Few coaches have made it as far as Dennis Allen while losing so many games

Few have made it as far as Dennis Allen while losing so many games. He’s going into Week 7 at .500 or better for the first time in his five years as a head coach:

Dennis Allen is going into Week 7 at .500 or better for the first time in his five years as an NFL head coach, which isn’t exactly a silver lining for New Orleans Saints fans after his team fell to 3-3 in a loss on Sunday.

Between his ugly stint with the Raiders and this continually disappointing run with the Saints, Allen has 59 games behind him as a head coach. But he’s gone 18-41 in that stretch, which results in a career winning percentage of .305. His 10-13 record with the Saints so far is doing a lot of heavy lifting after he went .222 with the Raiders a decade ago.

For historical perspective, Allen is one of 176 head coaches to work 59 or more games in NFL history. But he ranks 171st in that group in career winning percentage. Here are the only coaches with a worse record:

  • Marion Campbell: 34-80-1 from 1974-76, 1983-85, 1987-89 (.300)
  • Joe Bugel: 24-56 from 1990-93, 1997 (.300)
  • Pat Shurmur: 19-46 from 2011-12, 2015, 2018-19 (.292)
  • David Shula: 19-52 from 1992-1996 (.268)
  • Gus Bradley: 14-48 from 2013-2016 (.226)
That’s not a group you’d like to belong in, but that’s where Allen — and the Saints, having hired and empowered him — currently belong. Allen would have to win his next 24 consecutive games to get over .500. That’s not likely to happen given his longest win streak was set last year at three games, cut short in the regular season finale by a Carolina Panthers team that managed just 32 passing yards.

This is who Allen is, and it’s what the Saints are as a team: a squad that’s lucky to get over .500 and, more often than not, sits quite a ways beneath that mark. Allen and his staff have a lot of work to do in changing the narrative, but time isn’t on their side.

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