There appear to be at least four active and legitimate NFL coach of the year awards handed out currently. Bill Belichick won the AP award for his team's perfect season. He probably did a hell of a great job this season, but the whole spygate fiasco should have kept him from winning it. It's like if a player got suspended by the NFL for using steroids and then the AP writers went and voted for him as defensive player of the year anyway. Voting for Merriman and Belichick isn't saying anything new about either of them, but it says a lot about the character of the AP writers who apparently believe that cheating is just part of the game.

Besides winning the inaugural Acme Packing Company award, which I'm sure he'll be stopping by any day to pick up, McCarthy won the NFL Alumni coach of the year award. I sure hadn't heard of the NFL Alumni award, but Don Shula agreed to present it to the winner so it does have some legitimacy.

McCarthy did an outstanding job as a head coach (games against Chicago excluded) and certainly deserved to be recognized for it. He got the most out of all of his players on offense and did a great job coaching the young players on the team. He was great with the Xs and Os (Chicago games not included) and kept the Packers' opponents off balance all season long.