🔗 Share this article

Ordinarily, the National Football League's Coach of the Year honor adheres to a straightforward pattern. It frequently serves as a form of mea culpa. Sorry we underestimated your team in our preseason predictions.

Theoretically, it's a clear-cut line: the skipper who engineered the most dramatic resurgence receives the prize. In practice, it creates an yearly discussion about expectations and whether we're truly rewarding excellent coaching or simply the most shocking shock.

Yet this year's field is distinctly unique. The group of contenders is exceptionally strong. It has been the campaign of comebacks. The NFL has been messy, with recent conference winners declining and recent underperformers ascending in unison. Under an normal year, a coach leading the his team to the summit of the AFC would make him the stone-cold favorite. But in such a turbulent and fun season, he's facing several other exceptional candidates.

This is how the hypothetical vote could look.

5) The Chicago Bears Coach, His Team, Their Record

Voters for Coach of the Year voters are fascinated by quarterbacks. This is a tradition. Sean McVay in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. A third in 2022. Should you transform a franchise QB, you're well on your way to winning the award.

Ben Johnson not only corrected his young quarterback; he's unlocked him. Within an ideal ecosystem, Williams has been given the opportunity to showcase his special ability. From midseason onward, the Chicago offense sit at number four in offensive EPA per play. This isn't a brief surge – it's consistent performance. With Johnson, the quarterback has become more decisive, far less reckless, and has eagerly surrendered to the gameplan instead of improvising. It is an offense built solely in the coach's image: a physical ground attack, a steady helping of play-action and a creative aerial game that frees wide-open targets all over the field. The QB has thrived. And when openings haven't been available, he's been capable to conjure big plays out of broken plays.

Johnson came to Chicago with a specific offensive blueprint. Almost each bet – rebuilding the trenches, highlighting the tight ends, transforming Williams into a rhythm passer – has succeeded. This is uncommon for a first-year skipper. And it's rarer still for a leader who walked into the building with the kind of pressure he did. For two straight offseasons, he was the most sought-after candidate on the coaching market. But when it comes to selecting a leader, there are no guarantees. Somehow, he has met the hype – and even exceeded them. He's proven not just to be a offensive genius but the kind of leader that can inject new life into an organization.

During a ordinary season, Johnson would be the overwhelming favorite. But this isn't a normal season!

Where Johnson's candidacy comes a bit into trouble is on the defensive side. The Chicago defense currently rank 25th in defensive success rate. They are surviving on turnovers, and turnovers are notoriously unreliable. Defensive minds can stress ball disruption, but nobody can ensure it. He is on the ballot because the offense is sustainable. He's ranked lower because luck is doing an outsized share of the defense's heavy lifting. If not for a couple breaks of the ball, the team would be two victories worse off. It's been an exceptional transformation, and the core is in place for sustained success. However he falls short here.

4) Liam Coen, Jacksonville Jaguars, 12-4

Coen is in a similar position to his counterpart. He's another first-time leader who has engineered a dramatic turnaround. Over the stretch run of the year, he has his franchise quarterback playing the best all-around football of his professional life. And he's also overseen the overhaul of a defense that now ranks number five in the league in Expected Points Added per play.

Even more notably, he has nailed the leadership aspects, which wasn't a certainty after his early press conference appearances and some of his preseason decisions.

The coach walked into the Jaguars with an exceptionally raw staff. In contrast to other coaches, who surrounded their staff with the ideal staff blend of youth and veteran savvy, Coen trusted first-timers. From the leader on down to coordinators to assistant coaches, the Jags are filled with first-timers. That kind of setup is intriguing in theory, but often fails in reality – with other teams are a warning – because everybody is learning a new job on the fly. But he has pulled everyone and everything together.

After an initial strong beginning, there was a possibility that the season would veer off the rails. A midseason collapse had the team wobbling once more. That's usually when coaches overcorrect. He did not. Instead, he simplified things. The offense stopped pursuing home-run answers and started seeking consistent ones. Coen refocused the offense around key players and the running game, and asked Lawrence to use his mobility more.

The results are evident. The Jaguars have won seven games consecutively and will be the AFC's No 3 playoff seed. Coen gets the tiniest deduction in the standings because he took over a talented roster, but he has demonstrated he can get the most out of that roster.

3) Mike Macdonald, His Team, Their Record

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

Moving on from a incumbent, signing a new quarterback and partnering him with an new play-caller could have ended the season in October. Instead, it defined it. Through the mid point of the season, the new QB was an MVP candidate. He has regressed since that hot streak, dropping to 23rd in EPA per pass attempt over the latter part of the season, putting him just one spot ahead of other QBs.

Still