Only 11 head coaches in NFL history have coached past their 66th birthday, the current age for retirement with full Social Security benefits in the U.S.
Bruce Arians becomes No. 12 when the Bucs open at home Sept. 8 against San Francisco.
Among members of the 66-and-older club, six have won Super Bowls. Two won NFL championships. One won both.
Five are in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
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One won six Super Bowls. Another lost four of them.
Yet in 33 combined seasons coached by an NFL head coach who was 66 or older, just over half (17) ended with a winning record.
Only six included a postseason victory — four by Buffalo’s Marv Levy.
Of special note considering Arians turns 67 on Oct. 3: Only Levy, George Halas, Tom Coughlin and Dick Vermeil have coached beyond that age.
Here’s a season-by-season look at how the NFL head coaches who were still at it beyond 66 fared:
Marv Levy, Buffalo
Record after 66th birthday: 69-43 (.616)
Age | Season | Record | Notable |
---|---|---|---|
66 | 1991 | 13-3 | Levy, who celebrated his 94th birthday on Aug. 3, was 65 when Scott Norwood missed wide right in Tampa to lose Super Bowl 25. Super Bowl loss No. 2 came to Washington 37-24 in Minneapolis. |
67 | 1992 | 11-5 | Wouldn’t it be nice if this Levy team was best remembered for “The Comeback,” rallying from a 35-3 deficit to beat Houston in overtime? Unfortunately, there was that 52-17 loss to Dallas in Super Bowl 27. |
68 | 1993 | 12-4 | Don Beebe on how the Bills dealt with all the Super Bowl losses: “I think that comes a lot from the Winston Churchill poems and the speeches that we would get from Marv.” The streak reaches four with a 30-13 loss to Dallas in Super Bowl 28. |
69 | 1994 | 7-9 | Buffalo loses its last three to miss the playoffs for the first time since 1987. |
70 | 1995 | 10-6 | Levy and the Bills dispatch Miami 37-22 in wild-card game in 65-year-old Don Shula’s final game. |
71 | 1996 | 10-6 | Tom Coughlin and the Jacksonville Jaguars win their playoff debut with a 10-7 wild-card victory in Jim Kelly’s final game. There hasn’t been a home playoff game in Buffalo since. |
72 | 1997 | 6-10 | A rough ending for Levy, falling out of playoff contention by losing six of the last seven. |
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George Halas, Chicago
Regular-season record: 54-39-5 (.577)
Age | Season | Record | Notable |
---|---|---|---|
66 | 1961 | 8-6 | A rookie tight end named Mike Ditka scored 12 touchdowns. |
67 | 1962 | 9-5 | The Bears were outscored 87-7 in two losses to Green Bay. |
68 | 1963 | 11-1-2 | Halas still stands as the oldest coach to win an NFL championship or Super Bowl by virtue of the Bears’ 14-10 title-game win over the Giants. |
69 | 1964 | 5-9 | Papa Bear’s title defense is devastated before it even begins by the death of former Florida A&M star Willie Galimore and teammate John Farrington in a July car accident. |
70 | 1965 | 9-5 | That Gayle Sayers was pretty good. |
71 | 1966 | 5-7-2 | The Bears were outscored 30-6 in two losses to Green Bay that led to Halas’ sixth losing season in 40 years. |
72 | 1967 | 7-6-1 | The season Halas introduced us to Brian Piccolo and ultimately “Brian’s Song.” |
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Explore all your optionsTom Coughlin, N.Y. Giants
Record: 28-40 (.411)
Age | Season | Record | Notable |
---|---|---|---|
66 | 2012 | 9-7 | Worth remembering: Coughlin went 9-7 and won the Super Bowl at age 65. |
67 | 2013 | 7-9 | The Giants became the first team in NFL history to have a five-year span in which they won the Super Bowl in year three and missed the playoffs every other year. |
68 | 2014 | 6-10 | The Eagles’ role in Coughlin’s downfall: He lost 10 of his last 13 versus Philly. |
