Sometimes you look at betting odds and wonder how stuff is even possible – that’s exactly what went through your faithful writer Stryker’s mind when he saw Mike Tomlin is STILL +10000 to be the NFL Coach Of The Year in 2021.
This wasn’t August when the football prophets of doom were forecasting the end of a competitive Pittsburgh team for now. It wasn’t early October either when the Steelers were 1-3 and struggling to do much of anything.
No, this was Tuesday morning – just hours after Tomlin’s team had defeated Chicago on Monday Night Football to improve to 5-3 and improve its win streak to four games.
Tomlin – just a great head coach
Say what you want about Tomlin’s Steelers, they don’t quit and he gets the best out of his roster. Yeah we know Ben Roethlisberger is on his last legs as an elite franchise QB. Yeah we know the offensive line has struggled.
But whatever happens, whatever challenges are thrown his way, Tomlin gets his team ready week after week. And he has a plan. And generally, the plan works.
Roethlisberger still has elite weapons in his wide receiving corps – no team produces more good ones. RB Najee Harris is a blossoming talent and T.J. Watt might be the best defensive player in the NFL right now.
So to see Tomlin sitting at +10000 (bet $100 to win $10000) in the odds to be Coach Of The Year is just stunning to us – like how is this even possible?
We are not saying he wins it for sure – this is the most wide open betting line in pro football on an annual basis. But as a value proposition, Tomlin rates as off the charts right now. We’re just alerting you to the facts people.
Tomlin odds comparisons
Still, despite all of the above, online sportsbooks are offering insane odds about Tomlin. In our view he might be the very best coach in football, and here are some crazy facts about his current line:
- Tomlin is the same odds as Dan Campbell, HC of the 0-8 Detroit Lions.
- Tomlin is the same odds as David Culley, HC of the 1-8 Houston Texans
- Tomlin is more than 10x the odds of Mike Vrabel, who is doing a similarly stellar job in Tennessee
- Tomlin is 4 x the odds of Sean Payton, again doing a similarly fine job in New Orleans
- Tomlin is 4 x the odds of Kevin Stefanski, the guy who won the award last year (unlikely to repeat)
- Get this, Tomlin is 14 x the odds of Brandon Staley, HC of the similarly 5-3 Chargers
- And finally, for now, Tomlin is the same odds as Urban Meyer…
Need Stryker go on? Nope, just as well, he’s rolling around on the floor wrestling with a bottle of whisky and laughing uncontrollably as he tries to type this content for you.
Look, we could also add that Pittsburgh is not out of the AFC North division race at all. It is just a game back from Baltimore and still has to play the Ravens twice. But we think that surely now the point is made.
Like we said, whether he wins this award is not the main point here, it’s that his odds are so incredibly big (with DraftKings, FanDuel, BetMGM and Borgata) that you just have to take a small bet that he will.
Strike now before these sportsbooks wake up…here endeth the Stryker sermon.