Houston Texans head coach Lovie Smith has a tough hill to climb in 2022.
The Houston Texans have another new head coach entering the 2022 season, as veteran Lovie Smith has taken over the franchise this offseason, being promoted from the defensive coordinator spot to running the entire team.
Smith has a vast amount of experience as a head coach in the NFL, coaching the Chicago Bears to a Super Bowl appearance (and NFC Championship) over a decade ago, and he’s also been the head coach for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and University of Illinois.
Though he has a coaching record of under .500 for his career, Smith knows a thing or two about the NFL, and coaching in the NFL.
That said, in a recent NFL rankings list for all 32 head coaches in the league, CBS Sports reporter Cody Benjamin has Smith ranked as the worst coach in the NFL entering the ’22 season, some due to his overall coaching record, and some due to the decisions the Houston Texans front office has made.
Here is some of what Benjamin wrote in the CBS Sports article:
"“But he hasn’t posted a winning record in either college or the NFL since 2012, when Jay Cutler was throwing to Brandon Marshall on the Bears. At 64, coming off a bad year running their defense, he feels like another stopgap, and management saddling him with free agent leftovers doesn’t help.”"
Just below Smith in the rankings are new Bears head coach Matt Eberflus (who hasn’t coached a game yet), and Dan Campbell of the Detroit Lions, who is 8-20 in his two seasons in Detroit.
Texans: Lovie Smith has a winning record as a head coach in the NFL
Lovie Smith has a career record of 89-87, so he’s just above .500, and he’s one of the best defensive coaches in the game, so to be ranked the worst coach in the NFL doesn’t make much sense.
No coach ranked from 20th to 31st on the list has a winning record, a .500 record or has even been a head coach in an NFL game. Smith has proven he can take teams and make them winners, and even if he hasn’t had a winning season since ’12, he deserves a little better ranking than last in the league.
Some of this has to be from the Texans being so bad the past couple seasons with consecutive records of 4-12 and 4-13 overall, and even if Smith’s defense in ’21 wasn’t the best, that unit has to be better than last season.
Also, Houston won’t finish as the worst team in the entire NFL as some are predicting for ’22, and though there will most likely be more tough times than celebrations when it comes to the overall record in ’22, Smith is a better head coach than worst in the league.
Houston will prove to be a better team in ’22 with their overall improvement in their play, and though it might not show in the overall standings, it will prove Smith isn’t the worst head coach in the NFL.