The NFL Coach of the Year award is presented after the Super Bowl to the pro football coach who is believed to have done the best job during the season that just ended. In like manner to any subjective award, the NFL Coach of the Year award is largely based on media narratives and NFL odds trends on X. Like the NFL standings, the award’s favorite will change often during the season. Ironically, the NFL Coach of the Year winner is hardly ever the championship-winning coach.
Instead, it will go to the coach who took over a team with a bad record from the previous season and significantly improved the club, leading to a noticeable rebound.
2026 NFL Coach of the Year Odds at SBG:
| Team | Odds |
|---|---|
| Mike Vrabel, New England Patriots | -250 |
| Mike Macdonald, Seattle Seahawks | +700 |
| Liam Coen, Jacksonville Jaguars | +750 |
| Ben Johnson, Chicago Bears | +1100 |
| Sean McVay, Los Angeles Rams | +4000 |
| All Others | +6600 or Higher |
Based on current NFL betting odds, there isn’t much value to be found, as the regular season is over and there are no more surprises. Certainly, Mike Vrabel would have been an outstanding pick in August when expectations for the New England Patriots were low. Similarly, Liam Coen of the Jacksonville Jaguars and Ben Johnson of the Chicago Bears are in that class.
Now, you can currently get better sports betting odds on Mike Macdonald of the Seattle Seahawks, Sean McVay of the Los Angeles Rams, and Jim Harbaugh of the Los Angeles Chargers. However, given how the NFL Coach of the Year award has been awarded in previous years, those choices are unrealistic. The key to finding betting value is to detect the surprise teams and coaches as far in advance as possible.
The recent pattern of NFL Coach of the Year winners is that they coached teams that had poor seasons in the previous year. Namely, Andy Reid won three Super Bowls with the Kansas City Chiefs but was never named the AP NFL Coach of the Year. That is because his success was not a surprise but an expectation. In 2025, Liam Coen, Mike Vrabel, and Ben Johnson were not expected to succeed, but they are now the favorites for the award after exceeding expectations.
Like all other forms of gambling, public perception, branding, and name recognition are major factors shaping the NFL Coach of the Year odds.
Accordingly, three outstanding examples of how the NFL Coach of the Year odds are shaped are Mike Vrabel, Liam Coen, and Ben Johnson. In all three cases, these coaches took over horrendous teams from the 2024 season and led them to division championships.
Coaches like Sean McVay, Mike Macdonald, and Jim Harbaugh had already achieved success with their teams. Thus, their candidacy prospects are weaker, given their prior success and strong 2025 performances.
The greatest coach in NFL history, Vince Lombardi, the man whose name is on the Super Bowl trophy, won Coach of the Year only one time from the AP and once from the Sporting News. As a result, Lombardi was punished for his five NFL championships and two Super Bowl titles from that point forward for repeating his success.
Finally, Coaches of established winners do not earn Coach of the Year honors at nearly the same rate as coaches of lesser teams that find success at perennial losers.