It’s a subjective award, and that means it rests on opinions and not facts.
Thursday, the NFL Honors awarded their NFL Coach of the Year award for the 2024 season. The award was given to the Minnesota Vikings head coach Kevin O’Connell.
The Vikings finished the regular season 14-3, second in the NFC North behind Dan Campbell’s Detroit Lions (15-2). Campbell, Kansas City’s Andy Reid, Denver’s Sean Payton, and Washington’s Dan Quinn were also nominees for the award.
Yes, the Vikings had a great year. They were 7-10 in 2023, but even more, just two seasons ago in 2022, the Vikings were 13-4. So why was he this year’s best coach?
Campbell and the Lions were 12-5 in 2023, losing to the San Francisco 49ers in the NFC Championship game.
Reid is the defending Super Bowl championship head coach attempting to make it three consecutive NFL titles, which no team has accomplished in the Super Bowl era (1966-2024).
Payton is a mystery as to why he was made a finalist. The Broncos were 8-9 in 2023 and 10-7 in 2024.
This brings us to the Commanders’ Dan Quinn. Quinn took over a team that finished 4-13 in 2023. It was a terrible season. Quinn had become the head coach of a franchise that had not had a winning season since 2016! The Commanders had not won a playoff game since the 2005 season!
WAS DAN QUINN SNUBBED AS THE 2024 #NFL HEAD COACH OF THE YEAR…?
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(📸: @Candido24k_) pic.twitter.com/2ZsIZfVuNq
— MLFootball (@_MLFootball) February 7, 2025
Quinn led the Commanders to a shocking 12-5 season. Did the voters realize Washington had not won 12 games in a season since Joe Gibbs coached Washington in 1991?
Dan Quinn should have been a slam dunk Coach of the Year! Seriously, what were the voters looking for in determining what qualifies one for coach of the year?
Commanders safety Jeremy Reaves weighed in.
DQ not COTY after a NFCCG in year 1?!?That’s crazy….
— Jeremy Reaves (@JR1ERA) February 7, 2025
It’s really not even challenging to see that Dan Quinn led the greatest turnaround season this year and was the NFL Coach of the Year, whether he was awarded as such or not.
