Updated September 3, 2026 · 23 min read · by Eric Lindquist
The Quick Answer
The season opens on September 9 and Kalshi's Coach of the Year board still leads with two men who have never held their current job: Jesse Minter at 12.5 cents in his first year running the Baltimore Ravens and John Harbaugh at 11.5 cents in his first year with the New York Giants. We asked eight AI models to price all 33 contracts without letting any of them see a price. The two names they rate furthest above the market are the same two they picked in August, and the market has since moved away from one of them. Cincinnati's Zac Taylor trades at 2.5 cents against a model figure of 10.4 percent. Kansas City's Andy Reid trades at 2.5 cents against 8.7 percent, a cent cheaper than he was nine days ago. Together those two contracts are priced at five cents. What separates them from the market's favorites is written in a column the standings do not show.
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Every price here was read from Kalshi on the evening of September 3, 2026 US Eastern time and is quoted as the midpoint between the highest price a buyer is bidding and the lowest a seller is asking. Thirty-one of the 33 contracts have a real buyer and a real seller behind them, each a penny apart; the tie contract and Mike Vrabel's sit at zero bid against a one-cent ask, which is a displayed market rather than a traded one. No 2026 games have been played. The award is announced at NFL Honors in February 2027 and the contracts run to March 30, 2027, so these numbers move, and the page is re-scored when the story does.
One piece of arithmetic before the board. The 33 contracts add up to 122.5 cents rather than 100. That 22.5-cent excess is normal on a field this wide: buying all 33 listed outcomes would cost 122.5 cents and would return a dollar only if one of the listed coaches actually wins. It means every raw price sits above the true chance it implies. Where this article compares the market to the models it shows the raw price and the adjusted figure beside it. The adjustment is the raw price divided by 1.225.
The Board
The fourth column is the number of 2026 wins the same exchange charges on that team's season, taken from its separate team-win market. The models were shown that column and never the price column.
| Coach | Team (2025 record) | Price | 2026 wins the market expects | What the models make it |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jesse Minter | Baltimore Ravens (8-9) | 12.5¢ | 11.42 | 11.8% |
| Zac Taylor | Cincinnati Bengals (6-11) | 2.5¢ | 10.74 | 10.4% |
| John Harbaugh | New York Giants (4-13) | 11.5¢ | 7.96 | 8.8% |
| Andy Reid | Kansas City Chiefs (6-11) | 2.5¢ | 10.37 | 8.7% |
| Dan Campbell | Detroit Lions (9-8) | 2.5¢ | 11.32 | 5.5% |
| Brian Schottenheimer | Dallas Cowboys (7-9-1) | 8.5¢ | 10.22 | 5.2% |
| Kellen Moore | New Orleans Saints (6-11) | 8.5¢ | 8.40 | 3.8% |
| Robert Saleh | Tennessee Titans (3-14) | 5.5¢ | 6.39 | 3.8% |
| Klint Kubiak | Las Vegas Raiders (3-14) | 5.5¢ | 6.30 | 3.7% |
| Dan Quinn | Washington Commanders (5-12) | 1.5¢ | 7.37 | 3.3% |
| Aaron Glenn | New York Jets (3-14) | 5.5¢ | 6.17 | 3.1% |
| Shane Steichen | Indianapolis Colts (8-9) | 2.5¢ | 8.68 | 2.7% |
| Kevin Stefanski | Atlanta Falcons (8-9) | 3.5¢ | 7.12 | 2.0% |
| Sean McVay | Los Angeles Rams (12-5) | 1.5¢ | 12.41 | 2.0% |
| Mike LaFleur | Arizona Cardinals (3-14) | 1.5¢ | 4.37 | 2.0% |
| Todd Monken | Cleveland Browns (5-12) | 3.5¢ | 5.83 | 2.0% |
| Mike McCarthy | Pittsburgh Steelers (10-7) | 3.5¢ | 8.71 | 2.0% |
| A Coach Not Listed Today | an in-season promotion | no contract exists | n/a | 2.0% |
| Matt LaFleur | Green Bay Packers (9-7-1) | 1.5¢ | 10.12 | 1.9% |
| Kevin O'Connell | Minnesota Vikings (9-8) | 4.5¢ | 9.63 | 1.9% |
| Joe Brady | Buffalo Bills (12-5) | 3.5¢ | 11.36 | 1.5% |
| Ben Johnson | Chicago Bears (11-6) | 4.5¢ | 9.71 | 1.5% |
| Jim Harbaugh | Los Angeles Chargers (11-6) | 5.5¢ | 10.54 | 1.3% |
| Todd Bowles | Tampa Bay Buccaneers (8-9) | 1.5¢ | 8.76 | 1.2% |
| Nick Sirianni | Philadelphia Eagles (11-6) | 1.5¢ | 10.78 | 1.1% |
| DeMeco Ryans | Houston Texans (12-5) | 3.5¢ | 10.91 | 1.0% |
| Kyle Shanahan | San Francisco 49ers (12-5) | 2.5¢ | 10.45 | 1.0% |
| Dave Canales | Carolina Panthers (8-9) | 1.5¢ | 7.44 | 1.0% |
| Mike Macdonald | Seattle Seahawks (14-3) | 1.5¢ | 11.37 | 0.9% |
| Tie Or Co-Winners | a shared award | 0.5¢ | n/a | 0.9% |
| Liam Coen | Jacksonville Jaguars (13-4) | 3.5¢ | 10.04 | 0.6% |
| Mike Vrabel | New England Patriots (14-3) | 0.5¢ | 10.34 | 0.6% |
| Sean Payton | Denver Broncos (14-3) | 1.5¢ | 10.42 | 0.6% |
| Jeff Hafley | Miami Dolphins (7-10) | 2.5¢ | 4.20 | 0.5% |
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What The Points Said And The Standings Didn't
Put one column next to this board and most of the disagreement on it explains itself.
A team's record is a small sample. The points it scored and allowed is a bigger one, and the gap between the two is the standard way to spot a record that lied. Kansas City scored 362 last season and allowed 328. A team with that scoring pattern wins about nine and a half games over 17. Kansas City won six. That three-and-a-half-win shortfall is the largest in the league, and the Giants' is the second largest at 3.1.
Line that column up against the panel's disagreements and they move together closely, at a correlation of about minus 0.5, which is a way of saying the two columns track each other most of the time rather than now and then. Rank the board by how far the models sit above the price and the top eight ran, on average, 1.26 wins worse in the standings than their own scoring earned, while the eight the models sit furthest below ran 0.69 wins better. Eight of the ten names the panel puts furthest above the price belong to teams that won fewer games than their points deserved.
The market is sorted on something else. Its four most expensive contracts belong to Minter, John Harbaugh, Brian Schottenheimer and Kellen Moore. Two of them are in their first year with the team. The other two are in their second, and each carries a career head-coaching record identical to the one his current team posted last season, because that season is all of it. What those four share is a story a voter would recognize, not a scoring profile. The models are pricing the arithmetic and the market is pricing the story, and this year the two point at almost entirely different names.
Every Seat's Number
The rows where the models and the market disagree most, plus the two names at the top of the market. Two things about this table before you read it. The price column is adjusted for the 22.5-cent excess described above. And because only one coach can win, each model's board is scaled so its own numbers total exactly 100 before it is printed here, which is why a figure can sit a tenth away from the round number a model wrote down. The blend is the middle number of the eight rather than their average.
| Coach | Price, excess removed | Claude Fable | Claude Opus | Claude Sonnet | ChatGPT | Gemini | Kimi | GLM | DeepSeek | Blend |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Zac Taylor | 2.0% | 10.5 | 10.5 | 11.0 | 9.8 | 10.5 | 9.5 | 9.0 | 10.3 | 10.4% |
| Andy Reid | 2.0% | 9.0 | 8.0 | 9.7 | 8.4 | 9.0 | 8.5 | 7.5 | 9.3 | 8.7% |
| Dan Campbell | 2.0% | 5.5 | 5.5 | 5.8 | 5.4 | 5.5 | 5.5 | 5.5 | 4.6 | 5.5% |
| Jesse Minter | 10.2% | 11.5 | 12.0 | 13.0 | 10.3 | 12.5 | 10.9 | 10.5 | 12.4 | 11.8% |
| Dan Quinn | 1.2% | 3.0 | 3.0 | 3.6 | 3.5 | 3.5 | 3.0 | 4.0 | 3.1 | 3.3% |
| John Harbaugh | 9.4% | 7.5 | 9.5 | 7.0 | 9.0 | 9.5 | 8.0 | 8.5 | 9.3 | 8.8% |
| Brian Schottenheimer | 6.9% | 5.5 | 5.5 | 4.3 | 5.3 | 5.5 | 5.0 | 5.0 | 5.2 | 5.2% |
| Kellen Moore | 6.9% | 4.0 | 4.5 | 3.3 | 4.5 | 3.5 | 3.0 | 4.0 | 3.6 | 3.8% |
| Aaron Glenn | 4.5% | 3.5 | 3.0 | 2.3 | 3.2 | 3.5 | 3.0 | 3.5 | 3.1 | 3.1% |
| Ben Johnson | 3.7% | 1.5 | 1.5 | 1.5 | 1.8 | 1.0 | 1.5 | 1.5 | 1.5 | 1.5% |
| Liam Coen | 2.9% | 0.8 | 0.6 | 1.1 | 0.7 | 0.5 | 1.5 | 0.5 | 0.5 | 0.6% |
| Jim Harbaugh | 4.5% | 1.0 | 1.1 | 1.3 | 1.3 | 1.0 | 1.5 | 1.5 | 1.5 | 1.3% |
| A Coach Not Listed Today | no contract | 1.5 | 1.5 | 2.0 | 1.0 | 2.5 | 2.0 | 2.0 | 2.1 | 2.0% |
Every seat on this panel is graded against real market settlements — records to date: Claude Fable 87% on 1,549 graded calls · Claude Opus 87% on 1,621 graded calls · Claude Sonnet 85% on 1,597 graded calls · GPT 85% on 7,942 graded calls · Gemini 86% on 6,624 graded calls · Kimi 84% on 3,119 graded calls · GLM 82% on 2,941 graded calls · DeepSeek 81% on 2,985 graded calls. Recomputed daily; the full scoreboard is public.
These are model estimates, not predictions of fact and not financial advice. Every number in this piece gets graded in public once the market settles, on the full graded scoreboard.
All eight models scored this board. Each saw the same fetched dossier and no price at all, then read the other seven boards anonymously and revised. The figure in the blend column is the middle number of the eight.
More live boards from the same panel: NFL MVP 2026, where Josh Allen leads at 10.5¢ · the 2027 champion board, where the Rams lead at 15.5¢ and Kansas City sits at 5.5¢ · win totals for all 32 teams, where the Rams carry the league's highest number at 12.41. Prices fetched September 3, 2026.
The Market Card
| Venue | Kalshi, a CFTC-regulated event-contract exchange. Trading is 18+ and availability varies by platform and location, as of September 3, 2026. |
| The Event | "Coach of the Year Winner?" (KXNFLCOTY-27), 33 contracts: all 32 current head coaches plus a tie contract |
| The Contract | Each reads the same way with only the name changing: "If Zac Taylor wins the Pro Football AP Coach of the Year in the 2026-2027 season, then the market resolves to Yes." |
| Settlement | The Associated Press award, voted by AP media members and announced at NFL Honors during Super Bowl week. Expected expiration March 30, 2027. |
| Board Completeness | The 32 named contracts are exactly the 32 current NFL head coaches, checked one to one against the league's 2026 coaching roster on September 3, 2026. Nobody is missing and nobody listed is a coordinator. |
| Depth | About 798,261 contracts still open across the board, out of 861,130 traded over its lifetime, with 49,967 changing hands in the last day. Open interest was 529,939 on August 25 and 434,849 on August 19. Lifetime volume only ever grows, so the open figure is the one that says how live the board is today |
The structural quirk that matters most: this board has no contract for a coach who is not listed on it today. The 33 contracts are the 32 current head coaches plus a tie. If the award goes to somebody outside that group, an in-season promotion for instance, every contract on the board resolves No. The scenario is not hypothetical. Bruce Arians won the 2012 award while serving as Indianapolis's interim head coach, and a board shaped like this one would have paid nobody. The models priced that outcome separately at 2 percent, roughly one year in 50.
Six First-Time Head Coaches, Six Very Different Quarterbacks
Six of the 32 men on this board have never been an NFL head coach before. The award has a well-known soft spot for the new arrival: 13 of the 36 winners since 1990 were in their first season with the team that hired them, Mike Vrabel most recently. A first NFL job is not the same thing as a first year with a team, but the six below sit at the sharpest end of that pattern, and the market has priced them as a class. What it has not priced is how differently the six were equipped.
| First-Time Head Coach | Team | Quarterback atop the depth chart | 2025 record | 2026 wins the market expects | Price | Panel |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jesse Minter | Baltimore Ravens | Lamar Jackson | 8-9 | 11.42 | 12.5¢ | 11.8% |
| Joe Brady | Buffalo Bills | Josh Allen | 12-5 | 11.36 | 3.5¢ | 1.5% |
| Klint Kubiak | Las Vegas Raiders | Kirk Cousins | 3-14 | 6.30 | 5.5¢ | 3.7% |
| Todd Monken | Cleveland Browns | Deshaun Watson | 5-12 | 5.83 | 3.5¢ | 2.0% |
| Mike LaFleur | Arizona Cardinals | Jacoby Brissett | 3-14 | 4.37 | 1.5¢ | 2.0% |
| Jeff Hafley | Miami Dolphins | Malik Willis | 7-10 | 4.20 | 2.5¢ | 0.5% |
Winning this award takes two things at once, and the ledger is unforgiving about both. The median winner since 1990 improved his team by six wins, and 32 of the 36 improved by at least four. The median winner also finished with 12 wins. A coach needs the jump and the finish, and only one of these six can plausibly have both. Minter inherited a roster the market already expects to win 11.42 games off an 8-9 season, so meeting expectations puts him near the winning standard and delivers the improvement in the same year.
Joe Brady has the roster and none of the room: Buffalo won 12 games last season and the market expects 11.36 this one, so the improvement has nowhere to start. The other four have all the room in the world and a roster the same exchange expects to win between 4.20 and 6.30 games. Miami's 4.20 is the lowest total in the league and Arizona's 4.37 is the second lowest, and those two also draw the hardest schedules in football, an average opponent expected to win 9.65 and 9.90 games respectively. Room to improve is not the same as a path to 12 wins.
That is the split the price column flattens. Kalshi charges 5.5 cents on Kubiak and 3.5 cents on Monken against 12.5 on Minter, pricing the three as versions of one story. The panel makes Minter more than three times either of them, for a reason it can point at: he is the only one of the six who inherits both a team the exchange already expects to be good and a 2025 record low enough to leave room to improve on it.
Zac Taylor, Cincinnati Bengals: The Widest Gap On The Board
Kalshi charges 2.5 cents on Taylor, which works out to 2.0 percent once the excess is divided out. The models put him at 10.4 percent, the second-highest figure on their board and the largest disagreement on it, and seven of the eight seats have him at 9.0 or above.
The first supporting number is the one the exchange sets on Cincinnati's season: 10.74 wins, an improvement of 4.74 on last year's 6-11 and the largest expected jump in the league. That matters because this is an improvement award. Of the 36 winners since 1990, 32 gained four or more wins and 18 gained six or more. Not one of the 36 won without improving at all.
The second number is the calendar. We pulled every team's 17 opponents for 2026 from the league schedule and scored each opponent by the win total the same exchange charges on it. Cincinnati's average opponent is expected to win 8.33 games, and only Detroit's slate is fractionally softer at 8.32. Two teams share the easiest calendar in football and Cincinnati is the one improving from 6-11.
| Team | Coach | Average opponent's expected wins | Opponents expected to win 10+ |
|---|---|---|---|
| Detroit Lions | Dan Campbell | 8.32 | 4 |
| Cincinnati Bengals | Zac Taylor | 8.33 | 5 |
| New Orleans Saints | Kellen Moore | 8.40 | 4 |
| New York Jets | Aaron Glenn | 8.64 | 9 |
| Washington Commanders | Dan Quinn | 9.41 | 10 |
| Miami Dolphins | Jeff Hafley | 9.65 | 11 |
| Arizona Cardinals | Mike LaFleur | 9.90 | 12 |
The honest check on Taylor is the one the models kept raising. Cincinnati allowed 492 points last season against 414 scored, and that minus-78 differential is what makes Taylor's case different in kind from the other three names at the top of the panel's board. Baltimore, Kansas City and the Giants each won at least a full game less than their own scoring earned, by 1.1, 3.5 and 3.1 wins. Cincinnati's shortfall was 0.8, so its record was close to honest. The Bengals do not need luck to turn; they need the defense to be different. And in the week before the opener both of their starting receivers were limited: Ja'Marr Chase was present but not suited up at Wednesday's practice with a knee problem, and Tee Higgins did not take part at all with a heel injury, both on September 2. Cincinnati opens at home against Tampa Bay on September 13.
