NFL Coach Of The Year Candidates

The NFL Coach of the Year has not been announced yet and all of the coaches on “division-winning teams” will get some consideration.  Among the coaches in that category, Dan Quinn (Atlanta) and Jason Garrett (Dallas) ought to get plenty of votes.  By the same token, Bill Belichick (New England), Mike McCarthy (Green Bay) and Pete Carroll (Seattle) should get less attention in this category since many folks expected them and their teams to win their division all the way back in August.  I would like to throw the names of two “non-division-winning coaches” into the pot here:

1. Jack Del Rio (Oakland):  The Raiders last made the playoffs at the end of the 2002 season; that was also the last time they had a record better than .500 for a single season.  The Raiders finished this year at 12-4 and did so with their starting QB on the shelf at the end of the season and with their second string QB out after playing about 30 minutes of football in relief.
2. Adam Gase (Miami):  The Dolphins made the playoffs for the first time since 2008 with a 10-6 record.  Like the Raiders, they had to finish the season with their starting QB on the sidelines in street clothes.

I do not expect either of these coaches to win the Coach of the Year award but they do deserve a mention in that category…

I do not want to hear any griping about Jason Garrett when it comes to Coach of the Year voting; he could well be the winner and it would not be an outrageous choice.  The fact that the Cowboys spiked the ball to preserve a timeout they never used and which gave Aaron Rodgers more time to mount a comeback in last weekend’s playoff game was a coaching decision that came back to bite him in the butt.  Had the Cowboys made a first down on that series and made the subsequent field goal, he would be considered a red-headed genius.

Jason Garrett did not lose that playoff game to the Packers any more than any single Cowboys player lost that game.  The Packers won the game because of other-worldly play by Aaron Rodgers; there is no blame to hand out to anyone in the Cowboys’ locker room for that.

The mantra performed by most of the media that covers the NFL is that you build powerhouse teams through the draft.  Ommmmm …  Through the draft ….  Ommmmm …

Well, it is just a tad more complicated than that and the perfect example to demonstrate that there is more to it than merely drafting high in the draft order is provided by the Jacksonville Jaguars.  Let me see; every year since 2012, the Jags have had a draft pick in the Top 5.  By this point, you might expect them to be on the verge of breaking out…

• In 2012, Justin Blackmon was their Top 5 pick.  If I were to say that pick was “useless” or “disastrous” I would be paying it a compliment.
• In 2013, Luke Joeckel was their top 5 pick.  He started at OT and was then moved inside to OG; reports say the Jags are looking to move him on to someone else but they did not pick up his option year to assure they could do that.  This is better than the pick in 2012 – but just about anything would be.
• In 2014, Blake Bortles was their Top 5 pick.  Let me be kind and say the jury is still out on him.  If I were not so kind, I would call this pick a “wasted opportunity”…
• In 2015, Dante Fowler was their Top 5 pick.  He missed his entire rookie season with a knee injury but looked like a competent DE in this his first year in the NFL.
• In 2016, Jalen Ramsey was their Top 5 pick.  He played extremely well in his rookie season and has been mentioned as a candidate for defensive rookie of the year.

Given that array of “Top 5 talent” one might be surprised to see that the Jags will – once again – draft 4^th in the April NFL Draft.  Indeed, having high draft picks can be a solid way to build a team from the bottom up – but it is not the draft position that is most important.  It is the selection made with those “high picks” that turns the “potential asset” into a “real asset”.  If the Jags get a bona fide starting player in this year’s draft, that will give them about a .500 batting average with Top 5 picks since 2012.  Not to put too fine a point on it, but that is just not good enough…

There was a coaching move in college football that caught my eye because it seemed like the “Great Leap Backwards” when I heard it.  Rhett Lashlee was the offensive coordinator at Auburn; he is a young coach and just about all of his coaching experience has been with Gus Malzahn’s staff at various locales.  In the last couple of weeks, Lashlee left Auburn to take the offensive coordinator position at UConn.  As a follower of college football and as someone with exactly no ties to or animus toward either UConn or Auburn, this move makes me shake my head.  Normally, I would expect a coach at UConn to take a job at Auburn if it were offered and not the reverse.

Then again; maybe the fact that Lashlee and the UConn offense will not need to confront the Alabama defense and/or the LSU defense every season makes his decision all the more sensible…

ESPN will break up Mike Greenberg and Mike Golic from ESPN Radio’s Mike and Mike in the Morning program and give Greenberg a TV hosting slot.  I am not a huge consumer of ESPN Radio but it does seem to me that Mike and Mike is the flagship in the fleet so I do wonder why the suits are breaking that up – – unless there is some behind the scenes friction that is not apparent at all on the air.

Finally, here is an observation from Brad Dickson in the Omaha World-Herald:

“Peyton Manning was at the Music City Bowl. And you thought the guy shouting ‘Omaha! Omaha!’ throughout the game was rooting for Nebraska?”

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports………