ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. -- Coach of the Year is a weird, end-of-season award because it doesn't always go to the guy who did the best coaching job. It tends to go instead to the coach whose team most exceeds preseason expectations. This is silly. We assess these teams in the offseason without seeing them play, then one of them plays better than we predicted it would, so we say, "Wow, that coach did a heck of a job," when maybe the fact is we were wrong and his team was that good all along.
I thought of this while watching the Bills beat the Patriots 24-21 with a run-heavy game plan last week and then turn around and beat the Seahawks 44-34 with a pass-heavy game plan this week. Buffalo's Sean McDermott might not be able to win Coach of the Year because so many people picked the Bills to win the AFC East before the season. But he just took out Bill Belichick, against whom he was 0-6 as a coach before last week, then turned around and okey-doked Pete Carroll, who hadn't given up so many points since he was at USC, losing to a Jim Harbaugh/Andrew Luck Stanford team.
After the game Sunday, Carroll said the Seahawks had designed "a real nice plan" to defend the Buffalo run game after watching the Bills run it 38 times and throw it only 18 times in Week 8. He was surprised when Josh Allen & Co. instead came out chucking it Sunday against his league-worst pass defense, but the Bills stuck with the plan even once they built their lead. They threw it 38 times and ran it only 19 times Sunday, putting a bow on a two-week sample that shows they can beat teams in a variety of ways.
Is McDermott Coach of the Year right now? He has to be in the discussion. Mike Tomlin's Steelers are undefeated, so he's likely the leader until his team loses. The Dolphins' Brian Flores and the Cardinals' Kliff Kingsbury probably fit the traditional definition cited above. Mike Vrabel? Jon Gruden? Bruce Arians? It's a good race and too early to call.
What McDermott is doing in Buffalo, though, is the kind of coaching work that wins awards. And division titles. And gets coordinators head-coach interviews. And gets him in the intro to the Week 9 overreactions column.
The Bills have a better chance to make the Super Bowl than the Seahawks do
As long as the Seahawks have Russell Wilson, they have a chance to beat any team. Heck, they had a few chances to come back and win Sunday in Buffalo. But their defense is a big, warm hug for any offense it plays against. Bills receivers were running open all day, and Allen kept finding them.
When Wilson and the Seahawks started to come back, the defense kept giving up more points. When Wilson turned it over -- he threw two interceptions and lost two fumbles -- the defense didn't do much to ameliorate the situation. Seattle didn't force a single turnover.
Seattle's formula is Wilson, some really good receivers and hope nothing goes so wrong in the other areas that Wilson and the receivers can't overcome it. If Wilson is off just a little bit -- especially against a good team -- the Seahawks are cooked. And when it's always entirely on you, you're bound to crack every once in a while.
The verdict: NOT AN OVERREACTION. The Bills played an excellent game and clearly looked like the better team. Their maligned pass rush got to Wilson enough in the second half to keep him from mounting the comeback everyone was waiting for. Allen and his receivers had a field day against the Seattle secondary. The Seahawks gave up 420 yards, bringing their season total to 3,228. The only team that has ever allowed more yards in its first eight games is the 2012 Saints, who set and still hold the record for most yards allowed in an NFL season.
There is literally no one in the neutral-NFL-media world who thinks more highly of Wilson than I do, but even I have to admit he's not getting anywhere near the Super Bowl as long as his defense is giving up 404 yards a game. Add in the fact that there are two 5-3 teams and a 4-5 teams right behind the 6-2 Seahawks in their own division while the Bills appear to have only the Dolphins to hold off in theirs.
One thing that works in Seattle's favor is that the 7-2 Bills are behind two teams (8-0 Pittsburgh and 8-1 Kansas City) in the race for the AFC's lone 1-seed. In the NFC, Seattle is right there in a jumble with Green Bay, Tampa Bay, New Orleans, Arizona and the Rams. That race could go to the wire, which is where Wilson tends to come through. But he's going to need more help. The Bills are the more complete team.
The Buccaneers are not in the Saints' league
Tom Brady's new-look Bucs lost to the Saints in Week 1, but that was Week 1, and it was in the Superdome, and it was an ugly game all around and kind of excusable. This? This was Week 9, with the Bucs rolling and the Saints having looked, in recent weeks, like the more wobbly of the NFC South's top two contenders. This game was in Tampa, with all of Brady's receivers playing, including the newly signed Antonio Brown -- the troubled and troublesome former superstar Brady wanted and his coach didn't. This was the Death Star fully operational. This was Thanos with the final Infinity Stone. This was the night for the Bucs to claim the division for their own against the team that has won it the past three years.
They ... uh ... they did not.
The Saints destroyed the Bucs on Sunday night. They outscored them 14-0 in the first quarter and 17-0 in the second. They intercepted Brady three times and held Tampa Bay to 194 total yards -- or, 58 fewer yards than Dalvin Cook had Sunday. Twelve different Saints caught passes and five of them caught touchdowns. Three different Saints completed passes! New Orleans swept the season series and moved back into first place by a half-game in the NFC South. It was not as close as the 38-3 score indicated.
The verdict: OVERREACTION. Oh, this was bad, don't get me wrong. And it was consequential. The Saints' 2-0 head-to-head record against Tampa Bay means they have the tiebreaker for the division title if they end up with the same record. New Orleans has eight games left, and only one of them is against a team with a winning record. That team is the Chiefs, and the Bucs have to play them too.
The Bucs have seven games left, and only two of them are against teams with winning records. (They have to play the Rams in two weeks.) Each team gets two games against the Falcons, which ... who knows? Atlanta is playing better lately.
Point is, neither team's schedule is much scarier than the other's, and the odds that they end up tied aren't all that slim. So the Bucs have to be better by a decent amount the rest of the way if they want the first-round home game. But to say they aren't in the Saints' class just because they went 0-2 against them and looked completely incompetent against them Sunday night is too much.
Head-to-head record isn't the only indicator of superiority. Because the Saints were 2-0 against them doesn't mean they would beat them again if they met in January. The Bucs have looked better against the rest of their schedule than the Saints, who have lost to the Raiders and Packers, needed overtime to beat the Chargers and Bears and haven't beaten any team but the Bucs by more than one score yet this season.
The Saints were and still are the favorites to win the division, but there's no way you can look at the total picture of this season and say the gap between these teams is as vast as it looked Sunday night. Should they meet again in the playoffs, it's hard to imagine it being this ugly and obvious.
All of the first-round rookie quarterbacks are going to be great
We're talking about the three who have started games -- Joe Burrow (Bengals), Justin Herbert (Chargers) and Tua Tagovailoa (Dolphins). We'll exempt Jordan Love (Packers) for now, since he was never supposed to play this season. The three who were supposed to play -- each went in the top six picks -- are playing, and wow are they fun.
Burrow has played since Week 1, toughing it out for a Cincinnati team that can't protect him and throwing more passes through eight weeks than anyone else in the league. Herbert took over ahead of schedule due to the bad luck of starter Tyrod Taylor, but he has been a revelation with a seven-game line of 17 touchdown passes, five interceptions and the kind of deep ball they would write epic poetry about if they still wrote that stuff.
Tagovailoa didn't have to do much to win his first start last week, but he outdueled 2019 No. 1 pick Kyler Murray on Sunday in one of the most breathtaking games of the week. (Murray, by the way, is younger than Burrow and part of the reason to be so fired up about the group of thrilling young passers from the past two drafts.) Early returns on all three quarterbacks are ultra-exciting.
The verdict: NOT AN OVERREACTION. History tells us that every first-round quarterback isn't likely to be a raging success, but what's the point of thinking like that now? Give in to the hype. Enjoy the ride. Herbert and Burrow haven't done much winning, sure -- their teams are a combined 4-11-1 -- but watching them play gives their fan bases hope that the future is in good hands.
And if Dolphins fans were wondering why the team would switch from Ryan Fitzpatrick to Tagovailoa while things were going well, he showed enough flashes Sunday of a ceiling far higher than that of his veteran mentor. He's also at the helm at the one of these three teams that has a chance to make the playoffs.
I'd watch any one of these guys any week, and I'd hope they aren't all playing at the same time so I could watch at least two of them. The hype is legit.
Dalvin Cook is the NFL's best running back
If you have Cook on your fantasy team, you're looking forward to going into work tomorrow and rubbing everyone's nose in it for the second Monday in a row. (Or going on the Zoom call or whatever you're doing if you're not going into work anymore).
After rolling Green Bay with 163 rushing yards, 63 receiving yards and four total touchdowns in Week 8, Cook came back with 206 rushing yards, 46 receiving yards and two total touchdowns in the Vikings' Week 9 victory over Detroit. He's carrying the Minnesota and fantasy teams alike, and he looks as unstoppable a force as any in the league with the ball in his hands.
The verdict: NOT AN OVERREACTION. Cook leads the league in rushing yards even though he missed one game (and half of another) due to injury, and the Vikings have already had their bye week. With Saquon Barkley injured, Christian McCaffrey just back from injury and Ezekiel Elliott mired in the mess that the Cowboys' season has become, Cook's competition is basically Derrick Henry, Aaron Jones and Alvin Kamara. But Cook's rushing totals in his past four fully healthy games are 181, 130, 163 and 206 yards.
Kamara is an incredibly dynamic weapon for the Saints, but Cook is a terrifying receiving threat in his own right and is dominating on a different level right now than the rest are. He's in the conversation, and it's no stretch right now to say he's leading it.
Raheem Morris will be the coach of the Falcons next season
The Falcons fired Dan Quinn after an 0-5 start and elevated defensive coordinator Morris. Since then, Atlanta is 3-1, and its only loss was a one-pointer to Detroit with no time left on the clock. In each of the past two weeks, the Falcons have avoided blowing the kind of fourth-quarter lead they were blowing week after week in September.
Falcons owner Arthur Blank said after firing Quinn that he'd have to give Morris a serious look if Morris went 11-0, but what about if he goes 10-1?
The verdict: NOT AN OVERREACTION. Listen, I think the Falcons will do a search, and it's entirely possible they have their eye on Chiefs offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy or someone else from outside the organization. But I do know they like Morris and think they've put some time in on him.
Morris is just 44 years old and has previous NFL head-coaching experience, because the Buccaneers made him their coach when he was 32 and before he had ever been a coordinator. He went 17-31 in three seasons as Tampa Bay's head coach, then did three years in Washington as defensive backs coach before moving to Atlanta, where he has served as defensive backs coach, wide receivers coach and defensive coordinator.
Moving Morris to the offensive side of the ball for three years from 2016 to 2018 was a developmental move designed to broaden him and help prepare him if he should ever get the chance at another head-coach job. The Falcons believe they've developed Morris as a coaching prospect.
It's not going to be easy -- Atlanta has a bye next week, and then six of its remaining seven games are against teams that currently have winning records, including one against the Chiefs and two each against the Saints and Buccaneers. But if their second half goes well, Morris should and will absolutely be a serious candidate to keep the job full-time.