NFL 2019: Midseason Awards

Coach of the Year – Kyle Shanahan

Kyle Shanahan

I kind of like how all of this shook out as well with my candidates. I ended up with head-men from four teams that all have different records – 7-0, 8-0, 7-1 and 5-2. Let’s start with the obvious one in Bill Belichick, who should have won the award several more times if the voters didn’t get cute. The defense has been phenomenal with him being the per se coordinator and his team is not only undefeated at the half-way point, they also boast by the far the biggest winning margin at +23.7.

You could also argue that Sean Peyton deserves the honors, since his team’s only loss came at Los Angeles when Drew Brees had to leave the game a few series in with that thumb injury. He has turned the Saints into one of the most physical teams on both sides of the ball and his offensive game-planning and play-design had the offense scoring 30+ points in three of the five games without the future Hall of Famer, while doing the same in the two contests he finished. And finally, I want to give Frank Reich and his crew a lot of credit. If I had told you the Colts would be 5-2 at the midway mark after Andrew Luck just retired, you would have called me crazy. However, they are leading the AFC South with Jacoby Brissett at the helm in large part due to Reich’s opponent-specific gameplans.

While those four are all very worth candidates, my vote goes to Kyle Shanahan. I was one of the very few people out there who projected the 49ers to win the NFC West, because I saw all that talent on defense and a genius playcaller on offense. To me Shanahan is almost in a class of his own among offensive minds, when it comes to run-design, play-action off it and the way he binds it all together in the mold of the “Trinity of the zone run game”.

While we have seen guys like Tevin Coleman, Matt Breida and George Kittle go off, until the trade for Emmanuel Sanders, there were not a lot of dependable playmakers around and his quarterback has not played particularly well.

Still, the offense is third in the league with 29.6 points per game despite that mudfest 9:0 game at Washington and San Francisco is outscoring the opposition by an average of 18.6 points a week – second only to New England, who has faced a much softer schedule. After that shellacking of the Panthers last Sunday, I think the Niners might be the best team in the league and Shanahan deserves a ton of credit.

The next three: Bill Belichick, Sean Peyton and Frank Reich