The top five player favorites were Tony Dungy of the Colts, Lovie Smith of the Bears, Belichick, Herm Edwards of the Chiefs, and Mike Tomlin of the Steelers.
The five coaches for whom the players least wanted to play were Tom Coughlin of the Giants, Eric Mangini of the Jets, Jon Gruden of the Bucs, Bobby Petrino of the Falcons, and Belichick.
The fact that the survey of 1,440 players (which equates to roughly 80 percent of the league) was conducted in 2007 should be taken into account.
As to the five favorites, Dungy coached of the defending Super Bowl champs, Smith was the coach of the NFC’s most recent representative in the championship game, Edwards had taken his team to the playoffs the prior year, and Tomlin was the hot new flavor in the ice cream case.
In contrast, Coughlin was still perceived as a Soup Nazi taskmaster whose job was in serious jeopardy, Gruden was regarded as a scowling hothead who only won the big one because his team had been riding the fumes of Tony Dungy, and Petrino was presiding over a slow-motion train wreck in Atlanta (from which he ultimately jumped before it plowed into the station like the Silver Streak).
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