With the 2026 NFL season approaching, the hype train is beginning to pick up steam as we head into the late summer. With preseason just about to kick off, buzz starts to grow surrounding certain squads.
It’s also the best time to start looking into futures and awards betting markets as we learn more through the intel of boots-on-the-ground beat writers. The MVP market tends to get most of the shine when it comes to NFL awards betting, but Coach of the Year stands out as one area in which sharp bettors can truly shine – especially if you’re familiar with the strategy involved in deciding the winner.
With that in mind, let’s dive in with the top picks and predictions for the 2026 NFL Coach of the Year award on DraftKings Sportsbook.
Coach of the Year betting strategy
There are multiple ways to approach this market depending on who you ask, but some of the sharpest Coach of the Year bettors utilize historic data to form their picks. To be clear, this strategy doesn’t necessarily project the eventual winner, but what it does do is identify the criteria of past winners while identifying trends. From there, this method allows us to hone in on the type of coaches who wind up finalists or winners most frequently.
If you just want the best bets for this market, read the bullet points below and scroll on down. If you’d prefer to learn what exactly we’re looking for though, welcome to Coach of the Year Betting 101. Here’s a brief synopsis of the three coach categories, followed by some more in-depth analysis below for those who want more detail:
- Improvement coaches
- These coaches typically take over bad teams and win, at absolute minimum, four or five more games than in the prior season… if not more. The team still needs to finish above .500 though, so a coach whose team won three contests in the prior campaign would need to win six additional games to truly qualify. The most important fact to know, though, is that improvement coaches typically win the award.
- Circumstances coaches
- You can’t predict circumstances coaches because prior to the season’s start, the conditions that lead to their emergence are typically yet to be established. However, these guys lead their teams through significant hardship such as injuries to overcome the circumstances and succeed. They win far less than improvement coaches, but a little bit more than wins coaches.
- Wins coaches
- A coach can’t win just 12 games to have a case for Coach of the Year. To be a true candidate as a wins coach, the threshold is somewhere around 14 or 15 victories at minimum. It sounds lofty, but that requirement is essentially a product of expectations since the coaches of good teams are expected to succeed. In short, they have to blast past those expectations with a truly special campaign, which is also why they’re the most rare type of winner.
Improvement coaches
There’s no better bet to win Coach of the Year on an annual basis than the improvement coach category. You’ll find the name is self-explanatory – you guessed it, these leaders help their teams get better and improve from the previous season. However, simply winning two or three more games compared to the prior season isn’t enough; instead, clear criteria are at play here. Improvement coaches in the mix for Coach of the Year typically helm teams that were near the bottom or the middle of the league standings during the previous season, and many of them are new to their franchises as well. Generally, we’re looking for an improvement of four, five, or six-plus wins for a coach to meet the mark as one of these candidates.
So, new Buffalo Bills head coach Joe Brady does not meet the criteria of an improvement coach since he inherits a 12-win team. However, a guy like John Harbaugh does fit the bill since the New York Giants won only four games in 2025 and have room for significant growth in the win-loss column.
Historically speaking, improvement coaches win Coach of the Year far more than the other two categories do. Prior to last season, one could argue that nine of the last 10 winners fit the mold of this type – Ron Rivera (2015), Jason Garrett (2016), Sean McVay (2017), Matt Nagy (2018), John Harbaugh (2019), Kevin Stefanski (2020), Brian Daboll (2022) and Kevin O’Connell (2024) all won at least four more games in their Coach of the Year campaigns than in the prior season. Likewise, Mike Vrabel also qualified as an improvement coach when he won the award last season. The common thread is that all except for Harbaugh won it with their franchise coming off a losing season.
Circumstances coaches
The next category of coach is the trickiest of the bunch. Circumstances coaches are the toughest to identify because they’re less obvious as candidates than the improvement coaches. Why’s that? It’s because the criteria become known as the season progresses – trying to predict circumstances coaches is a nearly impossible task.
