How This Strange Campaign Redefined the Conventional Coach of the Year Mold.
Typically, the NFL's Head Coach of the Year trophy follows a straightforward pattern. It often functions as a form of mea culpa. Our apologies we got wrong your team in our pre-campaign forecasts.
On paper, it's a direct trajectory: the skipper who engineered the biggest turnaround wins the award. However, it sparks an yearly debate about preseason outlooks and whether we're genuinely rewarding excellent leadership or simply the biggest upset.
Yet the latest race is distinctly different. The group of nominees is remarkably deep. It has been the campaign of turnarounds. The NFL has been messy, with reigning division champions fading and recent strugglers rising in unison. In an ordinary year, Sean Payton leading the Denver Broncos to the top of the conference would make him the clear favorite. But in such a chaotic and thrilling season, he's up against several other elite candidates.
Here is how the hypothetical ballot ought to look.
5) Ben Johnson, Chicago Bears, 11-5
Voters for Coach of the Year voters adore quarterbacks. History shows this. Sean McVay in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. A third in 2022. If you transform a franchise QB, you're halfway to winning the award.
The Bears' head coach didn't merely fixed Caleb Williams; he's freed him. In the right environment, the QB has been given the opportunity to showcase his rare ability. Since midseason onward, the Bears rank fourth in offensive EPA per play. This isn't a lucky run – it's consistent performance. With Johnson, Williams has become increasingly confident, less reckless, and has eagerly surrendered to the scheme instead of freelancing. It is an attack built entirely in Johnson's vision: a physical run game, a steady helping of play-action and a innovative passing attack that creates wide receiver receivers everywhere. Williams has taken advantage. And when openings haven't been there, he's been able to conjure magic from nothing.
The coach arrived to the Bears with a specific offensive blueprint. Almost each gamble – overhauling the trenches, featuring the tight ends, turning Williams into a timing-based thrower – has succeeded. This is rare for a rookie skipper. And it's even more uncommon yet for a coach who walked into the organization with the level of expectations he did. For two straight offseasons, he was the hottest name on the coaching carousel. However when it comes to selecting a leader, there are no guarantees. Somehow, he has met expectations – and even surpassed them. He's proven not just to be a offensive genius but the kind of leader that can inject fresh energy into an organization.
During a ordinary season, he would be the clear-cut choice. But the current isn't a normal year!
The area where Johnson's candidacy runs slightly into trouble is on defense. The Bears presently sit 25th in defensive success rate. They are surviving on takeaways, and turnovers are notoriously unreliable. Coaches can stress creating turnovers, but nobody can guarantee it. He is on the ballot because the offensive production is legitimate. He's not higher because luck is doing too much of the defense's work. If not for a few bounces of the ball, the Bears would be two victories behind. It's been an exceptional transformation, and the core is established for long-term winning. However Johnson comes up just short in this ranking.
4) The Jacksonville Jaguars Coach, Jacksonville Jaguars, Their Record
The Jaguars' coach is in a similar position to his counterpart. He's another rookie leader who has engineered a dramatic resurgence. During the stretch run of the year, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the best all-around ball of his professional life. And he's also overseen the transformation of a defense that now sits at fifth in the league in EPA per play.
What's more notably, he has excelled at the intangibles aspects, which wasn't a given after his initial press conference appearances and some of his offseason decisions.
Coen walked into Jacksonville with an uncommonly raw staff. In contrast to other coaches, who packed their staff with the perfect coaching blend of new ideas and experience, Coen trusted newbies. Starting with the head coach himself to coordinators to position coaches, the Jags are stocked with rookies. That type of approach is exciting in theory, but often fails in practice – as past failures are a cautionary tale – because everyone is learning a new job in real-time. But Coen has pulled the entire group and all elements together.
Following an initial hot start, there was a possibility that the season would veer off the rails. A mid-year collapse caused the Jags wobbling once more. That's typically when coaches overcorrect. Coen didn't. Rather, he simplified the approach. Jacksonville stopped pursuing home-run answers and started hunting sustainable ones. Coen recentered the offense around key players and the running game, and asked his QB to use his mobility more often.
The results are clear. The Jags have won seven games consecutively and will be the AFC's No 3 playoff seed. Coen gets the slightest knock in the rankings because he inherited a talented team, but he has proven he can maximize that talent.
3) Mike Macdonald, Seattle Seahawks, 13-3
Each Coach of the Year argument has a hinge decision. For the Seahawks coach, it was his quarterback decision.
Moving on from a veteran, signing a new quarterback and partnering him with an innovative play-caller might have derailed the season in October. Rather, it shaped it. By the mid point of the year, the new QB was an Most Valuable Player contender. He has fallen away since that hot streak, slipping to a lower rank in efficiency per dropback over the latter part of the schedule, putting him only one spot ahead of peers.
Still