It looks like a two-coach race for best in NFL

There have been some masterful coaching jobs in the NFL this season, but there will be only one Coach of the Year, even if several might deserve the award.

The job Pete Carroll is doing rebuilding the Seattle Seahawks on the fly is pretty amazing when you itemize the change he has overseen the last 11 months.

Frank Reich was the last head coach to find work this year when Indianapolis general manager Chris Ballard realized he was holding an empty promise from Josh McDaniels, and the Colts current five-game winning streak after a 1-5 start has them in the thick of the wild-card chase.

I have no idea how Jay Gruden is winning with his Washington bunch?

And Mike Tomlin won't get a lot of votes this year, but how about the job he has done holding the Pittsburgh Steelers together and then turning them around?

Congrats guys, this just wasn't the year to do one of your best coaching jobs.

This year's Coach of the Year will be either Sean Payton, Sean McVay, Andy Reid, Bill Belichick, Bill O'Brien or Matt Nagy.

Actually, that's not totally true. In spite of the Houston Texans' seven-game winning streak after an awful 0-3 start, O'Brien won't win.

His challenge to snare votes will be the perception his club should be expected to be 7-3 in the middling AFC South with all the talent he has at his disposal.

Right now, Sean McVay may be the best coach in the NFL - after Belichick, of course - and like O'Brien he has done everything to meet expectations. But McVay started the year in the totally unfair position of having no way to surpass them since the bar was set so high.

McVay also will lose votes because he won the award last year, and nobody wins the award two years in a row in the Super Bowl era, with the exception of Don Shula (1967-68) and Joe Gibbs (1982-83).

Belichick has won the award three times but not since 2010. You easily could give it to him every year because he is clearly the G.O.A.T., but this hasn't been his best year and we will take him for granted once again.

You know why Reid won't get it? Because too many of us with votes will just assume he's going to lose early in the playoffs again, and too many folks are falling all over themselves to give more credit for the Kansas City Chiefs' incredible season to quarterback Patrick Mahomes rather than to Reid.

While any of the six of my headline nominees would be a worthy recipient of the award, in reality it's a two-horse race right now between Payton and Nagy.

Perhaps ironically for Nagy, Payton's one prior coach of the year award came in his rookie campaign of 2006, when he led the New Orleans Saints to a 10-6 season following a Hurricane Katrina fueled 3-13 2005 season.

The 2006 Saints won their first playoff game following a first-round bye before losing the NFC title Game 39-14 to the Super Bowl bound Bears at Soldier Field.

Payton probably is a slight favorite at the moment because the Saints are the best team in the NFC, possibly the best in the NFL, and they appear to still be getting better.

Nagy's candidacy is trickier.

While the Bears are the most improved team in the NFL, the third-best team in the NFC and that they may have the league's best defense, coordinator Vic Fangio commands most of the credit for that defense.

Nagy however will be a popular candidate because of the innovation, versatility, volume and explosiveness of his offense, which is all his, the higher profile of the Bears than the Saints because of their history and market and his team's dramatic overnight transition from league doormat to believable contender.

I wasn't sure Nagy was even a candidate a few weeks ago, but he keeps getting better and it's difficult to ignore his seeming complete grasp of the job.

I'm not sure yet who I will vote for, Payton or Nagy, or which one will win, but I would bet it is going to be a very close two-horse race between them that might still be decided by their results over the next five weeks.

• Hub Arkush, the executive editor of Pro Football Weekly, can be reached at harkush@profootballweekly.com or on Twitter @Hub_Arkush.