Baltimore Ravens: Can John Harbaugh repeat as Coach of the Year?

2019 saw John Harbaugh win Coach of the Year honors following the Baltimore Ravens 14-2 regular-season record. Can he win the honor again in 2020?

It’s hard to top a season that saw your team win 14 games, set the single-season record for team rushing yards in a single season, earn the top overall seed in the AFC playoffs, and have 13 players selected to the Pro Bowl. This is the obstacle Baltimore Ravens head coach John Harbaugh now faces headed into 2020.

Topping 2019 will be no easy task. In fact, it’s so daunting that it seems improbable to do so. After all, your team had the most wins in the league last year and rode a 12-game win streak into the post-season. The only thing missing from last season was a playoff win, let alone a Super Bowl win.

That’s really the only area where John Harbaugh can improve his performance from 2019.

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This is what will make repeating as Coach of the Year so difficult. The last coach to win the award in back-to-back years was Joe Gibbs with the Washington Redskins in the 1982 and 1983 seasons. We’ve seen some of the best coaches in NFL history since then not repeat as COY winners, to include guys like Bill Belichick, Andy Reid, and Sean Payton. The cards are no doubt stacked against Harbaugh to repeat.

But if there was ever a time for a coach to repeat as COY, it would be 2020 with John Harbaugh.

Harbaugh enters the 2020 season with a loaded team on both sides of the ball. The reigning MVP, Lamar Jackson, is back and hungrier than ever to win the big-one. He has tons of weapons around him to light up the scoreboard and be America’s favorite offense to watch. Defensively the Ravens still have tons of playmakers to put up highlight-reel plays and be showstoppers. If you care about special teams, Baltimore has a pretty good unit, too.

A talented roster coupled with chemistry and good coaching will no doubt have John Harbaugh at the center of COY talks. It helps that Baltimore has five prime-time games scheduled for 2020 and some terrific matchups against quality teams like the reigning Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs, New England Patriots, and Pittsburgh Steelers. The spotlight will assuredly be on the Ravens this year.

If this team fires on all cylinders, we could be looking at a Super Bowl-winning team. That will no doubt get everyone’s attention at what John Harbaugh is doing, especially voters. Still, this is far from a guarantee, as six-time Super Bowl-winning head coach Bill Belichick has won the award a mere three times despite leading the New England Patriots to 19-consecutive winning seasons. It’ll be tough, but not impossible, for Harbaugh to accomplish this feat.

It won’t be easy, but John Harbaugh can absolutely repeat as the league’s COY winner in 2020. These Baltimore Ravens look to be one of the best teams the franchise has ever seen, and Harbaugh will be guiding them all the way and have everyone looking, oo-ing, and ah-ing. If he does, he could win COY in consecutive years for the first time since the early ’80s.