How This Unusual Campaign Shattered the Traditional Coach of the Year Mold.
Usually, the NFL's Head Coach of the Year award follows a simple script. It commonly acts as a kind of apology. We regret we got wrong your team in our preseason forecasts.
Theoretically, it's a clear-cut line: the skipper who oversaw the largest improvement receives the prize. In practice, it creates an annual debate about preseason outlooks and whether we're genuinely honoring excellent coaching or simply the greatest shock.
Yet the latest race is fundamentally different. The group of contenders is unusually deep. It has been the season of turnarounds. The league has been messy, with recent conference winners falling away and longtime also-rans ascending collectively. During an normal season, a coach leading the his team to the summit of the conference would make him the stone-cold front-runner. Yet in such a wild and thrilling season, he's facing multiple other exceptional coaches.
Here is how the projected vote could look.
5) Ben Johnson, Chicago Bears, Their Record
Coach of the Year voters adore QBs. This is a tradition. Sean McVay in 2017. Another in 2020. A third in 2022. If you solve a franchise QB, you're well on your way home.
Ben Johnson hasn't just corrected Caleb Williams; he's unlocked him. Given a proper system, the QB has been afforded the chance to showcase his otherworldly talent. Since Week 9, the Bears sit at number four in offensive Expected Points Added per play. That's not a hot streak – it's consistent excellence. Under Johnson, Williams has become more confident, less careless, and has eagerly submitted to the scheme instead of improvising. It is an offense constructed entirely in the coach's image: a bully-ball ground attack, a consistent helping of play-action passes and a innovative passing attack that springs wide-open targets all over the field. Williams has thrived. And when openings haven't been available, he's been able to spin big plays from nothing.
The coach came to Chicago with a specific offensive blueprint. Virtually every gamble – overhauling the offensive line, utilizing the tight ends, transforming Williams into a rhythm passer – has succeeded. This is rare for a first-year skipper. And it's even more uncommon yet for a coach who walked into the building with the kind of expectations he did. For consecutive straight cycles, he was the hottest candidate on the head coaching market. However when it comes to selecting a head coach, there are zero guarantees. Remarkably, Johnson has met the hype – and even exceeded them. He's proven not just to be a scheme dork but the kind of leader that can breathe fresh energy into an franchise.
During a normal year, Johnson would be the overwhelming choice. But this is not a normal campaign!
Where Johnson's case comes slightly unstuck is on the defensive side. The Chicago defense currently rank 25th in defensive efficiency. They are living on turnovers, and takeaways are notoriously unreliable. Coaches can focus on ball disruption, but no one can guarantee it. Johnson is on the ballot because the offensive production is legitimate. He's not higher because luck is doing an outsized share of the defensive work. With a few bounces of the ball, the team would be several victories worse off. It's been an exceptional turnaround, and the foundation is in place for long-term winning. However Johnson comes up short in this ranking.
4) Liam Coen, Jacksonville Jaguars, 12-4
The Jaguars' coach is in a similar spot to Johnson. He's a fellow first-time leader who has engineered a rapid turnaround. During the crucial final weeks of the season, he has his franchise quarterback playing the most complete overall football of his professional life. And he's also overseen the transformation of a defense that now ranks number five in the league in EPA per play.
Even more impressively, he has mastered the intangibles aspects, which wasn't a certainty following his initial public appearances and some of his preseason moves.
The coach walked into the Jaguars with an exceptionally inexperienced coaching staff. Unlike other coaches, who surrounded themselves with the ideal coaching mix of youth and veteran savvy, he hired newbies. Starting with the leader on down to coordinators to assistant coaches, the Jags are filled with rookies. That kind of setup is exciting in theory, but frequently fails in reality – as past failures are a cautionary tale – because everybody is figuring out a new job on the fly. Yet Coen has pulled everyone and everything together.
Following an initial strong start, there was a possibility that the season would go off the track. A midseason setback caused the Jags stumbling once more. That's typically when coaches panic and change too much. Coen didn't. Instead, he streamlined the approach. Jacksonville stopped pursuing explosive answers and started seeking sustainable ones. Coen refocused the offense around key players and the running game, and encouraged his QB to use his legs more.
The results are evident. The Jaguars have won seven games in a row and will be the AFC's No 3 seed. He receives the slightest deduction in the standings because he inherited a skilled team, but he has proven he can get the most out of that roster.
3) Mike Macdonald, Seattle Seahawks, Their Record
Every Coach of the Year case has a defining decision. For Mike Macdonald, it was his quarterback move.
Moving on from a incumbent, signing a different quarterback and partnering him with an new offensive coordinator might have ended the season in October. Rather, it shaped it. Through the mid point of the year, the acquisition was an Most Valuable Player contender. He has regressed after that hot streak, dropping to 23rd in EPA per pass attempt over the second half of the season, putting him just a single spot ahead of peers.
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