Here’s a great example of one. Stefanski won Coach of the Year a second time in 2023, a season in which he led the Cleveland Browns to an 11-6 record despite cycling through several starting quarterbacks before settling on Joe Flacco, who ultimately started a playoff game for the franchise. Overcoming numerous quarterback injuries and still being a highly successful team is exactly what earned Stefanski consideration as a circumstances coach.
These kinds of candidates often earn a significant amount of consideration depending on the narrative; look at Kyle Shanahan keeping the 49ers in the hunt for an extremely tough NFC West last season despite what seemed like half the roster going down with injuries. Again, though, it’s practically impossible to project who may end up as a circumstances coach in any given season. As such, they’re not truly a viable category to make preseason picks on for Coach of the Year – when the season gets rolling, bettors can circle back periodically as the landscape changes.
Wins coaches
Finally, there are wins coaches. This category is one in which the final win-loss record does all the talking, but Coach of the Year winners who fit this group are the rarest of the three types. It may seem counterintuitive, but here is some logic that explains why we don’t see many of these guys ultimately earning the honor at the end of the year.
Expectations are everything for wins coaches. For instance, look at Sean McVay in Los Angeles – the Rams have an incredibly stacked roster on paper and are coming off a 12-5 campaign. They faded down the stretch, sure, but almost everyone expects another season of that caliber, if not better. The reasonable expectation is probably around 12-14 wins, meaning McVay’s team would have to outperform an already lofty standard we’ve come to expect from his squads in order to truly impress.
Occasionally, a wins coach does take home Coach of the Year in the end. Ron Rivera (2015) earned the honor after a 15-2 campaign from his Carolina Panthers, but prior to him, Bill Belichick’s (2007) victory after a perfect 16-0 regular season was the most recent winner in this category. This historic precedent demonstrates the ultimate factor to keep in mind if trying to project a wins coach, though. If you want a wins coach to take home Coach of the Year, they’re going to need 15+ victories, which is the reason these kinds of winners are so rare.
One more note
To finish up our class here, there is one minor thing to take note of – there can be some degree of crossover between categories for a single candidate. Vrabel’s win last year is a very good example since the Patriots improved by a staggering 10-win margin to get to 14 wins. While that end tally did fall just shy of the 15+ necessary to really make a case of a true wins coach, New England did win the AFC East and dethrone the Bills in the process. In this kind of situation, the number of wins Vrabel racked up also separated him from the competition. Jacksonville’s Liam Coen was a finalist with 13 wins, while Chicago’s Ben Johnson won 11 games in a tough division and also ended up a finalist for the award. Both of those other finalists were improvement coaches by definition, but Vrabel’s record tied for the best in the NFL and ultimately made up the difference for voters.
All in all, the lesson here is that it’s best to simply target improvement coaches who are newer to their franchises, then pick circumstances coaches if a juicy one pops up during the season. With that out of the way, that concludes our strategy overview – class is dismissed, so let’s jump in and look at the top picks for the 2026 Coach of the Year award on DraftKings Sportsbook:
Coach of the Year picks, best bets
Brian Schottenheimer (+1500)
When the Dallas Cowboys hired Brian Schottenheimer prior to the 2025 campaign, plenty of football fans were skeptical. The club waited until what seemed like the last possible minute before parting ways with Mike McCarthy, at which point many of the top external candidates were already snatched up by other teams. While his offenses over the last few seasons had been quite solid for the most part, Schottenheimer still wasn’t the flashy pickup that Dallas supporters in particular tend to demand. We remember what social media looked like at the time – you may as well.
In the end, the Cowboys finished with a 7-10 record, an uninspiring result for myriad reasons. Granted, it wasn’t for lack of offense as the team ranked second in yards, seventh in points, and top-10 in both rushing and passing output. That’s even despite CeeDee Lamb suffering an ankle injury halfway through the season and never truly looking like himself again when on the field. The defense did disappoint to a major degree as one of the NFL’s worst units, but there’s plenty of hope for the future thanks to an influx of playmakers and a new coordinator.
