NFL Coach of the Year odds are the most predictable board in the futures book, and the market prices them like a mystery anyway. The award has a type: a coach in his first season with a team nobody rated, delivering a turnaround the voters can measure. Know that, and the current board below reads very differently than the raw prices suggest. 21+ in most states.
NFL Coach of the Year odds 2026
Odds from DraftKings, checked 3 August 2026. The next tier runs from Brian Schottenheimer and Todd Monken at +1400 through Ben Johnson and Mike McCarthy at +1600 to Kevin Stefanski at +1900; prices move weekly through camp.
| Coach | Team | Odds | Implied chance | First season with team? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| John Harbaugh | New York Giants | +600 | 14.3% | Yes |
| Jesse Minter | Baltimore Ravens | +1000 | 9.1% | Yes |
| Robert Saleh | Tennessee Titans | +1000 | 9.1% | Yes |
| Kellen Moore | New Orleans Saints | +1200 | 7.7% | No |
| Joe Brady | Buffalo Bills | +1500 | 6.3% | No |
The pattern at the top is not subtle. Harbaugh, Minter and Saleh are all first-year hires, and the market has learned the award’s most reliable lesson: five of the last ten winners took it in their first season with the team, and the five who did not were still running surprise seasons nobody priced. New coach plus low expectations is the profile, and the 2026 board is built around it.
The favorites, case by case
John Harbaugh, Giants (+600). The resume is not the question; he already owns a Coach of the Year award from his Ravens years, and a proven winner walking into a rebuild is exactly the story voters like. The question is the price. Favorites in this market carry narrative risk for five months, and +600 asks you to pay for the story before a down has been played. The Giants sit at 7.5 on the win totals board, so the math works: 11 wins writes the headline by itself. It is the right favorite at the wrong price.
Jesse Minter, Ravens (+1000). Here the win totals board argues against the bet. Baltimore is lined at 11.5, the highest number in football, which means Minter needs something like 14 wins before his season reads as a surprise. First-year coaches win this award by beating expectations, and the Ravens are not allowed to have any. Strong hire, near-impossible awards case.
Robert Saleh, Titans (+1000). The quiet one, and by our read the live one. Tennessee carries the lowest expectations of the three new-hire teams at 6.5 on the win totals board, so a merely decent 10-win season clears the bar by 3.5 games. That is the exact profile of half the winners on the history table below. Same price as Minter, a fraction of the degree of difficulty.
What actually wins this award
Improvement, measured in wins, delivered by someone with a story. Voters do not hand this to the best coach in football; the best coach in football usually wins 12 games every year and bores the electorate. They hand it to the coach whose team beat its win total by four. That makes this page’s sibling market the tell: a Coach of the Year bet is largely a bet that a team demolishes its number on the win totals board, so the two boards should be read together. Find the roster the market underrates, and its coach is your candidate at a far better price than the team’s own futures.
Last season was the archetype. Vrabel took over a Patriots team coming off a miserable year, won the division, and the award was functionally decided by Thanksgiving.
Recent winners
| Season | Winner | Team | First season with team? |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | Mike Vrabel | New England Patriots | Yes |
| 2024 | Kevin O’Connell | Minnesota Vikings | No |
| 2023 | Kevin Stefanski | Cleveland Browns | No |
| 2022 | Brian Daboll | New York Giants | Yes |
| 2021 | Mike Vrabel | Tennessee Titans | No |
| 2020 | Kevin Stefanski | Cleveland Browns | Yes |
| 2019 | John Harbaugh | Baltimore Ravens | No |
| 2018 | Matt Nagy | Chicago Bears | Yes |
| 2017 | Sean McVay | Los Angeles Rams | Yes |
| 2016 | Jason Garrett | Dallas Cowboys | No |
Ten winners, five in year one with their team, and every single one attached to a season that beat expectations by a distance. Even the veterans on the list were surprising someone: Stefanski’s 2023 award came from an 11-win season with a fourth-string quarterback, and Vrabel’s 2021 Titans won the AFC’s top seed through an injury plague. The award has never once gone to a good coach having a normal year.
Where we think the value sits
Treat this as an argument, not an instruction. The board’s shape says Saleh at +1000: the lowest bar to clear, a price that ignores it, and the exact new-coach-low-expectations profile the history table keeps rewarding. Harbaugh at +600 is the probable narrative and the poor price; Minter is the good hire the award structurally cannot reach. Odds move weekly through camp, so check the number before acting on any of this, and remember that a third of these seasons produce a winner nobody had on the board in August.
How to bet it
Two entries work. Pre-season, back a first-year coach whose win total looks a game light, and treat anything under +1000 with suspicion, because favorites in this market carry narrative risk all season. Or wait. This board forgives patience: because voters score the full season, an unfancied team starting 3-1 leaves its coach backable at prices the Super Bowl market would never allow. What does not work is betting established greatness. The best coaches in the league are the worst bets on this board, at any price.
Award announced at NFL Honors in February; regular season only. Weekly form for the case-building lives in our NFL picks, and every book pricing this market is in the NFL sportsbook ranking.
NFL Coach of the Year odds FAQ
John Harbaugh, at +600 with DraftKings at the time of writing, in his first season with the Giants. The top of the board is all new hires, which is exactly what the award’s history says it should be.
Mike Vrabel, for turning the Patriots from one of the league’s worst records into a division winner in his first season in New England. A textbook winner: new coach, huge year-on-year improvement.
At NFL Honors, the league’s awards show held during Super Bowl week in February. Voting covers the regular season only, so a playoff run neither helps nor hurts.
Yes. Kevin Stefanski won it with the Browns in 2020 and again in 2023, both in seasons where Cleveland dramatically beat expectations. Repeat winners are rare because the award chases surprise, and a coach can only surprise so often.
No, the award goes to head coaches. The Associated Press hands out a separate Assistant Coach of the Year award, but it is rarely offered as a betting market.
The best prices are pre-season, but this market forgives patience more than most. Longshot prices survive into October because voters reward full-season turnarounds, so a 3-1 start by an unfancied team can still be bet at a workable number.
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