There's no shortage of candidates for the NFL's Coach of the Year award, but as usual, the deck will be stacked against the consensus No. 1 team builder and strategist of his generation. Bill Belichick, underappreciated?
Actually, there's no doubt about it.
The New England Patriots had to win 91.7 percent of their games (a 44-4 record!) for Belichick to claim his three Coach of the Year awards over the past 15 seasons. New England had the NFL's best record each time, which apparently is what it takes. The standards were significantly lower for the other 12 coaches of the year over that span, a clear case that Belichick has raised the bar on his own chances to win awards since he joined the Patriots in 2000. Of course, that's a double standard, which is where this discussion begins.