Norman Chad: Plenty of competition for Reverse Coach of Year in NFL
NFL Coach of the Year? That’s easy – Jason Garrett went from 4-12 to 12-2 with the Cowboys’ third-string rookie quarterback and Jerry Jones texting him every 17 minutes of every day.
Ah, but Reverse Coach of the Year – also known colloquially as the Norv Turner Award – that’s tougher to determine. To be Reverse Coach of the Year, you have to foul up what you shouldn’t, like Blockbuster once passing on buying Netflix.
So let’s count down the top five to the NFL Reverse Coach of the Year:
5. Hue Jackson, Browns. You’ve got to win at least two games to stay off this list.
5. (tie) Rex Ryan, Bills. He huffs and puffs and then blows himself down – nobody talks a better game, nobody walks a worse game. He hasn’t produced a winning season since 2010; Ryan’s specialty is blathering about outcoaching Bill Belichick and then getting outcoached by Bill Belichick.
This season Ryan was joined by his blowhard brother Rob as assistant head coach/defense – that’s like having Daniel and William Baldwin on the set of the same film.
4. Chip Kelly, 49ers. Do you remember the “Monday Night Football” season opener in 2013, when Kelly coached his first NFL game in Philadelphia, the Eagles gained about 1,900 yards without huddling and all of Sports Nation declared that he had reinvented the gridiron wheel? Those were the days, my friend, we thought they’d never end.
Nowadays, Kelly probably watches that game film six nights a week before going to sleep, then wakes up every Sunday morning to the worst passing offense in the league.
3. Mike Tomlin, Steelers. In 10 years as an NFL coach, Tomlin never has had a losing season, with a 101-57 career record. But he’s been blessed with Ben Roethlisberger as his quarterback that entire time, and Tomlin has won only one playoff game since 2010.
Plus his in-game management – one part aggression, two parts manic aggression – has cost Pittsburgh several games. He hasn’t made a correct decision in regard to a two-point conversion since October 2009; heck, if he could, he’d go for two instead of kicking a field goal.
(Column Intermission: Stepson of Destiny Isaiah Eisendorf is thriving at Division II Le Moyne in Syracuse, N.Y., leading the 8-3 men’s basketball team in scoring, 11.0 points a game, and rebounding, 4.8 a game. Other key numbers for the 6-foot-6 junior forward: field-goal percentage, 54.7; free-throw percentage, 84.6; percentage of times returning my texts, 17.2. Tcch. Let’s see if his mother can get him Lakers tickets the next time he wants them.)
2. Ron Rivera, Panthers. By textbook definition, if you follow a 15-1 Super Bowl season with a losing season, you are going in reverse; this is somewhat reminiscent of America going from being the No. 1 nation in the world to the 37th-best nation in the world over the course of the past generation or so.
Also – and I don’t mean to pile on Rivera here – if your most significant coaching decision of the season is to sit down your superstar quarterback on the opening series of a game for failing to wear a necktie to the stadium, then you might have to revisit your playbook and your rulebook.
1. Jeff Fisher, Rams. We will forgive him his total of 16 losing records in 22 NFL seasons and we will forgive him the fact that he has not won a playoff game since George W. Bush’s first term in the Oval Office. We will even forgive him his quirky, crazy sideline decisions – this fella would call for a fake punt at a funeral procession.
But when you tell your team on HBO, “I am not (expletive) going 7-9 or 8-8 or 9-7, okay? Or 10-6, for that matter,” and get bounced from your job at 4-9 – denied the opportunity to reach your usual 7-9 benchmark – then you are the NFL Reverse (Ex-)Coach of the Year.
Ask The Slouch
Q. There was one second left in the game and we were just 35 yards from the winning touchdown. I juked the DB with my famous 360-degree move and left him eating my dust. Chuck, our QB, chucked the pigskin, and I caught it in stride at the goal line for the score. I ran out of the end zone and into my car. Drove home still holding the ball. Parked in the driveway and walked into my house. There was my wife in the altogether in the living room. She walked slowly toward me and we started a little kissy face/huggy bear. Thinking I might get lucky twice in the same day, I pulled her toward the bedroom. I flipped the pigskin onto the couch. From behind it, a referee jumped out, blew the whistle and declared it was an incomplete pass. First of all, could you explain the NFL completion rule in less than 10,000 words? Secondly, what the heck was a referee doing in my living room? (Steve Newman; Washington, D.C.)
A. Pay the man, Shirley.
Norman Chad is a syndicated columnist. You, too, can enter the $1.25 Ask The Slouch Cash Giveaway. Just email asktheslouch@aol.com and, if your question is used, you win $1.25 in cash!