NFL: Are you kidding me? Why? Marvin Lewis Coach of the year? Gahhhh!!!

Posted: January 16th, 2010 | Author: Zim | Filed under: Cincinnati Bengals, NFL, Uncategorized | No Comments »

Marvin Lewis contemplates his days back in high school basketball.

• The AP’s NFL Coach of the Year is Marvin Lewis?  Are you freakin’ kidding me???  What the hell for???
• With the play-offs only a week old and his team not among those playing any more games, don’t you think that Lewis’s award was a bit pre-mature???
• Deconstructing an award winner in this case is EASY, try a (10-15) record when it matters most.

by Mike Zimmer, Falcons fan

How is it a guy that lead a team to a disappointing first round loss in the play-offs and his team lost 4 of 5 down the stretch can be NFL Coach of the Year?  Especially when another guy, Rex Ryan, was doing more with less and beat the guy that won the award twice in 6-days?

That’s right, Rex Ryan to me is a better candidate considering his team is in the Divisional round of the play-offs with a rookie QB and a rag-tag unit on both offense and defense that whipped Lewis’s Bungles twice.  More over, you cannot tell me that Marvin Lewis has done a better job that John Harbaugh of Baltimore or Norv Turner with San Diego.  I think there is a HUGE case to be made for waiting until the play-offs are over to decide who exactly is the coach of the year that’s for sure.

Why Marvin Lewis is the AP’s NFL Coach of the Year, (http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/news;_ylt=AiTisMZE26L2JMpjMGnRquE5nYcB?slug=ap-coachofyear&prov=ap&type=lgns) and I have no idea.  And don’t give me any shit about the great turn around of the Bungles this year, because the end result is, they were still a shitty team that faltered when it mattered most.  Coach’s of the Year have their teams humming late in the season.  Marvin Lewis has NEVER had his team humming late in the year.

Want evidence?  Well, if you discount last year’s late “surge” when the team won three absolutely meaningless games, since 2005, Marvin Lewis’s teams are a grand total of (10-15) after December and that includes two play-off losses in the first round.

That’s right, his teams suck when it matters most in December and January.  In fact last year’s “surge” was a real clusterfuck which dropped them from a sure fire Top 3 or 4 pick to #6 where his infinite wisdom helped land Big Fat Andre HippopattaSmith, whom he played the most all year in the game that mattered most and Big Fat Andre wasn’t up to the task.

Marvin Lewis has to do a lot with a little.  He’s saddled with a team that owner Mikey Boy Brown patches together on the cheap and off other teams scrap heaps.  You could say that Lewis has one of the toughest jobs in football because of it and any wins, especially 10-in a season where there were no expectations on his team was amazing.  However, you could also say he has the easiest job in the world too, where mediocrity is praised as “not failing too bad” and he’s allowed to keep his job despite non-success.

If you wanted to nail the “Coach of the Year” you should have handed it out to Bungles Defensive Coordinator Mike Zimmer.  That’s your guy that was the coach of the year.  Despite losing a ton of players to injury and the attrition that goes on during the year (not to mention his wife who tragically passed away mid-season), the defense held it’s own most of the way this season and held up the horrible offense that often couldn’t get out of it’s own way.  You must consider that Zimmer’s unit held up to a #2 ranking despite being without big free-agent signee Antwon Odom for most of the season, Damato Peko for stretches, never got much out of Roy Williams who was then felled by injury and then had to play musical LB’s due to injuries including Ray Malauga (who was last to a broken ankle) for the last two weeks of the season.

As a Bungles fan, it’s a nice accolade but I think we all must see how hollow it is.  Truth be told, even Lewis must see this too.  God knows, he’s not going to be able to get an extra nickle out of Mikey Boy Brown for winning such an award anyways either!

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