Andy Reid, Kansas City Chiefs: A Losing Record And A Winning Point Total
Reid's price has drifted down since August 25 while the panel's number has not moved at all. He traded at 3.5 cents then and 2.5 cents now, which is 2.0 percent adjusted. The panel had him at 8.7 percent nine days ago and has him at 8.7 percent today.
Kansas City finished 6-11 and outscored its opponents by 34 points. A team that scores 362 and allows 328 wins about nine and a half games in a normal season, so the Chiefs finished three and a half games below what their own scoring earned, the widest such shortfall in the league. The market has already priced part of the correction: it expects 10.37 wins from the same roster in 2026, an improvement of 4.37, second only to Cincinnati's.
The third piece is the quarterback, and it is now settled in a way it was not last month. Mahomes tore the ACL and LCL in his left knee against the Chargers on December 14, 2025 and had both repaired, on a recovery the club put at roughly nine months. On August 29 Ian Rapoport of NFL Network reported him on track to start Week 1. He sits atop Kansas City's depth chart, with Justin Fields listed behind him, and he still carries a questionable designation on the league's own injury feed. The Chiefs open at home against Denver on the night of September 14, the last game of the opening week and the first regular-season football he will have played since the injury.
The case against Reid is not about the football, and one seat made it plainly enough that it refused to move its number after reading all seven of its peers.
I discount Reid despite the best team-level bounce-back case: voters have given him this award once in 27 years, and "Mahomes is back" routes credit to MVP. — Claude Opus
That is the real risk on this contract. Reid has been an NFL head coach for 27 seasons and has won Coach of the Year once, in 2002 with Philadelphia. Voters reward the coach they have not already decided about, and they may decide a quarterback returning from a knee injury is the quarterback's story.
Where The Panel Changed Its Mind
All eight seats revised after reading the others anonymously, and the direction they moved says as much as the distance.
The largest single revision on the board was Gemini's, which raised Reid from 4.0 to 9.0 after its peers pressed the scoring argument it had discounted. "Pythagorean" in the quote is the wins-from-points estimate described above, and the figures after each name are the improvement the market expects and the size of last season's shortfall:
Zac Taylor (+4.74 expected jump, easiest AFC schedule) and Andy Reid (-3.5 Pythagorean luck anomaly in 2025) represent prime mechanical bounce-back candidates. — Gemini
The second useful revision moved two numbers up on a fact the rest of the panel had walked past. Claude Opus raised Dan Campbell from 3.2 to 5.5 and Kellen Moore from 3.3 to 4.5:
Two card facts moved me that most others skipped: Detroit's 8.32 schedule with only four 10-win opponents makes a 14-3 Campbell season cheaper than his +2.32 implies, and New Orleans' 8.4 schedule off a 6-11 base gives Kellen Moore a real +5 path — I raised both. — Claude Opus
And one seat moved against the crowd. Three of the eight raised John Harbaugh in the revision round and one held. Kimi made the largest cut, from 10.0 to 8.0. Claude Sonnet went from 8.5 to 7.0 and finished with the lowest number on him of any seat:
I capped John Harbaugh below the consensus top-2 slot several other forecasters gave him: the Giants' 7.96 projected wins falls far short of the ~12-win median winner, so even a strong delta likely tops out near 9-10 wins, historically too low to win. — Claude Sonnet
One seat did not move at all. Claude Opus finished on Andy Reid at 8.0, exactly where it started, and its reason is the one quoted above: it does not doubt the football case, it doubts the voters.
Sonnet's is the argument worth carrying into the season. The market's second-priciest contract has the most room to improve on the board and the least support for finishing well enough to be rewarded for it. The Giants named Jaxson Dart their starter and open at home against Dallas on September 13.
