will look at how each coach has changed their franchise’s career winning percentages. Here’s what I mean, using Miami as an example. We know that the Dolphins have a 0.556 winning percentage. But in games not coached by Shula, Miami only has a 0.462 winning percentage. That’s a decline of 9.4%! Shula coached nearly half of all Miami games and has well over half of the franchise’s wins. If you perform this calculation for every coach for every team in NFL history — which I did — you will find that Shula has improved his franchise’s overall winning percentage by more than any other coach in history.
The table below shows this data for every coach in Miami history. The coach who has harmed the team’s winning percentage the most is George Wilson, the first coach of the team and Shula’s predecessor. He went 15-39-2 coaching the expansion franchise — hey, no judgment here — and without him, Miami would have a franchise winning percentage of 0.576, which is 2% higher than the team’s actual winning percentage.
For every post in this series, I will post the full results in a table like this, sorted by best to worst in terms of improving his franchise’s overall win percentage. [continue reading…]
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