There is no tougher award to predict than AP Coach of the Year. On the other hand, that makes it one of the most fun awards to speculate and discuss. Regular readers know that I have been at this game for awhile, with no success at all.

• In 2012, I selected Mike Mularkey as my pick. That turned out be very, very wrong — the Jaguars went 2-14! — but in COTY predicting, it’s win or go home, so swinging for the fences makes sense. Bruce Arians, who went 9-3 as interim head coach of the Colts, won the award for his magical work in transforming a bad Indianapolis team.
• In 2013, I selected Sean Payton; unfortunately for him, an 11-5 record was not enough. That honor instead went to Ron Rivera, whose Panthers went from 7-9 to 12-4, on the back of a dominant defense.
• In 2014, I chose … Jay Gruden. Washington went 4-12. Arians, now in Arizona, won the award for taking a Cardinals that ranked 24th in both yards and yards allowed and barely outscored its opposition to an 11-5 record: Arizona went 6-0 under Carson Palmer, but going 5-3 with Drew Stanton secured the honors for Arians.
• In 2015, I chose Dan Quinn. That was a year too early: Atlanta finished just 8-8 this year before going to the Super Bowl in ’16.  Instead, Rivera won again, as Carolina went from 7-8-1 to 15-1.
• In 2016, I went with Bill O’Brien as my pick; he responded with his third straight 9-7 season. I was in the wrong state of mind but the right state: Cowboys coach Jason Garrett won the award, after Dallas vaulted from 4-12 to 13-3.
• Last year, I didn’t write an article about my picks, but I leaned towards Chargers coach Anthony Lynn.  Well, 2017 turned out to be a perfect example of how hard this award is to pick.  Entering the season, Sean McVay was one of five head coaches who had 50-1 odds to win, tied for the longest odds of any coach.  And McVay turned around the Rams from 4-12 to 11-4 before securing a first round bye.  He picked up 35 of 50 votes to win the award.

The reason this award is so hard to pick is because in some ways, every coach is on an even playing field in week 1. The winner of this award is the one who usually exceeds expectations the most, so there is a natural equalizer in place.

That’s not entirely true, of course.  A team needs to have a good season to get the award, and some teams are so low on talent that a good season is a longshot.  Here are the only odds I can currently find on the award for 2018:

So, who would you pick? Let’s ignore the odds — I don’t want you just picking longshots for the sake of picking longshots. But if you had just one guess as to who would win the award, who would be your pick?

Me? I’m going with Hue Jackson. I’m not bothered by his long odds, because odds don’t mean much for this award. Cleveland should be a much better team this year, and a 9-7season might be enough to get Jackson the award.

Cleveland had 3.3 Pythagorean wins last season and was the youngest team in football my a country mile.  So the Browns should naturally be better this year, and have also added two quarterbacks (Tyrod Taylor and Baker Mayfield) that should lead to a much better passing game.  The Browns added Nick Chubb and Carlos Hyde  at running back, and Jarvis Landry and perhaps a full season out of Josh Gordon at wide receiver.  Cleveland may naturally be a 6 or 7 win team this season, so all it takes is a little luck in close games (where the Browns are 1-11 under Jackson so far) to get to 9 wins.

So that’s my pick.  Who is yours?