🔗 Share this article

Ordinarily, the National Football League's Coach of the Year honor adheres to a straightforward pattern. It commonly serves as a form of apology. We regret we underestimated your franchise in our pre-campaign forecasts.

In theory, it's a direct path: the coach who engineered the largest turnaround receives the award. However, it creates an annual discussion about expectations and whether we're actually honoring superior leadership or merely the most shocking surprise.

Yet the latest race is distinctly different. The group of candidates is exceptionally strong. It has been the campaign of resurgences. The NFL has been chaotic, with reigning division champions falling away and recent also-rans improving collectively. Under an ordinary year, a coach leading the his team to the top of the AFC would make him the clear front-runner. Yet in this turbulent and fun year, he's up against five other elite candidates.

This is how the hypothetical ballot ought to look.

5) Ben Johnson, Chicago Bears, Their Record

Voters for Coach of the Year selectors love quarterbacks. History shows this. Sean McVay in 2017. Another in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. Should you transform a quarterback, you're well on your way to winning the award.

The Bears' head coach didn't merely corrected Caleb Williams; he's freed him. Given a proper system, Williams has been given the opportunity to demonstrate his rare ability. Since Week 9, the Bears sit at fourth in offensive EPA per play. This isn't a hot streak – it's sustained excellence. Under his guidance, Williams has become increasingly decisive, less careless, and has eagerly surrendered to the system rather than freelancing. It is an offense designed entirely in the coach's vision: a bully-ball ground attack, a steady dose of play-action and a creative aerial game that creates wide receiver targets everywhere. The QB has thrived. And when openings haven't been available, he's been capable to create big plays out of broken plays.

Johnson came to Chicago with a specific offensive vision. Virtually every decision – overhauling the offensive line, highlighting the tight ends, transforming the QB into a rhythm thrower – has worked. This is rare for a first-year skipper. And it's rarer yet for a leader who walked into the organization with the immense pressure he did. For two straight offseasons, he was the most sought-after candidate on the head coaching carousel. However when it comes to hiring a leader, there are zero guarantees. Remarkably, he has met expectations – and even surpassed them. He's proven not just to be a offensive genius but the type of leader that can inject fresh energy into an franchise.

During a typical year, he would be the runaway choice. Yet the current isn't a typical campaign!

The area where his case runs a bit into trouble is on defense. The Bears presently sit 25th in defensive success rate. They are relying on turnovers, and turnovers are notoriously unreliable. Defensive minds can emphasise creating turnovers, but nobody can guarantee it. Johnson is on the list because the offense is sustainable. He's not higher because variance is doing an outsized share of the defensive heavy lifting. If not for a couple breaks of the ball, the team would be several wins behind. It's been an remarkable transformation, and the core is established for long-term success. However he comes up just short here.

4) Liam Coen, His Team, Their Record

The Jaguars' coach is in a comparable position to Johnson. He's another rookie head coach who has orchestrated a swift turnaround. Over the crucial final weeks of the season, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the best overall football of his career. And he's also overseen the remaking of a defensive unit that now sits at number five in the league in EPA per play.

Even more notably, Coen has nailed the leadership aspects, which wasn't a given after his initial public appearances and some of his preseason decisions.

Coen took over Jacksonville with an exceptionally inexperienced coaching staff. Unlike Johnson, who packed their staff with the ideal staff mix of new ideas and experience, he hired first-timers. From the leader on down to coordinators to assistant coaches, the Jags are filled with first-timers. That type of setup is exciting in theory, but frequently collapses in reality – with other teams are a cautionary tale – because everyone is learning a new job in real-time. But Coen has pulled everyone and everything together.

Following an early strong beginning, there was a risk that the season would go off the track. A mid-year collapse had the Jags stumbling again. That's usually when coaches overcorrect. Coen did not. Instead, he simplified things. Jacksonville stopped chasing home-run plays and started hunting sustainable ones. Coen recentered the offense around his playmakers and the running game, and encouraged Lawrence to use his legs more often.

The results are evident. The Jaguars have won multiple games in a row and will be the AFC's No 3 seed. He receives the tiniest deduction in the standings because he took over a talented roster, but he has proven he can get the most out of that talent.

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

Each Strong of the Year narrative has a pivotal moment. For Mike Macdonald, it was his quarterback choice.

Parting ways from a incumbent, bringing in a different signal-caller and partnering him with an new offensive coordinator might have ended the season in October. Instead, it made it. By the mid point of the season, the acquisition was an MVP contender. He has fallen away after that hot streak, dropping to 23rd in EPA per dropback over the second half of the season, putting him only one place ahead of peers.

Still