Will Andy Reid break the all-time career record for wins as a head coach?

[RealSNR]

The Don Shula thread got me thinking about this. Andy Reid is 125 wins behind tying Shula if you count the playoffs. RunKC mentioned in that thread the possibility that Andy would coach for another decade since he has Patrick Mahomes as his QB, so he doesn't have to spend sleepless nights figuring out how to win games with AJ Feeley as his QB.

"Andy's really fat! No way! He's gonna die!" Are you sure about that? That fat man has lasted this long as an NFL head coach and has yet to miss a single NFL game because of a health issue, fat and all. It's a super stressful job and the guy still insanely energetic. So let's throw that argument away and assume he does coach for another decade. Is that a realistic mark for him to break the record if he has Patrick Mahomes as his QB all of those years? He's 126 wins away from breaking Shula's record, and he's 62. Usually you would look at that task and go, "More than 12 wins per season for 10 straight seasons? Awfully tall task."

Well, not so fast. He gets a 17 game season for 8 or 9 of those years. Then you get the playoffs with Mahomes as your QB. And in any given year in which he comes in under the required yearly average for wins in the regular season, he'll most likely be at a 2 seed or worse, which in the new playoff structure gives him an opportunity to rack up an extra win against a theoretically easier playoff opponent.

So he DOES need to average 12.5 wins a year, but if he gets close to that number every season, the years in which he outright dominates should balance out the seasons where he doesn't hit the 12.5 wins mark.

He needs to do a lot better than his current career win percentage of .610 from here on out, but he's Andy Reid, and he's attempting this task with Patrick Mahomes, not McNabb, Garcia, Feeley, Vick, or Alex.

However, he's got one more obstacle in his way: Bill Belichick, who is 43 wins away. A couple of years ago I would have said, "He's going to shatter that." But once again, not so fast. George Halas and Marv Levy each hold the record for oldest NFL head coaches in history at 72. I know people are living longer and healthier these days, but I think I would apply that to someone like Pete Carroll. Bill Belichick? He just turned 68. And these days he probably tilts more towards the Andy Reid side of health than he does Pete Carroll. Additionally, he just handed the team over to some doofus named Garrett Shittem and didn't give him any kind of offensive support other than some extra TEs. I gather that they're going to be a run-first offense, but this is a little extreme. He might just wear out his welcome before those arbitrary 4 years he has to get to 43 wins and beyond.

Poll forthcoming