Fast forward to today and Schottenheimer’s group has the makings of a top-tier roster, if all goes according to plan. Dak Prescott can play like an MVP at times and Lamb should be healthy alongside George Pickens, who truly broke out as a star last season. Javonte Williams secured an extension and was just what the backfield needed, and there’s plenty of talent on the offensive line. The defense has been shored up significantly with the selection of first-round safety Caleb Downs, the addition of some other fresh faces, and the hiring of new defensive coordinator Christian Parker. Reports from camp are glowing, even if they should be taken with a grain of salt. If that side of the ball can even perform at an average level, you see the vision, even without squinting.
Are last year’s seven wins a little higher than what you typically see from an improvement coach preceding their award-winning season? Yes. Does it hurt a little that Schottenheimer was already the head coach last year as well and isn’t a new name? Yes. Are those disqualifying factors, though? Absolutely not.
The NFC East is largely wide open with some pretty significant changes for the Eagles, a somewhat underwhelming Commanders roster, and a young Giants core that’s probably a year too early to really make much noise and get above the .500 mark. The Cowboys showed what they can score with the best of them last season and now have more defensive weapons than in recent memory. Dallas could easily win 12 games to secure five more victories than in 2025, and the ceiling actually feels a little higher than that. Schottenheimer seems to have reset the franchise culture, too. If the talent performs on the field as it should to capture a division title for the first time since 2023, he’s a fantastic pick to secure Coach of the Year at +1500 odds.
In short, there’s a strong case for Schottenheimer to earn consideration primarily through the improvement angle, with the upper-end outcome of potentially flirting with wins-coach status if his team hits its ceiling. He’s easily my top pick for Coach of the Year, but as an added bonus, some of the sharpest experts in this market were on him last year – perhaps they were just early rather than wrong.
Kellen Moore (+1200)
Aside from Schottenheimer, there’s another NFC coach who was new to their franchise last year and could earn a nod for this award as an improvement candidate in 2026. That would be none other than Kellen Moore, who took over the New Orleans Saints and seems to be in the process of getting the club back to perennial playoff status.
It took longer than most expected for Moore to get a head coaching gig after he was passed up by several teams in recent years. However, the Big Easy seems to have gotten a good one. Sure, the Saints won just six games last season, but they emerged victorious in four of their last five contests to end the campaign in very strong fashion. Rookie quarterback Tyler Shough showed flashes of a franchise guy, and if anyone can unlock his game, Moore is an excellent bet to do so. Over the offseason, the front office also loaded up on offensive weapons by adding Travis Etienne Jr. at halfback and drafting Jordyn Tyson in the first round. Factor in Chris Olave, and suddenly this could be an ascending unit on offense.
The defense remains a significant question, but it may not matter all that much in the grand scheme of things. New Orleans plays in a weak NFC South that’s open for the taking – any of the Falcons, Buccaneers and Panthers could win the division, but none are a real runaway favorite. That means that the Saints have a real shot to compete for the division in Moore’s second season at the helm. Improving on last year’s six-win campaign probably won’t be all that difficult, and a four-win bump would put this roster at the double-digit mark with a playoff berth in clear sight. For what it’s worth, ESPN graded the Saints with the second-easiest strength of schedule for 2026 based on opponents’ 2025 win-loss percentages.
It all hinges on growth from this offense and simple, steady play from the defense. However, those are both realistic outcomes, and the former seems outright probable given the influx of playmakers and a potential second-year leap from Shough. Moore is an offensive-minded coach and should have plenty of fun concepts to draw up, so banking on him to compete for the NFC South title and a Coach of the Year nod is an excellent shout at +1200 odds.
Moore is absolutely a live candidate for this award as-is, but there’s some additional strategy bettors can consider here depending on risk tolerance. The Saints open the regular season with road games against the Lions and Ravens in the first two weeks, meaning New Orleans could easily be 0-2 to start if those matchups with contenders don’t go as planned. That could provide an opportunity to snag even better odds if Moore drops some on the leaderboard before the schedule gets a good deal easier over the remainder of the year. Just keep in mind that if his team emerges with an upset in either of those first two games, his odds may get shorter by a decent margin.
