How The Strange Campaign Broke the Traditional Coach of the Year Formula.
Ordinarily, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year trophy follows a straightforward pattern. It often acts as a type of mea culpa. We regret we got wrong your team in our pre-campaign predictions.
On paper, it's a direct path: the skipper who engineered the largest resurgence is handed the award. However, it sparks an annual discussion about preseason outlooks and whether we're genuinely rewarding excellent leadership or simply the biggest surprise.
However the current field is fundamentally different. The list of nominees is remarkably talented. It has been the campaign of turnarounds. The league has been messy, with recent conference champions declining and recent strugglers rising together. In an ordinary year, a coach guiding the Denver Broncos to the top of the AFC would make him the overwhelming front-runner. Yet in this turbulent and fun year, he's facing several other outstanding coaches.
This is how the projected vote ought to be structured.
5) The Chicago Bears Coach, His Team, Their Record
Coach of the Year voters are fascinated by quarterbacks. They always have. A certain coach in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. Should you transform a franchise QB, you're halfway home.
Ben Johnson didn't merely corrected Caleb Williams; he's unleashed him. Given a proper environment, the QB has been afforded the chance to demonstrate his otherworldly ability. From Week 9, the Chicago offense rank number four in offensive EPA per play. This isn't a hot streak – it's prolonged excellence. Under his guidance, Williams has become more confident, less reckless, and has willingly surrendered to the system rather than freelancing. It is an attack built solely in Johnson's image: a bully-ball ground attack, a heavy dose of play-action passes and a innovative passing attack that frees wide-open receivers everywhere. Williams has thrived. And when easy reads haven't been there, he's been able to spin big plays from broken plays.
Johnson arrived to the Bears with a defined offensive philosophy. Almost each gamble – overhauling the offensive line, highlighting the pass-catchers, transforming the QB into a timing-based thrower – has worked. This is uncommon for a first-year skipper. And it's rarer yet for a coach who entered the organization with the level of hype he did. For consecutive straight cycles, he was the hottest name on the coaching carousel. But when it comes to hiring a head coach, there are zero guarantees. Somehow, he has met the hype – and even surpassed them. He's proven not only to be a offensive genius but the type of culture builder that can breathe new life into an organization.
During a normal season, Johnson would be the overwhelming choice. But the current isn't a typical campaign!
The area where his candidacy runs slightly unstuck is on defense. The Bears presently sit 25th in defensive efficiency. They are surviving on takeaways, and turnovers are notoriously inconsistent. Defensive minds can emphasise creating turnovers, but nobody can ensure it. He is on the list because the offense is real. He's ranked lower because luck is doing an outsized share of the defensive work. If not for a few breaks of the ball, the Bears would be several wins behind. It's been an remarkable turnaround, and the foundation is in place for long-term success. But Johnson comes up short in this ranking.
4) The Jacksonville Jaguars Coach, His Team, 12-4
The Jaguars' coach is in a comparable situation to his counterpart. He's a fellow first-time head coach who has orchestrated a dramatic turnaround. Over the crucial final weeks of the year, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the most complete all-around ball of his career. And he's also spearheaded the remaking of a defense that now sits at fifth in the league in EPA per play.
What's more impressively, he has excelled at the intangibles aspects, which wasn't a certainty after his early public introduction and some of his preseason decisions.
Coen took over the Jaguars with an uncommonly inexperienced coaching staff. In contrast to Johnson, who packed themselves with the ideal coaching blend of youth and veteran savvy, Coen hired first-timers. Starting with the head coach himself to assistants to assistant coaches, the Jaguars are stocked with rookies. That type of approach is intriguing on paper, but often fails in practice – with other teams are a cautionary tale – because everyone is figuring out a their job in real-time. But he has pulled the entire group and everything into sync.
After an initial strong beginning, there was a chance that the campaign would veer off the track. A midseason collapse had the Jags wobbling again. That's typically when coaches panic and change too much. He did not. Rather, he simplified the approach. Jacksonville stopped pursuing explosive answers and started hunting sustainable ones. Coen refocused the offense around key players and the running game, and encouraged Lawrence to use his legs more often.
The results are evident. The Jags have won seven games consecutively and will be the conference's number three playoff seed. Coen gets the tiniest knock in the standings because he inherited a skilled team, but he has proven he can maximize that talent.
3) Mike Macdonald, Seattle Seahawks, Their Record
Every Strong of the Year case has a pivotal moment. For the Seahawks coach, it was his quarterback decision.
Parting ways from a veteran, bringing in a different signal-caller and pairing him with an new play-caller could have derailed the campaign in the early weeks. Instead, it defined 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, dropping to 23rd in EPA per pass attempt over the second half of the season, placing him just one spot ahead of peers.
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