The coach of the year field has been narrowed to five. That’s the relatively easy part.
The hard part is narrowing it to one.
Of course, that happened more than two weeks ago, when the 50 AP voters (whose names and votes will be disclosed after the awards are announced in two weeks) submitted their ballots on the day after the end of the regular season.
The five finalists, as announced by the NFL, are (in alphabetical order): Jaguars coach Liam Coen, Bears coach Ben Johnson, Seahawks coach Mike Macdonald, 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan, and Patriots coach Mike Vrabel.
Fortunately, none of the five finalists were among the 10 coaches who are no longer with their teams.
The most obvious omissions from the list are Broncos coach Sean Payton, whose team secured the No. 1 seed in the AFC, and Rams coach Sean McVay, whose team was arguably the second best in the NFC, seeding notwithstanding.
But putting them in the top five would require removing one of the others. Good luck with that exercise.
The two favorites, in our view, are Coen and Vrabel. We’ll find out in 14 days who gets the fancy trophy. Vrabel surely hopes he won’t be able to attend the NFL Honors ceremony, because he’ll be preparing for the far more important prize. Especially as it relates to a coach’s legacy.
