🔗 Share this article

Ordinarily, the NFL's Head Coach of the Year honor follows a simple formula. It frequently acts as a form of apology. Sorry we misjudged your squad in our pre-campaign projections.

Theoretically, it's a direct trajectory: the coach who orchestrated the largest turnaround wins the prize. However, it sparks an yearly argument about expectations and whether we're genuinely rewarding superior coaching or merely the biggest shock.

However this year's field is fundamentally different. The group of contenders is unusually strong. It has been the campaign of turnarounds. The league has been messy, with reigning conference champions declining and recent strugglers improving collectively. During an typical year, Sean Payton leading the his team to the top of the conference would make him the stone-cold front-runner. But in such a chaotic and entertaining season, he's facing several other exceptional candidates.

Below is how the hypothetical ballot could look.

5) The Chicago Bears Coach, His Team, 11-5

Voters for Coach of the Year selectors adore QBs. This is a tradition. A certain coach in 2017. Another in 2020. A third in 2022. If you transform a franchise QB, you're halfway to winning the award.

Ben Johnson didn't merely fixed his young quarterback; he's unlocked him. In the right ecosystem, the QB has been given the chance to showcase his rare talent. Since Week 9, the Bears sit at number four in offensive EPA per play. That's not a hot streak – it's sustained excellence. Under his guidance, Williams has become more decisive, less careless, and has eagerly surrendered to the system instead of freelancing. It is an offense designed solely in Johnson's vision: a bully-ball ground attack, a steady helping of play-action passes and a innovative aerial game that frees wide receiver targets all over the field. The QB has capitalized. And when openings weren't available, he's been capable to conjure big plays out of broken plays.

The coach came to the Bears with a specific offensive blueprint. Almost each bet – overhauling the offensive line, highlighting the pass-catchers, turning the QB into a timing-based passer – has worked. This is rare for a rookie head coach. And it's even more uncommon yet for a leader who walked into the building with the immense pressure he did. For two straight cycles, he was the top name on the head coaching carousel. However when it comes to selecting a leader, there are no sure things. Remarkably, Johnson has lived up to expectations – and even exceeded them. He's proven not only to be a offensive genius but the type of culture builder that can inject new life into an organization.

In a typical year, Johnson would be the runaway favorite. Yet this is not a typical year!

Where his case runs slightly unstuck is on defense. The Chicago defense currently rank 25th in defensive efficiency. They are relying on takeaways, and turnovers are famously inconsistent. Coaches can focus on creating turnovers, but nobody can guarantee it. He is on the ballot because the offense is sustainable. He's ranked lower because variance is doing an outsized share of the defense's work. With a couple bounces of the ball, the Bears would be several victories behind. It's been an remarkable transformation, and the foundation is in place for sustained winning. However he comes up just short here.

4) Liam Coen, Jacksonville Jaguars, Their Record

The Jaguars' coach is in a comparable situation to Johnson. He's another first-time head coach who has engineered a swift turnaround. During the stretch run of the season, he has his franchise quarterback playing the best all-around football of his professional life. And he's also overseen the remaking of a defense that now ranks number five in the NFL in EPA per play.

What's more notably, Coen has mastered the off-field stuff, which was not a guarantee after his initial press conference appearances and some of his offseason decisions.

Coen took over the Jaguars with an uncommonly inexperienced coaching staff. In contrast to Johnson, who packed themselves with the ideal staff blend of new ideas and veteran savvy, Coen bet on first-timers. From the leader himself to assistants to position coaches, the Jaguars are stocked with first-timers. That type of approach is intriguing in theory, but frequently fails in reality – with other teams are a cautionary tale – because everyone is figuring out a new job on the fly. Yet Coen has pulled the entire group and everything into sync.

After an early strong beginning, there was a risk that the campaign would veer off the rails. A midseason collapse caused the Jags stumbling again. That's typically when leaders panic and change too much. He did not. Rather, he simplified things. Jacksonville stopped pursuing home-run plays and started hunting sustainable ones. Coen recentered the attack around key players and the running game, and asked Lawrence to use his legs more often.

The results are clear. The Jaguars have won seven games consecutively and will be the conference's No 3 playoff seed. He gets the tiniest deduction in the standings because he inherited a skilled team, but he has proven he can get the most out of that talent.

3) Mike Macdonald, Seattle Seahawks, Their Record

Each Strong of the Year argument has a hinge moment. For the Seahawks coach, it was his quarterback choice.

Moving on from a veteran, bringing in a new signal-caller and partnering him with an new play-caller might have ended the season in the early weeks. Instead, it shaped it. By the middle point of the year, the acquisition was an Most Valuable Player candidate. He has regressed after that hot streak, dropping to 23rd in efficiency per pass attempt over the second half of the schedule, putting him only a single spot ahead of other QBs.

Still