Where The Models Come In Lowest
Three names carry the widest fades, and all three fail the same test.
Jim Harbaugh, Los Angeles Chargers (5.5¢, 1.3%). The Chargers went 11-6 and the market expects 10.54 wins, a small decline. No coach in the ledger has ever won this award without improving.
Kellen Moore, New Orleans Saints (8.5¢, 3.8%). The market's joint third choice is the models' seventh. Moore is in his second season in New Orleans, so he collects none of the credit voters hand a new arrival, his team was outscored by 77 points, and the market expects only 8.40 wins. Tyler Shough sits atop the depth chart and Alvin Kamara was still sidelined at practice on September 3 with a knee problem.
Liam Coen, Jacksonville Jaguars (3.5¢, 0.6%). Jacksonville went 13-4 and the market expects 10.04. Coen finished second in last season's voting and the season that earned it is the season he now has to beat.
The pattern holds across the bottom of the models' board. Every coach whose team won 12 or more games last season blends at 2 percent or less, not because the models rate them poorly, but because the award has no route for them.
What Would Change The Panel's Mind
Four things, each checkable, with the direction each pushes the board.
- Quarterback health at Cincinnati, Kansas City or Baltimore. Asked what single development would most change their boards, all eight seats named quarterback health, and six of them named a setback for Patrick Mahomes specifically. Claude Opus named a long Lamar Jackson absence instead. The first honest test is the opening weekend: Baltimore at Indianapolis and Cincinnati against Tampa Bay on September 13, Kansas City against Denver on September 14. Quarterback health was the panel's largest stated uncertainty, and the seats that said where the probability would go sent it to the other names at the top of their own board rather than down it. Any of the three losing a starter is a re-score, not a footnote.
- Atlanta naming a Week 1 quarterback. Kevin Stefanski has won this award twice, matched among the coaches on this board only by Mike Vrabel, and he trades at 3.5 cents with his quarterback room still open. ESPN's depth chart lists Tua Tagovailoa first, and on September 3 Stefanski said he had not yet decided between Tagovailoa and Michael Penix Jr., who is working back from a knee injury. A settled answer raises him; an open competition into October ends him.
- Any team changing head coach during the season. That is the route to the outcome with no contract on this board, which the models price at 2 percent. Bruce Arians took it in 2012. A firing in October raises it.
- Cincinnati's defense in the first month. The Bengals allowed 492 points last season, and the entire improvement case rests on that number falling. Two or three low-scoring opponents held inside the first four weeks is the earliest honest read.
Dark Horses The Panel Won't Dismiss
Dan Campbell, Detroit Lions (2.5¢, 5.5%). The third-widest gap on the board and the quietest. Detroit went 9-8 while outscoring opponents by 68 points, the market expects 11.32 wins, and its schedule is the softest in football with only four opponents expected to reach ten wins. Campbell needs a two-win gain and a January run rather than a rebuild. The check is the defense: Kerby Joseph and Brian Branch, both safeties, were moved to Detroit's physically-unable-to-perform list on August 31, Joseph with a knee and Branch with an Achilles.
Dan Quinn, Washington Commanders (1.5¢, 3.3%). Washington went 5-12, was outscored by 95 points, and won 1.2 fewer games than its scoring earned. Every seat priced him between 3.0 and 4.0, a one-point band. His problem is that he is not a new arrival, so voters have already formed a view, and his schedule is the third hardest in the league.
Klint Kubiak, Las Vegas (5.5¢, 3.7%) and Robert Saleh, Tennessee (5.5¢, 3.8%). Both coach teams that finished 3-14, which is the loudest improvement story available and the hardest to convert. Their expected totals are 6.30 and 6.39, well under the winning standard, so the models price them as live and capped. Las Vegas named Kirk Cousins its Week 1 starter ahead of the first overall pick, and on September 2 Kubiak said he was optimistic Ashton Jeanty would be ready for the opener after an ankle problem.
Shane Steichen, Indianapolis (2.5¢, 2.7%). The forgotten regression case. Indianapolis went 8-9 while scoring 466 points, and its scoring profile implies 9.7 wins, the fourth-largest shortfall in the league behind Kansas City, the Giants and Arizona. Daniel Jones is the starter and Anthony Richardson is the backup.
