Coach of the Year? Does the award matter? Is it one of those things that simply might have an East Coast bias? Did Seattle Seahawks head coach Mike Macdonald deserve the award this season after his team went 14-3 and was the top seed in the NFC? Yes.
The issue with the voting for the award is that it takes place before the playoffs. The winner was New England Patriots head coach Mike Vrabel. In no way is this meant to imply Vrabel is a bad head coach. He might have terrible music taste, but that doesn't mean he doesn't understand how to lead his football team to victory. He does.
What NFL pundits appear to miss is that Macdonald took over a team two seasons ago that might have been teetering on being bad. For some franchises, that is nothing new. For the Seahawks and the team's fans, it would be. Seattle might have been mediocre for a few years early in the 2020s, but not awful.
Seattle Seahawks' Mike Macdonald makes clear which trophy he would rather hold
Had the team not moved on from longtime head coach Pete Carroll, the team might have turned south in terms of success. Instead, Seattle made the proactive decision to remove Carroll as vice president of football operations and relieve him of his duties to have final roster control. Those duties instead went to general manager John Schneider.
Mike Macdonald was tasked with taking the roster given to him, turning a mediocre team into a good one, and hopefully doing it quickly. He did it faster than expected. His brilliance has seemingly gone without its proper recognition from Coach of the Year voters.
The award went to Vrabel in his first season with the Patriots. He took an underperforming team and turned it into one that was capable of being blown out by the Seahawks in Super Bowl LX. He did so against a relatively easy schedule and with a good quarterback expected to take a second-year leap.
Macdonald, meanwhile, had to beat the San Francisco 49ers and Los Angeles Rams to even get to the playoffs. The NFC West was the toughest in the NFL, and Macdonald's Seahawks were the best of it.
Ultimately, while Macdonald didn't win the Coach of the Year award, he did something better. He was able to lift the Lombardi Trophy at the end of the season. He made sure those national voters who didn't give him the nod they gave Mike Vrabel were clear ahead of the Seahawks' Super Bowl parade.
Macdonald said, "I'll take this trophy instead," while holding up the Lombardi Trophy. He was happy. Seattle Seahawks fans were happy. Players were happy. But you know who wasn't? Mike Vrabel and his New England Patriots.