Do you believe in curses? I'm not fully sure that I do unless that "curse" really shows itself a lot. This one seems to be doing that.
Back in February the NFL held it's NFL Honors award show and Detroit Lions head coach Dan Campbell was up for the Coach of the Year award for the second year in a row and for the second in year in a row, he didn't win it. Cleveland Browns head coach Kevin Stefanski did.
Fast forward to Week 5 and the Browns just suffered an embarrassing loss to the Commanders that saw a major disconnect moment between Stefanski and quarterback Deshaun Watson on the sideline. Things are kind of falling apart in Cleveland right now as the team heads into Week 6 with a 1-4 record.
It was at this time that I was reminded about the guy who won the award over Campbell in 2022. Brian Daboll of the New York Giants. He won that award for getting the Giants to the playoffs. Then the next year the team went 6-11 and missed out.
Is there a curse on the Coach of the Year award? There just might be. Let's take a look at some more winners and see what happened to them.
| Coach | Record when winning award | Record the following year | Still with team? |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Mike Vrabel |
12-5 |
7-10 |
Fired |
|
Kevin Stefanski |
11-5 |
8-9 |
Still with |
|
John Harbaugh |
14-2 |
11-5 |
Still with |
|
Matt Nagy |
12-4 |
8-8 |
Fired |
|
Sean McVay |
11-5 |
13-3 |
Still with |
|
Jason Garrett |
13-3 |
9-7 |
Fired |
|
Ron Rivera |
15-1 |
6-10 |
Fired |
|
Bruce Arians |
11-15 |
13-3 |
Fired |
|
Ron Rivera |
12-4 |
7-8-1 |
Fired |
With the exception of two guys, everyone's team got worse in some way and guys got fired. A couple guys experienced the curse twice. So maybe this is an award you just don't want to win. Maybe there really is a curse or maybe it's something different.
Maybe it's good old fashioned pressure. The eyes go directly on you at this point and you're expected to go out and prove the voters right. Some guys can do that. Harbaugh and McVay proved that people were right. They kept on winning. A lot of the other guys didn't do that.
So does that relieve some pressure for Dan Campbell and the Lions this year? Maybe a little bit I suppose, but they still have all the eyes on them. Let's see if they can keep winning. As for Stefanski and the Browns, it's hard to think that's not going to come to a biter end soon.