69 | 2015 | 6-10 | The kind of stuff that gets two-time Super Bowl winners fired: The Giants became the first team in NFL history start 0-2 by blowing wo blow double-digit, fourth-quarter leads. |
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Dick Vermeil, Kansas City
Regular-season record: 34-22 (.607)
(Editor’s note: Vermeil’s birthday is Oct. 30)
Age | Season | Record | Notable |
---|---|---|---|
66 | 2002 | 4-4 | The Chiefs, who averaged 29.2 points. had the second largest offense-defense imbalance from 1992-2010, according to Football Outsiders. The largest discrepancy: the 1992 Seahawks. |
67 | 2003 | 13-3 | In Vermeil’s last postseason game, the Chiefs lost 38-31 to Indianapolis in a game in which neither team punted. |
68 | 2004 | 7-9 | The Chiefs’ 483 points were the highest total in NFL history for a team that finished with a losing record. |
69 | 2005 | 10-6 | One of 21 in NFL history to finish 10-6 and fail to make the playoffs, a list that includes the 2010 Bucs, Arians’ 2013 Cardinals and Todd Bowles’ 2015 Jets. |
Ted Marchibroda, Baltimore
Record: 12-19-1 (.390)
Age | Season | Record | Notable |
---|---|---|---|
66 | 1997 | 6-9-1 | Marchibroda’s unique place in NFL history: The reserve quarterback the Steelers kept over Johnny Unitas; the coach Art Modell hired to replace Bill Belichick. |
67 | 1998 | 6-10 | Replacing Vinny Testaverde with Jim Harbaugh didn’t work out too well. |
Pete Carroll, Seattle
Regular season record: 18-13 (.580)
(Editor’s note: Carroll’s birthday is Sept. 15)
Age | Season | Record | Notable |
---|---|---|---|
66 | 2017 | 8-7 | Feels like a good place to mention the Nov. 3 Bucs-Seahawks game in Seattle will mark the first meeting in NFL history between head coaches age 66 or older. |
67 | 2018 | 10-6 | With Seattle’s 24-22 loss at Dallas on Jan. 5 in the wild-card round, Halas, Levy and Belichick (see below) are the only NFL head coaches over 65 to win a playoff game. |
Paul Brown, Cincinnati
Regular season record: 18-10 (.642)
Age | Season | Record | Notable |
---|---|---|---|
66 | 1974 | 7-7 | Brown remained a brilliant offensive mind until the end. Ken Anderson won the 1974 NFL passing championship, completing 64.9 percent. Having Bill Walsh as your quarterback coach doesn’t hurt. |
67 | 1975 | 11-3 | Retired after 45 coaching seasons four days after a 31-28 playoff loss to Oakland. |
Joe Gibbs, Washington
Regular season record: 11-11 (.500)
(Editor’s note: Gibbs’ birthday is Nov. 25)
Age | Season | Record | Notable |
---|---|---|---|
66 | 2006 | 2-4* | Turned 66 six days after a 20-17 loss at Tampa Bay, one of six losses in last eight games. |
67 | 2007 | 9-7 | Announced his retirement after a 35-14 loss at Seattle in the wild-card round. |
Bill Belichick, New England
Regular season record: 11-5 (.688)
Age | Season | Record | Notable |
---|---|---|---|
66 | 2018 | 11-5 | At age 65, Tom Coughlin became the oldest coach to win a Super Bowl when his Giants defeated the Belichick’s Patriots, 21-17 on Feb. 5, 2012. Seven Super Bowl and three Patriots Super Bowl titles later, Belichick eclipsed Coughlin for that distinction when the Patriots beat the Rams in Super Bowl 53 last February. |
Jim Mora, Indianapolis
Record: 6-10 (.375)
Age | Season | Record | Notable |
---|---|---|---|
66 | 2001 | 6-10 | Remember the post-game tirade, “Playoffs? Don’t talk about -- playoffs?! Playoffs? I just hope we win a game!” That happened this season. Tony Dungy took it from there. |
Weeb Ewbank, N.Y. Jets
Record: 4-10 (.286)
Age | Season | Record | Notable |
---|---|---|---|
66 | 1973 | 4-10 | Ewbank won NFL titles with the 1958 and ’59 Colts and Super Bowl III with the Jets. But Joe Namath’s gimpy knees and terms of the Jets’ Shea Stadium lease doomed Weeb’s last season. The Jets were forced to open with six straight road games, due in part to the Mets’ run to the 1973 World Series. |
Contact Mike Sherman at msherman@tampabay.com. Follow @mikesherman