Zac Taylor tabbed as a long shot for NFL Coach of the Year

Phil Mickelson and Cincinnati Bengals coach Zac Taylor have something in common.

They are both long shots.

The odds on the 50-year-old Mickelson winning the PGA championship were +30000, which is another way of saying that a $100 bet would yield $30,000 were Mickelson to win. That works out to odds of 300 to 1.

Well, guess what? Mickelson bucked the odds and won.

Oh, by the way, Mickelson is not even close to being the longest long shot to win a sports title. In 1980, the odds of the U.S. Hockey team winning an Olympic gold medal were 1,000 to 1. And we all know how that turned out.

In 2013, the Auburn football team was coming off a 3-9 season, and the odds were 1,000 to 1 that the Tigers could win a national title. But, thanks to a miraculous 100+ yard return of a missed field goal, Auburn did just that.

The longest odds of all time? Leicester City’s odds of winning the 2015-2016 Premier League soccer title were 5,000 to 1. Care to guess what happened?

But what about Taylor? Compared to Mickelson and the rest, Cincinnati’s third-year head coach is virtually a sure bet to win the coveted title of 2021 NFL Coach of the Year.

Of course, at least three separate sports betting sites give Taylor virtually no chance.

PointsBet favors Cleveland’s Kevin Stefanski to repeat as Coach of the Year, and sets the odds at +1200 (12-1). Taylor sits at +6600 (66-1), ahead of only Texans head coach David Culley at +8000.

SportsBettingDime lists Stefanski (+1300) as the co-favorite to win the award, along with Brandon Staley of the Los Angeles Chargers and San Francisco’s Kyle Shanahan. Taylor is bunched with of four other coaches (Detroit’s Dan Campbell, Culley, Las Vegas’ own Jon Gruden and Philly’s Nick Sirianni) with the longest odds at +5000.

DraftKings Sportsbook also sees Staley, Stefanski and Shanahan as the front runners at +1300, with Taylor once again taking up the rear at +5000.

According to the site, Taylor has “no chance to win.

“It would take making the playoffs for Zac Taylor to be considered successful, and it might even take winning a postseason game to earn him CoTY honors but given how young and green his rebuilding roster still is, he becomes a longshot for this award.”

But don’t give up hope, Bengals fans. Mickelson didn’t, and look where it got him.