Could This Be..Detroit Lions Robbed Again?..
The Detroit Lions won their second straight NFC North title, but it wasn’t enough for Dan Campbell to win NFL Coach of the Year.
Campbell was passed over as NFL Coach of the Year for the second straight year Thursday, finishing behind Kevin O’Connell.
The Minnesota Vikings coach received 25 of 50 first-place votes and was named on all 50 ballots, for 361 points. Campbell, meanwhile, received 19 first-place votes, 10 second-place votes, eight third- and fourth-place votes and three fifth-place votes, for a total of 283 points. Two ballots did not have Campbell on them.
Kansas City’s Andy Reid finished third, with four first-place votes and an appearance on 29 ballots.
Campbell and the Lions swept their season series with O’Connell and the Vikings, including a 31-9 win in Week 18 at Ford Field that clinched the division and gave the Lions a first-round bye and the No. 1 seed in the NFC playoffs.
The Vikings went 14-3 and lost their playoff opener to the Los Angeles Rams, 27-9. The Lions also beat the Vikings in Week 7 at U.S. Bank Stadium, 31-29, on a 44-yard field goal by Jake Bates with 15 seconds to play.
Voting for Coach of the Year and the NFL’s other official end-of-season awards is done before the playoffs. Free Press sports writer Dave Birkett is one of 50 voters for the awards.
The Lions tied for the best record in the NFL this season thanks in part to a powerhouse roster that featured four first- and two second-team All-Pro selections.
The Lions led the NFL in scoring but dealt with a rash of injuries on defense that at one point left them with six starters on injured reserve: Aidan Hutchinson, Alim McNeill, Marcus Davenport, Derrick Barnes, Alex Anzalone and Carlton Davis.
Anzalone returned from a broken forearm for the Lions’ Week 18 win over the Vikings.
The Vikings had two first- and one second-team All-Pro selection.
“I thought Dan did a phenomenal job having the team prepared,” Lions general manager Brad Holmes said in his end-of-season news conference last month.
“Look, 15 wins, that’s hard to do in a year where you don’t have all of the attrition that we had to deal with to get 15, but on top of all of the attrition that we’ve had to deal with, I mean that’s about as difficult as it gets. So, that was a heck of a job by him and the whole staff.
Campbell is 39-28-1 in four seasons as Lions coach. His .581 win percentage is the best by any Lions coach since Buddy Parker, who lead the franchise to two championships in the 1950s, and he ranked first in FTN Fantasy’s analytically based aggressiveness index, which measures a team’s success on fourth downs.
Last year, Campbell finished third in Coach of the Year voting with 33 points, behind the Cleveland Browns’ Kevin Stefanski and the Houston Texans’ DeMeco Ryans, Stefanski and Ryans tied with 165 points, but Stefanski won the award with one more first-place vote.