Great news for Patriots fans! Marvin Lewis got a one year extension

[tasmlab]

Let's show some gratitude: Nobody would've been making "we're on to Cincinnati" t-shirts if the Pats had lost in week 5 of 2014. In hindsight, Lewis was a key actor in that narrative.

Lewis' legend could've been wildly different if Palmer didn't get that horrible injury in the 2005 playoffs. IIRC that was a pretty fun team with Palmer being great, Ocho being really good and the guy with the really long last name.

 

[Rob0729]

So, I would remove Bill O'Brien from that list, but for the most part...okay, I will give that to you. That is eight coaches or the top 25% of the league. That means 75% of the coaches in the NFL are going to be worse than Marvin Lewis.

I think of it as kind of like Marty Shottenheimer. The guy just could not win playoff games, for whatever reason. He was a killer head coach though. So, why couldn't he win in the playoffs? Talent? Opponent? intangiables?

No matter the reason, whenever he was fired for not being able to win in the playoffs, guess what happened to those teams....that is right, they got worse.

I gave you a quick list. You can argue others being better.

But this a league with so much churn at head coach (every year, 5-7 new coaches are put in place), it is hard to evaluate many of the head coaches because about half the league has head coaches with 2 or less years worth of experience at head coaches. A guy like Todd Bowles could be better than Lewis based on his first year, but how do we know based on one season? Bowles really turned around the Jets, but was it a fluke or is he really a good coach?

And coaches are judged on playoff wins. Schottenheimer was never considered a good coach.

Lewis is a mediocre coach. If he didn't have the talent he has and he wasn't in Cincy, he would have been fired long ago. Plenty of other teams have fired coaches for having better success than Lewis has had (at least over a short period of time). If he was the head coach of almost any other team, he would have been fired long ago.

Lewis MIGHT fall into the top 25% of the head coaches in the league, but by default only because about 30-40% of the head coaches in the league have incompletes because how do you judge how good a head coach guys like Bowles (one year as a head coach), Dan Quinn (one year) , Adam Gase (zero years), Ben McAdoo (zero years), Ben Koetter (zero years), and Hue Jackson (zero years). I just listed six head coaches that have a COMBINED two years of head coaching experience between them all. That is about 19% of the league's head coaches. And this doesn't count other head coaches who only have two to three years of experience who inherited talentless, bad teams.

 

[Deus Irae]

These are the active HCs in the NFL that I would take over Marvin Lewis.

Bruce Arians
Bill Belichick
Todd Bowles
Jim Caldwell
Pete Carroll
Jeff Fisher
John Fox
Jason Garrett
John Harbaugh
Chip Kelly
Gary Kubiak
Mike McCarthy
Bill O'Brien
Chuck Pagano
Sean Payton
Andy Reid
Ron Rivera
Rex Ryan
Mike Tomlin
Mike Zimmer


These are the active HCs whose body of work is too small to say either way.

Hue Jackson
**** Koetter
Ben McAdoo
Doug Pederson
Dan Quinn

Another way to frame the case is to talk about the 'no-brainers'.

Which coaches are 'no-brainer' better/worse? i.e...

AFCE - BB is better, no question. Nobody is 'no brainer' worse
AFCN - Harbaugh is better, no question. Nobody is 'no brainer' worse
etc...

Are there any current head coaches who are 'no brainer' worse than Lewis, in the AFC? How about the NFC?
Of the coaches who got the axe after the season, which are 'no brainers' in comparison to Lewis, and in which direction (Coughlin 'no brainer' better, for example)?

 

[Ring 6]

Each season is an independent piece of work. You can judge him on all 13 or look at each season independently.

Either way he has zero playoff wins.

Either way, he wins in the regular season and that is not easy to do. Most coaches don't win in the regular season. Chances are high that the next guy they hire will make the team worse.

How can you be worse than zero?

The playoff drought will not continue forever, keep on plugging away and learn from mistakes.

Why won't it continure forever? He has proven incapable of winning a playoff game for 13 years.
How can you call him a good coach if you admit he losses because of mistakes he still has to learn from after 13 years? How many years is OK for you for a coach to learn how to win?

Bengals are a young team with a QB just coming into his prime. Why do you think getting a new coach and a new system would be a good idea?

Why would you think the system that proves every year it cant win should stay?

Do you really thing that a team hiring a HC would say, give me 13 years, without ever winning a playoff game, but do ok in the regular season and we will love that we hired you?

 

[1960Pats]

Another way to frame the case is to talk about the 'no-brainers'.

Which coaches are 'no-brainer' better/worse? i.e...

AFCE - BB is better, no question. Nobody is 'no brainer' worse
AFCN - Harbaugh is better, no question. Nobody is 'no brainer' worse
etc...

Are there any current head coaches who are 'no brainer' worse than Lewis, in the AFC? How about the NFC?
Of the coaches who got the axe after the season, which are 'no brainers' in comparison to Lewis, and in which direction (Coughlin 'no brainer' better, for example)?

No brainer better:
Belichick
Harbaugh
Arians
Payton
McCarthy
Triplin
Carroll
Kubiak
Rivera
Garrett
Reid
Fox
Ryan
Kelley
Bowles
Caldwell
DelRio
Fisher