Lincicome: The best award an NFL coach can win is keeping his job

Surviving the Eagles has undoubtedly made Ben Johnson the front-runner for NFL Coach of the Year, and to him sympathy is offered, this coming from someone who remembers Matt Nagy, and fewer and fewer of us are willing to admit that.

As far as I can tell, the coaching honor is completely unofficial, being left to The Associated Press, still a proud organization unashamed to use the word “press” in its name rather than “media,” offering no actual hardware but simple recognition, which is conveniently portable and does not need dusting.

To become COTY the chief ingredient seems to be surprise, doing what you are not supposed to do or doing it after years of not doing it.

This would seem to fit the Bears and Johnson, peering from behind his play chart like a new waiter with a strange menu.

And by the way, winning games with field goals and special teams does seem to be sketchy evidence of coaching genius.

But finally beating a winning team, the Super Bowl champion no less, in its hostile home, boosts expectations and candidacies. Nothing is sweeter than seeing a Philly crowd leaving early.

Another example is that of the recently twice honored coach of the Cleveland Browns, whose name may occur to me eventually. Also, the reigning COTY is the fellow from Minnesota, gone from fame to flounder in one short season.

Also that guy in New York, the Giants guy lately fired after losing from in front to the Bears, was honoree in his first season.

It is axiomatic that a COTY gets fired, not always soon but eventually. But then all NFL coaches get fired eventually, notable exceptions being George Halas, who owned the team and Don Shula, merely the greatest NFL coach ever.

Vince Lombardi won the award only once, as did Tom Landy, two NFL legends while Kevin Stefanski (see, I told you I would remember) has been twice blessed but still must live in Cleveland.

The Bears have had five COTYs, the latest being the aforementioned Nagy, who had the bad luck to lead the Bears to a 12-4 record in 2018, (remembered as the coach of the playoff double doink). Nagy’s promise faded faster than his hairline, and he was condemned to win two Super Bowls as an assistant in Kansas City, leaving the Bears to flounder from Matt to Matt.

We recall Dick Jauron, barely and not fondly, who in 2001 was COTY with a 13-3 Bears team, exposed the following season as 4-12, and Lovie Smith, the most ill treated of the Bears COTYs, who won the ward in ’05 with an 11-5 team, went the next season to the Super Bowl with a 13-3 bunch and then was fired six seasons later for winning only 10 games.

Mike Ditka twice won the award, in ’85 and ’88, winning one Super Bowl and then losing playoff after playoff. His ’88 award with a 12-4 team fell to 6-10 the next season. Memories linger greater now than they were then, excepting Refrigerator Perry, who may be the most lasting tidbit of Dikta.

Johnson’s chief rival for the honor seems to be New England coach Mike Vrabel, once himself a COTY, then as the unappreciated genius of the Tennessee Titans, a thankless and anonymous position.

So well regarded was Vrabel that Tennessee, using sound logic and an erasable chalk board, figured they could do better without him. The Patriots, knowing Vrabel as a player and a Bill Belichick student, took less of a chance with him than the Bears did with Johnson.

The theme here, as muddled as I can make it, is that COTYs turn promising into ordinary almost immediately, so Johnson faces a kind of Coach of the Year Curse (COTYC) should he be afflicted with the honor.

Johnson has been much admired for statistically improving the Bears in almost every category, most notably on offense, as well as for managing to keep Caleb Williams from regressing to where he may still eventually settle.

The question of whether Johnson has made Williams a better quarterback or if Williams has verified everything Johnson was supposed to be may yet depend on where the Bears finally settle.

Awards await, playoffs, too.