The NFL's winningest coaches

Indy coach Tony Dungy did more than win his first NFL championship this year. He climbed another rung on the list of winningest coaches in league history.

 

In fact, the list of coaches with better records than Dungy is short and illustrious: Madden, Lombardi, Allen, Collier, Shula and Halas. Those are the only coaches in NFL history with a better winning percentage than Dungy's .648 (among coaches with 100 or more games).

 

Dungy entered the season second to Hall of Famer Joe Gibbs among active coaches. But Dungy leapfrogged Gibbs this season, as the Colts went 12-4 while the Redskins struggled through a 5-11 season. 

 

Note that Dungy boasts more career victories than legends such as John Madden and Vince Lombardi. He does have his work cut out for him if he wants to move past Chicago icon George Halas and join the top six: Dungy would need to field the equivalent of four consecutive 12-4 teams in the next four years to surpass Halas and his .671 career record.

 

Here's a look at the 15 most successful coaches in NFL history, ranked by regular-season winning percentage. Remember, Cold, Hard Football Facts.com is the ONLY place where you'll find an accurate list of coaches' winning percentage. As we noted last year, the Elias Sports Bureau, which provides official NFL data, inexplicably uses three different formuals to calculate the winning percentages of coaches from different eras.

 

  

* Paul Brown's numbers include his NFL career only. They do not include his four years leading the Browns in the All-America Football Conference. Brown's Browns went 47-4-3 (.898) in those four AAFC regular seasons, and 5-0 in the playoffs. This gives him a professional coaching record of 213-104-9 (.667), and 9-8 in the playoffs (.529). Curiously, official NFL statistics include Cleveland quarterback Otto Graham's AAFC numbers, but not the coach's AAFC numbers.

By Kerry Byrne