Saints HC Dennis Allen has tremendous Coach of the Year value

The New Orleans Saints hired Dennis Allen to replace Sean Payton as the head coach of the team in 2022 after Payton announced he was stepping away from coaching. It’s not Allen’s first rodeo as a head coach, as he was the head coach of the Oakland Raiders from 2012 to 2014.

Allen’s Raiders tenure is one that Saints fans try not to think about too much, as he won just eight games during his three years in Oakland. After the Raiders started the 2014 season with an 0-4 record, Allen was canned and joined the Saints as their defensive coordinator the next year.

That’s gone well, as Allen helped revamp a defense that was downright awful for a stretch of several seasons. He served as the interim head coach last season when Payton couldn’t coach due to testing positive for COVID-19 and helped NOLA win 9-0 in Tampa Bay on Sunday Night Football.

One game isn’t a sign that a guy will be a good head coach but Allen is stepping into a good situation in New Orleans. That’s why it’s not shocking to see his Coach of the Year odds as somewhat respectable and ones that bettors should consider jumping on.

WynnBET has given Allen +3000 odds to win Coach of the Year in 2022, good for the 20th best odds in the league. I say those are respectable odds because Allen’s previous track record and not being a head coach for nearly a decade work against him but his situation could certainly work in his favor.

What would it take for Dennis Allen to win Coach of the Year?

New Orleans had their fair share of obstacles to overcome last year and still managed to come away with nine wins on the year. They narrowly missed out on the postseason but had they made it, Sean Payton would have been very deserving of being named Coach of the Year for all of the crap he led the Saints through that year.

With the Saints missing the playoffs last year, simply getting back to the postseason is the “easiest” thing Allen could do to put himself in the Coach of the Year race. Another big thing would be the offense greatly improving and the defense being a top-five unit.

If New Orleans could somehow take back the NFC South from the Buccaneers, that’d likely be another notch on Allen’s Coach of the Year belt.

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It’s not easy to win Coach of the Year but Allen is stepping into a situation where it’s very possible that he could be crowned as such by season’s end.