One of the Miami Dolphins’ most proud records feels a little safer this morning, but a new threat looms on the horizon entering 2025 NFL season
One of Miami’s most proud records is looking a little safer this morning.
The Miami Dolphins are an organization rich in history and proud heritage. It hasn’t always felt like it in recent years. However, Miami is still one of the league’s winningest organizations, boasts the NFL’s only undefeated championship season in the Super Bowl era, helped push the direction of the game to what we know it as today, courtesy of Dan Marino, and much, much more.
Up until the past two years, the Dolphins organization and the rest of the football world were a little leery that one of the records held by one of their own might be in jeopardy.
That, of course, would be Don Shula’s all-time great status as the winningest coach in the history of the NFL. Shula still holds the record for most regular season wins (318) and most overall wins (347) in the history of the league — numbers so lofty that they’re almost inconceivable that someone would best. Except Bill Belichick nearly did.
Almost. And after Belichick’s debut on Monday night with the North Carolina Tar Heels, Shula’s record looks a little safer from a Belichick return to the NFL. The Tar Heels lost 48-14 at home to the TCU Horned Frogs.
Don Shula still leads Bill Belichick by 14 wins in the all-time record book
Maybe Belichick’s North Carolina Tar Heels bounce back with a soft-ish schedule, and his debut season in Chapel Hill is considered a successful one. Maybe. But it’s hard to imagine this iteration of Belichick, who appeared to leave New England just 14 wins short of Shula’s all-time wins mark on bad terms with Robert Kraft and the Patriots, closing the season with any level of momentum for a return to the league.
Belichick was considered for the Atlanta Falcons job when he first left the Patriots, which could have set the stage for him to further close the gap with Shula. But instead, Belichick took a gap year. He got his hands involved in podcast shows, advising media companies that turned into football consulting agencies, and everything in between, before landing the UNC job.
A gap year and then a retreat to college is one thing. However, going to college to undertake rebuilding a program and struggling through the early stages of the rebuild won’t prompt NFL teams to line up to offer Belichick a head coaching job again in the pros. Not in the NIL era, where some teams are able to completely remake and reshape their rosters overnight in a single offseason to collect competitive seasons.
Rebuilding a program takes time. Belichick, who is 73 years old, doesn’t have a lot of it. Not if he wants to capture the lightning in a bottle needed to best Shula in the win column. The selling point gets harder and harder each year, when NFL teams want long-term answers and long-term stability in their football operation. Belichick’s Tar Heels conceded 48 points on Monday night — a point total that Bill’s NFL defenses never conceded. We’re running out of gas here, Bill. Shula and the win record should be safe from one of Miami’s big, bad rivals since the turn of the millennium.
But not forever, of course. Kansas City’s Andy Reid is next on “Shula Watch”. Reid enters the 2025 NFL season with 301 total wins, 46 behind Shula. At the rate of Kansas City’s last five seasons, it would take Reid three more years to surpass Shula on the all-time wins mark. Let’s hope the pace slows down.
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