🔗 Share this article

Ordinarily, the National Football League's Coach of the Year honor adheres to a simple script. It commonly acts as a kind of apology. Sorry we got wrong your squad in our pre-campaign forecasts.

In theory, it's a clear-cut trajectory: the coach who orchestrated the biggest turnaround is handed the prize. In reality, it fuels an yearly debate about expectations and whether we're actually rewarding superior coaching or just the greatest upset.

Yet the latest field is distinctly unique. The list of contenders is remarkably strong. It has been the year of comebacks. The NFL has been messy, with recent conference winners declining and recent also-rans improving in unison. In an typical season, Sean Payton leading the his team to the top of the conference would make him the stone-cold front-runner. Yet in such a chaotic and thrilling season, he's facing five other exceptional coaches.

Below is how the projected ballot ought to look.

5) Ben Johnson, His Team, Their Record

Voters for Coach of the Year voters are fascinated by quarterbacks. History shows this. A certain coach in 2017. Another in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. Should you solve a quarterback, you're halfway home.

The Bears' head coach not only corrected Caleb Williams; he's unlocked him. Given a proper ecosystem, Williams has been given the opportunity to display his special talent. From midseason onward, the Bears sit at fourth in offensive EPA per play. That's not a hot streak – it's prolonged excellence. Under his guidance, the quarterback has become increasingly confident, far less careless, and has willingly submitted to the scheme instead of improvising. It is an attack built entirely in Johnson's image: a physical run game, a heavy dose of play-action and a imaginative aerial game that springs wide receiver targets all over the field. The QB has taken advantage. And when openings weren't available, he's been able to create magic out of broken plays.

Johnson came to the Bears with a specific offensive philosophy. Virtually each gamble – overhauling the offensive line, highlighting the tight ends, transforming Williams into a timing-based thrower – has succeeded. That's uncommon for a rookie head coach. And it's even more uncommon still for a leader who walked into the organization with the kind of pressure he did. For consecutive straight cycles, he was the top candidate on the head coaching carousel. But when it comes to hiring a head coach, there are no sure things. Remarkably, he has lived up to the hype – and even exceeded them. He's demonstrated not just to be a offensive genius but the type of leader that can inject new life into an franchise.

In a typical season, he would be the clear-cut choice. Yet the current is not a normal season!

Where Johnson's case comes a bit unstuck is on defense. The Chicago defense presently rank in the bottom third in defensive success rate. They are living on takeaways, and takeaways are notoriously unreliable. Coaches can emphasise ball disruption, but nobody can ensure it. Johnson is on the list because the offensive production is legitimate. He's not higher because variance is doing too much of the defensive work. If not for a couple bounces of the ball, the team would be two victories behind. It's been an exceptional turnaround, and the foundation is established for long-term success. However he falls short in this ranking.

4) The Jacksonville Jaguars Coach, His Team, 12-4

Coen is in a similar position to his counterpart. He's a fellow first-time head coach who has engineered a swift turnaround. Over the crucial final weeks of the season, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the most complete overall ball of his career. And he's also spearheaded the overhaul of a defense that now sits at fifth in the league in Expected Points Added per play.

Even more notably, Coen has mastered the off-field stuff, which was not a given following his early press conference appearances and some of his preseason decisions.

The coach took over the Jaguars with an exceptionally inexperienced staff. Unlike Johnson, who surrounded their staff with the perfect staff mix of new ideas and experience, he trusted first-timers. Starting with the leader himself to coordinators to position coaches, the Jaguars are filled with rookies. That type of setup is intriguing on paper, but frequently collapses in reality – with other teams are a cautionary tale – because everyone is learning a new job in real-time. Yet he has pulled everyone and all elements together.

After an initial strong beginning, there was a risk that the campaign would veer off the rails. A midseason setback caused the Jags wobbling once more. That's usually when coaches panic and change too much. He did not. Rather, he simplified things. Jacksonville stopped chasing explosive plays and started seeking sustainable ones. Coen recentered the attack around key players and the ground attack, and asked Lawrence to use his mobility more often.

The outcomes are clear. The Jags have won seven games consecutively and will be the conference's No 3 seed. Coen receives the tiniest deduction in the standings because he inherited a talented roster, but he has demonstrated he can get the most out of that talent.

3) The Seattle Seahawks Coach, Seattle Seahawks, Their Record

Every Strong of the Year argument has a defining decision. For Mike Macdonald, it was his QB move.

Parting ways from a veteran, bringing in a different quarterback and partnering him with an new play-caller could have ended the campaign in the early weeks. Instead, it made it. By the middle point of the season, the acquisition was an MVP candidate. He has fallen away after that time, slipping to a lower rank in efficiency per pass attempt over the latter part of the season, placing him only one place ahead of other QBs.

Still