There’s no shortage of history that’s been made by Bill Belichick or Pete Carroll in their sterling coaching careers.
When their teams stand on opposing sidelines Sunday night, they’ll make a little history together.
Carroll and Belichick, 69 and 68-years-young, respectively, are the two oldest coaches in the NFL and their combined age of 137 years and 162 days on game day will set a record for the oldest head coaching matchup in the history of the league, per NFL Research.
Like fine wine, Bill and Pete will age past Marv Levy and Don Shula, who were a combined 136 years and 117 days old when they battled one last time back in Week 16 of 1995, according to NFL Research.
In previous head-to-head matchups, Carroll owns a 2-1 advantage.
Between the two, their NFL success is historic, as well, obviously. The two have combined for 455 wins in the regular season and seven Super Bowl trophies — although Belichick clearly has a huge advantage there.
And who knows how long they’ll keep building on to their Hall of Fame resumes.
“I don’t know,” Carroll said when asked who would retire first. “Ask him. I’m feeling great. I’m kind of on a five-year plan. Five years from now I’ll figure it out and reassess. I actually owe that to David Brooks. And he taught me that a while back. Something he wrote, ‘Why are you looking year-to-year? Why don’t you just plan it out over a five-year period?’ So, each year is five more years. So it was five years last and it’s five years this year and we’ll figure it out when the time comes.”
Though their ages are adding up to history, their past and present success offers no reason that their futures will be up anytime soon.
For now, it’s all about this Sunday and another historic marker in two historical coaching careers.
