Bill Belichick Passes George Halas For 2nd Place In Career Wins

EAST RUTHERFORD, NJ — New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick claimed the second most NFL coaching victories on Sunday, breaking the tie between himself and Chicago Bears legend George Halas.

The list includes victories in both the regular and postseasons, with Halas and Belichick sitting at 324 until Sunday, when Belichick notched win number 325 against the New York Jets. Only Don Shula is ahead of the duo with 347 victories.

Pro Football Talk's Josh Alper notes that Belichick was asked after a victory over Cleveland what it meant to be tied with Halas. The transcription of that response is below:

“George Halas, Paul Brown, I probably shouldn’t make that list,” Belichick said after the game. “They were my idols. Coach Halas was again a friend of my dad’s. My dad knew people on the staff that coached for Coach Halas. He coached Bill Wade at Vanderbilt, so they had a lot of Chicago-Halas connections. When they came to Baltimore, we would go to the locker room after the game, stuff like that. They were always very gracious and generous. They let me hang around and stuff like that. A ton of respect for Coach Halas and the McCaskey family, and what he did for professional football and the way that he – and since we’re here, Paul Brown – and others like that paved the way for us as coaches and paved the way for the National Football League to grow into what it is today. They laid a lot of the building blocks.”

Belichick, of course, absolutely belongs on the list of greats. Aside from ranking second in victories, his six Super Bowl wins rank first in league history.

Still, Belichick deferred to his players when speaking of the accomplishment, saying it's impossible to win games without good players.

"I'm very fortunate to have coached a lot of great players and had a lot of great coaches on my staffs through the years. A lot of those guys have gone on to have tremendous careers. And the players, obviously, many of them are Patriots Hall of Fame, NFL Hall of Fame or gonna be. It's really -- winning games in this league is about players, and I've been very fortunate to have a lot of them. Had them at New York. Had them at Cleveland. Had them here."

On Sunday, however, outside linebacker Matthew Judon flipped the script on his coach.

"We're very proud of our coach. He tells us players win games, but he won all those games -- he game-planned, he did the film, the preparation, the study, and put his players in position to make plays. Him being second all-time, that's just an accomplishment to him as a coach, the longevity he's had, and like he said, the players as well," Judon said.

The Patriots beat the Jets 22-17 on Sunday. They face the Indianapolis Colts next week.