Two longer-shot candidates to monitor
Schottenheimer and Moore are easily two of the best picks bettors can make in the Coach of the Year market, but there are a couple of other names to keep an eye on before the regular season begins.
Kevin Stefanski (+2000) brings a somewhat similar case to Moore in that the Atlanta Falcons were respectable last year and have a clear path to improving on their record by a significant margin in a weak NFC South. At +2000 odds at the time this article was written, he does stand out somewhat given the talent on this roster and his pedigree as a head coach. Bijan Robinson, Drake London and Kyle Pitts form one heck of an offensive core and the defense wasn’t bad last year, so even a game-manager season from Tua Tagovailoa or Michael Penix Jr. could be enough to win the division. While Stefanski is in his first season with Atlanta, the club won eight games last season and would need to approach the 12-win mark by definition of our parameters for an improvement coach. Granted, that’s doable since the Falcons have the fourth-easiest strength of schedule. Still, he’s won Coach of the Year twice before and would join just three coaches who have ever won it three times – Bill Belichick, Don Shula, and Chuck Knox. That works against him, but he’s worth a shot if you really believe in his ability to turn this franchise around.
Shane Steichen (+2500) is a longer-shot option in this market, but he was actually one of the favorites for a time last year. That is, until Indianapolis Colts quarterback Daniel Jones went down with a season-ending injury which led the team into a spiral that saw the campaign end in seven consecutive losses. The 8-9 finish does help the ability of an improvement-coach case for Steichen with around 12 wins, though there’s uncertainty around the offense. Michael Pittman Jr. was traded and Alec Pierce is recovering from surgery in a manner that raises some questions about his availability early in the upcoming season. Jones’ own ability to return to form is an even larger unknown. Yet, Indianapolis will lean on Jonathan Taylor once again in the early weeks and could see this offense blossom with time, and the defense now has a healthy Sauce Gardner as the true lockdown cornerback it needed last year. With the fifth-easiest strength of schedule, the Colts could make noise if they can compete with the Texans and Jaguars in the AFC South. As such, Steichen makes for an intriguing sleeper candidate at +2500 odds.
The stay-away candidates
We’ve discussed what to look for in Coach of the Year candidates and a few names to target, but who are the trap picks in the pool right now? There are a couple to watch out for.
John Harbaugh (+600) is the favorite in this award market at the moment with +600 odds. There’s reason to believe he can change the culture of the New York Giants, and he has some talent to work with in Jaxson Dart and Malik Nabers. He’s even won Coach of the Year before! Why should bettors steer clear, then? It’s simply because the odds aren’t worth it here. The Giants’ strength of schedule ranks right in the middle of the pack at 16th, for starters. There are also probably just too few quality pieces throughout this roster to believe in a truly successful year above the .500 mark. Realistically, both the Eagles and Cowboys should be good, and there’s a world where the Commanders are feisty given better health for Jayden Daniels. That’s a tough NFC East draw if those teams are performing near their peaks, and realistically, New York is probably more of a next-year pick to make noise. If they’ve lost a few games and Harbaugh’s odds get longer, then feel free to scoop him up if you still believe. For now, he’s a name to avoid in this market.
Unfortunately for one of last year’s finalists, Ben Johnson (+1200) is another stay-away name here. The Chicago Bears are relevant again thanks to his efforts in year one with the franchise, a season in which the team ended with an 11-6 record and the NFC North title. He’s one of the brightest minds in football and did seem to change the culture there, but the bar is likely set too high to clear now. The Bears were good and are now expected to match those expectations, and winning enough games in this loaded division will prove quite difficult now. The Packers are always in the mix, the Vikings have a quarterback now, and the Lions remain an offensive juggernaut. Don’t fall for his place on the leaderboard tied for the fourth-best odds at +1200 and instead stay away from Johnson in the Coach of the Year market.