The Ledger This Panel Reasoned From
The last 12 winners, with the record each inherited, the improvement that won it and the conference. Across all 36 winners since 1990 the typical improvement is six wins and the typical winner finished with 12. The NFC has produced 23 of the 36, but five of the last seven winners coached in the AFC.
| Season | Winner | Team | Record | Year before | Wins gained | Conference |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2014 | Bruce Arians | Arizona Cardinals | 11-5 | 10-6 | +1 | NFC |
| 2015 | Ron Rivera | Carolina Panthers | 15-1 | 7-8-1 | +7.5 | NFC |
| 2016 | Jason Garrett | Dallas Cowboys | 13-3 | 4-12 | +9 | NFC |
| 2017 | Sean McVay | Los Angeles Rams | 11-5 | 4-12 | +7 | NFC |
| 2018 | Matt Nagy | Chicago Bears | 12-4 | 5-11 | +7 | NFC |
| 2019 | John Harbaugh | Baltimore Ravens | 14-2 | 10-6 | +4 | AFC |
| 2020 | Kevin Stefanski | Cleveland Browns | 11-5 | 6-10 | +5 | AFC |
| 2021 | Mike Vrabel | Tennessee Titans | 12-5 | 11-5 | +1 | AFC |
| 2022 | Brian Daboll | New York Giants | 9-7-1 | 4-13 | +5.5 | NFC |
| 2023 | Kevin Stefanski | Cleveland Browns | 11-6 | 7-10 | +4 | AFC |
| 2024 | Kevin O'Connell | Minnesota Vikings | 14-3 | 7-10 | +7 | NFC |
| 2025 | Mike Vrabel | New England Patriots | 14-3 | 4-13 | +10 | AFC |
Last season is the template and the warning. Vrabel took New England from 4-13 to 14-3, a ten-win jump, and won with 302 points and 19 first-place votes ahead of Jacksonville's Liam Coen. Both men are on this board today at 0.5 cents and 3.5 cents, and both sit near the bottom because the jump that decided last year's vote is a jump neither can make again from where they now sit. In these 36 seasons nobody has taken the award in back-to-back years.
The lowest win total in the full ledger is instructive about how much the shape matters. Jimmy Johnson won in 1990 at 7-9, a losing record, because Dallas had won a single game the year before. The voters were not scoring the record; they were scoring the distance travelled.
Settlement Timeline
| What | When |
|---|---|
| Season Opens (New England At Seattle) | September 9, 2026 |
| Baltimore At Indianapolis, Cincinnati Vs Tampa Bay, Dallas At The Giants | September 13, 2026 |
| Kansas City Vs Denver, Mahomes's First Game Back | September 14, 2026 |
| Regular Season Ends (Week 18) | January 10, 2027 |
| Award Announced | NFL Honors, Super Bowl week, February 2027 |
| Contract Expected Expiration | March 30, 2027 |
This page is re-scored when the story moves, and the prices on it refresh during news waves. Prices as of September 3, 2026; the models' numbers were generated September 3, 2026.
More on this: NFL 2026 on Kalshi: 49 Live Boards, 10 Days To Kickoff · NFL Defensive Rookie Of The Year Odds: The Safety Problem · NFL Comeback Player Of The Year Odds: Kalshi Has No Daniels · NFL Defensive Player Of The Year Odds: Garrett To A Penny · NL Manager Of The Year Odds
The Bottom Line
Nine days ago the market's board and the models' board disagreed about one thing. With Week 1 still to be played they disagree about the same thing, and by more. Kalshi's most expensive contracts belong to coaches with new jobs and clean turnaround stories. The models' highest numbers belong to teams whose points last season said they were better than the standings admitted, and the exchange prices two of those at 2.5 cents each.
The money has arrived either way. Open interest on this board has gone from 434,849 contracts on August 19 to 798,261 today, and 49,967 contracts changed hands in the last 24 hours alone. Both readings are defensible. Only the season settles which one was closer, and this page carries the answer when it does.
Hero illustration: OddsShopper, in the house collage style. Andy Reid photo by All-Pro Reels, licensed CC BY-SA 2.0; photos cropped, toned, and composited.
