If you were to ask the average NFL fan, “who is the best head coach in the league?,” they would probably tell you that New England’s Bill Belichick is the best. A decent portion would answer Kansas City’s Andy Reid. A few outliers might mention Baltimore’s John Harbaugh and Pittsburgh’s Mike Tomlin. 

All four of these head coaches are champions. All of these men have been employed as a head coach every year since 2008. Yet, in the last decade, they collectively have one NFL Coach of the Year Award, which went to Harbaugh in 2019. 

Belichick has not won Coach of the Year since 2010. Reid has not won since 2002 and Tomlin has never won at all. The question remains: if the consensus choices for the best NFL head coaches are not winning Coach of the Year, then who is winning? 

The answer is that coaches who win are those who perform much better than their pre-season expectations. These coaches tend to be younger and less experienced as head coaches. An expectation for a very high level of success has not yet been placed upon the Coach of the Year recipients. 

Looking at the recent history of the award, it is evident which types of coaches get recognized and then it is possible to predict who is most likely to win in 2022. 

Previous Winners

Mike Vrabel

In 2021, Mike Vrabel of the Tennessee Titans won Coach of the Year. Vrabel was 46 years old and in his fourth full season as a head coach. Vrabel’s Titans earned the one seed in the AFC despite losing their star running back Derrick Henry midway through the season. 

Tennessee beat out stiff competition in the AFC to earn the one seed. However, after their home loss to the Cincinnati Bengals in the playoffs, the talent of the team has been heavily re-evaluated. Many NFL analysts have since called the 2021 Titans “the weakest one seed” in recent history. 

Kevin Stefanski

Cleveland Browns Head Coach Kevin Stefanski won the award in 2020. He was 38 when he won. After the Browns won a combined seven games over three years from 2017 to 2019, a winning season in 2020 was viewed as a massive break-through.

Stefanski’s direct predecessors, Freddie Kitchens and Hue Jackson, were deemed to be unable to get the talents on the Browns roster to reach their full potential. In contrast, Stefanski got the job done that year. 

He won the award in his first season as a head coach, which is a surprisingly common occurrence. Matt Nagy, Sean McVay, Jim Harbaugh, and Sean Payton all also won in their inaugural campaigns. Bruce Arians even won as interim head coach in 2012 when Indianapolis’s long-term head coach Chuck Pagano had to step aside due to leukemia. 

Since 2020, Cleveland has taken a bit of a step back. They finished 8-9 because their starting quarterback Baker Mayfield played through injuries. Now, the Browns are mired in controversy after replacing Mayfield with Deshaun Watson, who has been accused of sexual misconduct. 

If Deshaun Watson is (rightfully) suspended for the full 2022 season, the once-promising turnaround for the Browns will be stopped in its tracks. 

As mentioned earlier, the 2019 award was relatively exceptional. John Harbaugh was 56 years old and in his eleventh season as the Ravens’ head coach. He also already had won a Super Bowl title before the 2019 season. 

Matt Nagy

In 2018, first year head coach Matt Nagy won the Coach of the Year Award. He was 40 when he won. The Chicago Bears shocked the world by going 12-4 and making the playoffs for the first time in eight years. Sophomore quarterback Mitchell Trubisky was not as good as Patrick Mahomes or Deshaun Watson, but he looked like a reasonable selection with the second overall pick at the time. 

Nagy and Trubisky never saw that level of success again after that regular season. Once Cody Parkey’s kick double-doinked off the uprights in Soldier Field, Chicago’s downward spiral began. They went 8-8 in 2019 and in 2020. Trubisky left the Bears before the 2021 season and Nagy was fired after the Bears went 6-11 that same year. 

Contenders For Coach Of The Year In 2022

First, let’s rule out the former champions and former award winners. Harbaugh is the only former champion to win since 2010 and Ron Rivera is the only full-time head coach to get the award twice since then. 

The champion stipulation rules out Bill Belichick, Andy Reid, John Harbaugh, Sean McVay, Mike McCarthy, Doug Pederson, Pete Carroll, and Mike Tomlin. The former recipient rule kicks out Ron Rivera, Mike Vrabel, and Kevin Stefanski.

Second, let’s cross off the coaches above fifty. Harbaugh is the only coach over fifty years old to win since 2015. Of the remaining coaches, this eliminates Lovie Smith, Frank Reich, Matt Eberflus, Dennis Allen, and Todd Bowles. Fairly or not, the voters like to give the recognition to someone that they deem as an “innovator” and younger coaches are more often viewed in this light. 

Third, let’s take away all the coaches who have extremely high standards placed on them by the media. It would take a truly historic season for Cincinnati’s Zac Taylor, Green Bay’s Matt LaFluer, or Buffalo’s Sean McDermott to crush the expectations set for them by the media. 

Finally, there might not be enough talent on some rosters for truly excellent coaching to make a difference. For example, in 2019, NFL analysts uniformly picked the Dolphins to be the worst team in the league. 

Yet, the Dolphins finished above their projected win total and defeated the reigning champion Patriots in the final week of the regular season. However, Brian Flores’s phenomenal coaching was not acknowledged by the voters. Great seasons from Atlanta’s Arthur Smith, Detroit’s Dan Campbell, and Carolina’s Matt Rhule could potentially suffer the same fate. 

Only ten coaches are left: Robert Saleh, Mike McDaniel, Josh McDaniels, Nathaniel Hackett, Brandon Staley, Brian Daboll, Nick Sirianni, Kevin O’Connell, Kyle Shanahan, and Kliff Kingsbury. 

These ten coaches might not be the ten best in the league. However, when historical trends regarding age, experience, and expectations are accounted for, they are the most likely to win. 

From those names, I’d bet on Nick Sirianni. He’s young, only 41, and in his second year as head coach. The Eagles are in a weak division with Washington and New York. 

Additionally, they have a great offensive line and two elite wide receivers in AJ Brown and Devonta Smith. If quarterback Jalen Hurts shows any improvement, Philadelphia will soar past their current expectations and that is the perfect recipe for a Coach of the Year winner.