Sorry, Nick Sirianni and Brian Daboll. Doug Pederson should be the NFL’s Coach of the Year.

When the top three NFL Coach of the Year candidates go to work Saturday, the voting will have been over for two days. Voters from the Pro Football Writers Association were supposed to consider only the coaches’ regular-season work, so the New York Giants’ win last weekend should not influence anyone who prefers Brian Daboll, whose team whupped Minnesota mirage Kevin O’Connell and the Vikings, but human nature is what it is.

The Eagles and Giants both burst out of the gate in big, East Coast markets, which made it a two-horse race in the first half of the season between Nick Sirianni and Daboll. Then the Eagles lost Jalen Hurts and both games with backup Gardner Minshew. Brock Purdy kept winning in San Francisco, the Jacksonville Jaguars somehow made the playoffs, and the Giants stagnated. Suddenly, it was a four-horse race.

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The Clydesdale wasn’t in it: Kansas City Chiefs coach Andy Reid, whose team earned the AFC’s No. 1 seed, did what he was expected to do. So did Buffalo Bills coach Sean McDermott, whose team had been to the playoffs the past three seasons.

It was a crowded field this year, but there’s a clear winner.

As brilliant as the 49ers’ finish was — 10 straight wins, the last six with rookie seventh-rounder Purdy — it’s difficult to give full credit to a coach who began the season 3-4 with Trey Lance and Jimmy Garoppolo. The difference wasn’t Purdy, or Shanahan’s play-calling. The difference was Christian McCaffrey, who, when healthy, is the most dynamic player in the NFL. Shanahan has used him well, but general manager John Lynch traded for him.

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Further, as deftly as Shanahan has managed his offense, the 49ers are fearsome because of the defense DeMeco Ryans coordinates. It’s No. 1 in the NFL. To his credit, Shanahan hired the former Eagle as a quality control coach in 2017, promoted him to inside linebackers coach in 2018, made him the DC in 2021, and he has been the best coach on the staff since. That includes Shanahan.

Daboll might one day be considered one of the better coaching hires of the decade, but he wasn’t even the best hire of 2022. He’s had a fine rookie year. He won nine games, a five-game improvement over 2021, and locked up the NFC’s No. 6 seed with a week to spare. In the first half of the season, he beat Jacksonville, but the Jags stunk then, and he beat the Ravens, but they turned out to be pretty lousy. Still, he did it with a nondescript defense plagued by injury, an offensive line that remains unremarkable, and a wide receiver corps that recalls Donovan McNabb’s early days.

Daboll’s real genius lies in making do with what he had. Saquon Barkley, the team’s best player, returned to Pro Bowl form. Daboll was hired, in part, to save fourth-year quarterback Daniel Jones. As the offensive coordinator in Buffalo, Daboll had created Josh Allen; could he salvage Jones?

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Yes. Daboll developed a scheme that featured Jones’ running ability, utilized play-action, and simplified Jones’ responsibilities. Jones finished with career-bests in completion percentage (67.2%), passer rating (92.5), rushing yards (708), and rushing touchdowns (seven) and, perhaps most importantly, he threw a career-low five interceptions.

Great work.

The Giants also went 2-5-1 in their last eight games.

Horrible work.

Nicky T-shirts built off the humility of 2021, when he ceded play-calling responsibilities to offensive coordinator Shane Steichen at midseason, a monumental gesture of leadership and accountability. He understood he wasn’t great at it, and he understood he wasn’t ready as a head coach to successfully multitask on game days (almost no one is). It is, to this day, Sirianni’s most significant act.

It allowed Steichen and quarterbacks coach Brian Johnson to devise a scheme that stressed the strengths of running quarterback Jalen Hurts and a spectacular offensive line. Hurts, a bottom-15 quarterback at the end of 2021, was the MVP favorite until his shoulder injury in Game 14. Hurts’ ascension was partly Sirianni’s doing, but it was mostly Hurts’ individual improvement.

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It also allowed Sirianni better oversight of timid defensive coordinator Jonathan Gannon, whose defense finished No. 2 in the NFL, largely because it broke the franchise’s sack record, with 70, tops in the league.

But, like Shanahan, Sirianni’s success arrived with an influx of new talent. Wide receiver A.J. Brown, edge rusher Haason Reddick, cornerback James Bradberry, safety C.J. Gardner-Johnson, and run-stuffing rookie defensive tackle Jordan Davis all were moderate-risk bets that paid off handsomely for general manager Howie Roseman, who should be, hands-down, the NFL’s Executive of the Year.

» READ MORE: Howie Roseman, Exec of the Year? No-brainer, says Jeffrey Lurie.

Of course, justice would not be miscarried if Sirianni and Roseman both won.

Pederson did what Daboll did: He made Trevor Lawrence a competent NFL quarterback with an unlimited ceiling.

Pederson did what Sirianni did: He incorporated new talent — Evan Engram, Christian Kirk, and Zay Jones — who all had career years.

Pederson did what Shanahan did: He finished strong, winning six of his last seven games, including Game 17 against the Tennessee Titans to take the AFC South title.

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But Pederson did it all for the NFL’s worst franchise. He inherited a culture rotted by the brief presence of Urban Meyer and the lingering stench of Doug Marrone.

Pederson won nine games with a team that was 4-29 the past two seasons and hadn’t sniffed the playoffs in four years. That got my vote.

The other coaches all coached well.

Doug Pederson performed a miracle.