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)
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.
