Jaguars' Liam Coen nearly won NFL Coach of the Year, falling just shy of Mike Vrabel in a close, weighted vote.
Jacksonville Jaguars coach Liam Coen came elections-results close to earning the Coach of the Year award at Thursday night's NFL Honors celebration at the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco.
Coen was one of five finalists for the league's top coaching trophy, and fell just a handful of votes shy of tying or beating New England Patriots coach Mike Vrabel, who was announced the winner.
Buccaneers QB Baker Mayfield surprises Liam Coen as the Jaguars coach does an interview on the red carpet ahead of the NFL Honors ceremony Thursday, Feb. 5, in San Francisco. Coen was a finalist for NFL Coach of the Year. (Screenshot/ESPN)Other finalists included the Kyle Shanahan of the San Francisco 49ers; Ben Johnson of the Chicago Bears; and the Seattle Seahawks' Mike Macdonald.
The vote count for COY honors, released on Thursday following the NFL Honors presentation, was not controversial, whatever the uproar that followed the vote count for the MVP award.
Results of the vote counts for Coach of the Year and other honors were released by the Associated Press, which selects the panel of 50 NFL writers and media members who vote on the awards and oversees the selection process. Voting was completed before the playoffs began.
For Coach of the Year, the AP's balloting from this nationwide media panel ranked coaches one through five with scoring on a 10-5-3-2-1 basis. AP uses a ranked-choice, weighted voting system in which voters rank their top five candidates, with 10 points for first place, five for second, three for third, two for fourth, and one for fifth.
Below are the final rankings, with total points and first-place votes.
Mike Vrabel: 302 points (with 19 first-place votes)
Liam Coen: 239 (16)
Mike Macdonald: 191 (8)
Ben Johnson, Chicago: 145 (1)
Kyle Shanahan, San Francisco: 140 (6)
Coen could easily have tied Vrabel's 19 first-place votes, had three of the votes that went to Macdonald or Shanahan gone his way. Or a two first-place vote swing from Vrabel's column to Coen's would have been decisive for the Jaguar's first-year head coach.
A swing in first-place votes alone wouldn't have given Coen an electoral-college victory for the COY trophy, as Vrabel's point count indicates he received a more favorable place-count total.
Vrabel, who won Coach of the Year honors the seventh coach to win it with two different teams, also was voted COY in 2021, when the 50-year-old former All-Pro linebacker coached the Tennessee Titans.
No Jacksonville Jaguar has ever come so close to earning the NFL's Coach of the Year award.
Jags quarterback Trevor Lawrence was among the finalists for Most Valuable Player, but lost out to Los Angeles Rams QB Matthew Stafford. Lawrence came in fifth in the vote tabulation, having received no first-place votes and 49 points.
San Francisco 49ers running back Christian McCaffrey ran away with the league's Comeback Player of the Year award, with 395 points and 31 first-place votes.
Detroit Lions defensive end Aidan Hutchinson garnered 221 points off nine first-place votes; Dallas Cowboys QB Dak Prescott totaled 167 points and six first-place votes.
Lawrence had 130 points, picking up two first-place votes.
Pats receiver Stefon Diggs got 40 points, but no first-place votes;
Others with first-place votes were New Orleans Saints WR Chris Olave and Indianapolis Colts fill-in QB Philip Rivers, both of whom had one.
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