JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- A team that was one of the worst in the NFL, led by a struggling quarterback in 2016, has won a division title for the first time in at least a decade.

That team’s head coach should be the favorite to be the NFL’s Coach of the Year.

And Sean McVay is. The Los Angeles Rams’ 31-year-old head coach has engineered an amazing turnaround from a 4-12 record and turned Jared Goff into one of the league’s top passers. The Rams (11-4) have the look of a dangerous team in the playoffs, too.

McVay is the likely winner, but there’s another coach that meets that criteria, as well: Doug Marrone.

The Jacksonville Jaguars franchise had been floundering for nearly a decade, not posting a winning season since 2007 and winning more than five games just twice in that span. Coach Gus Bradley had posted the worst winning percentage in NFL history among coaches with at least 60 games of experience during his tenure from 2013 through 14 games of the 2016 season.

The Jaguars were 3-13 and at one point lost nine consecutive games in 2016.

A year later they’re 10-5, have their first division championship since 1999, and are making their first playoff appearance since 2007.

What makes that more significant than what McVay or some of the other candidates (Philadelphia’s Doug Pederson, Minnesota’s Mike Zimmer, Carolina’s Ron Rivera and New Orleans’ Sean Payton) is the fact that Blake Bortles has started every game. Bortles has actually played solid -- and at times very good -- football and it’s not accurate to say the Jaguars are winning games in spite of him.

However, that’s not been the national narrative surrounding Bortles. After a disastrous 2016 season, it was a constant barrage of stories and reports of Bortles as the worst quarterback in the NFL (per Trent Dilfer, then of ESPN, among others). There were quotes from anonymous scouts and GMs ripping the Jaguars’ decision to keep him in 2017 and to not bring in competition.

That only intensified when Bortles threw five interceptions in a training camp practice and then got benched after the second preseason game.

Though Bortles was the NFL’s top-ranked quarterback in the first three weeks of December, his three-interception performance in a loss to San Francisco last weekend gave his critics their voice again.

The point of all this Bortles rehashing? If the general opinion among those in the national media and inside the league is that Bortles isn’t a good quarterback, then the fact that the Jaguars won 10 games and a division title with him as the starter is more proof that Marrone should be the league’s Coach of the Year.

Goff ranks fifth in passer rating and has 28 TD passes and only seven interceptions. Case Keenum is seventh (21 and seven) and Carson Wentz is fourth (33 and seven). They’ve all had better seasons than Bortles (16th in passer rating, 21 TDs, 11 INTs). Goff, Keenum and Wentz also have had the benefit of a full complement of playmakers. The Jaguars lost No. 1 receiver Allen Robinson, haven’t had No. 3 receiver Allen Hurns the past six games, and No. 2 receiver Marqise Lee is likely going to miss his second consecutive game.

The Jaguars are relying on rookies Keelan Cole and Dede Westbrook and first-year player Jaydon Mickens, which makes what Marrone has done with this team even more impressive.

Before he could do all of that, though, he had to change the culture from Bradley’s approach that stressed the process over anything else. It was about players being their best, which would in turn result in victories. Marrone emphasized winning from the start and it was something the players, some of whom had come from college programs that won national titles, embraced immediately.

“He’s good at all of that,” cornerback Jalen Ramsey said. “Coach, you’re good at all this s---. Culture change, it’s you. Rules, that’s you. All this s--- is you, Coach.”

McVay would be a worthy winner. So would Pederson, Rivera, Zimmer and Payton. Marrone deserves just as much consideration and it’s a shame he’s not getting the amount of credit he deserves.

“Marrone would be a runaway winner in a normal year,” ESPN NFL Insider Dan Graziano said. “But this year’s Coach of the Year race is crowded with worthy candidates. Sean McVay, Doug Pederson, Mike Zimmer, Ron Rivera, Sean Payton and, of course, Bill Belichick all make compelling cases, as does Marrone. It’s just a really tough award to win this year, but making the playoffs with a team that hadn’t won six games in a season since 2010 is Coach of the Year stuff, for sure.”