Congratulations are in order for Cleveland Browns head coach Kevin Stefanski. The first-year coach won the NFL’s coach of the year award for the 2020 season.

• Nfl Coach Of The Year Candidates 2020
• Vegas Odds For Nfl Coach Of The Year
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NFL Coach of the Year odds: Shanahan favored over Harbaugh, Tomlin. C Jackson Cowart. John McCoy / Getty Images Sport / Getty. Find line reports, best bets, and subscribe to push. That’s why winning the NFL Coach of the Year Award as the league’s best coach is a significant honor. Sizing up the odds on which bench boss will garner the hardware in the 2020 season, some familiar faces are at the top of the list.

Stefanski was the winner in his rookie campaign after leading the Browns to an 11-5 finish in the regular season and the team’s first postseason berth since 2003. His Browns also won a playoff game for the first time in over 25 years before falling just short of the Kansas City Chiefs in the AFC’s divisional round.

He is the first Browns coach to win the award since Forrest Gregg captured the honor for the 1976 season.

It’s a remarkable accomplishment for Stefanski and the Browns given the strange circumstances of playing the season in a global pandemic with no preseason and radical changes to the defensive personnel.

Good job, coach Stefanski, you earned it!

With sports betting options still more trickle than steady flow, NFL futures wagers remain a popular option for the time being. Sportsbooks have had an extensive selection of team and player-based wagers available for some time.

And as usual, you can also get some action in on the guys who ultimately call the on-field shots.

DraftKings Sportsbook now has its Coach of the Year market up and running. Unlike those lauding player’s individual accomplishments – NFL MVP, Rookie of the Year, Offensive Player of the Year among them – the honor of the league’s top coach has sometimes been more of a moving target in terms of what produces a winner.

In turn, that occasionally makes it a more challenging futures bet.

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NFL Coach of the Year Award odds

A Brady-less Belichick opens as odds-on favorite

Patriots coach Bill Belichick, a three-time COY winner, currently heads the NFL Coach of the Year market on DK Sportsbook with +1000 odds. The man who now has Belichick’s former legendary signal-caller at his disposal, the Buccaneers’ Bruce Arians, is unsurprisingly a close second at +1400. Interestingly, coming off a one-year sabbatical but inheriting a talent-rich squad, the Cowboys’ Mike McCarthy shares second place with Arians.

Of the three, Belichick’s 2020 situation profiles as one with conditions that most closely mirror the spirit of the award. If the legendary coach posts a 10-6 or 11-5 mark while helping second-year quarterback Jarrett Stidham turn in a convincing impression of 2008 Matt Cassel, that feat, combined with Belichick’s unmatched name value, could make him a shoo-in.

Nfl Coach Of The Year Candidates 2020

Notably, that 2008 campaign – one in which Tom Brady was lost for the season with a torn ACL in the first half of Week 1 — serves as a testament to the occasionally fickle nature of how the honor gets disseminated.

2008 season embodies unpredictable nature of award

The Coach of the Year award has been described as one bestowed upon “the National Football League head coach who has done the most outstanding job of working with the talent at his disposal.”

The wording invokes images of never-say-die leaders whose guile overcomes multiple key injuries and propels their teams to overachieving 9-7 or 10-6 records, for example. However, that covers just one of several scenarios that has proven worthy of garnering a majority vote from Associated Press writers.

Tellingly, Belichick didn’t capture one of his three Coach of the Year trophies for that aforementioned 2008 season. This, despite the fact New England finished 11-5 with a previously unproven Cassell at the helm. They just missed out on a playoff spot when the Dolphins and Ravens both joined the Pats in winning their Week 17 games.

The coach that beat out Belichick overcame formidable challenges in his own right. Operating with then-rookie quarterback Matt Ryan under center from Day 1 after inheriting a 4-12 team, Mike Smith led Atlanta to an 11-5 mark and wild card berth.

But Smith famously won the award by just a single vote. The late Tony Sparano – who guided the Dolphins to an 11-5 record and the AFC East title a year after they’d gone a league-worst 1-15 under Cam Cameron – fell just short, despite Miami boasting the biggest season-over-season improvement in the league.

Multiple paths to same destination

A quick glance at the last three Coach of the Year Award winners:

2019: John Harbaugh, BAL:

Regular-season record: 14-2

Analysis: Squad ultimately underachieved with divisional round loss, but net gain of four wins over prior season and NFL-record 3,296 team rushing yards integral to Harbaugh’s win.

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2018: Matt Nagy, CHI:

Regular-season record: 12-4

Analysis: Much like Sean McVay a year earlier, Nagy wowed by leading his team to a sizable increase of seven victories over the prior season, while also helping the Bears to their first winning record since 2012. Season ultimately ended on a Cody Parkey missed field goal in the wild card round against the Eagles, but Chicago’s significant improvement was enough to garner Nagy the award.

2017: Sean McVay, LAR:

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Regular-season record: 11-5

Analysis: McVay’s offensive ingenuity played a key role in his first year as head coach, which led to a dramatic reversal of fortune for a Rams team that had gone 4-12 just a year prior under Jeff Fisher and John Fassel. Los Angeles achieved its first winning record since 2003 and first playoff appearance since 2004 under McVay before losing to the Falcons in an NFC Wild Card game.