How This Strange Campaign Shattered the Traditional Coach of the Year Mould.
Typically, the National Football League's Coach of the Year award follows a simple script. It often functions as a kind of mea culpa. We regret we got wrong your squad in our preseason predictions.
Theoretically, it's a direct trajectory: the coach who oversaw the most dramatic improvement receives the prize. However, it fuels an yearly argument about preseason outlooks and whether we're truly rewarding superior leadership or just the biggest upset.
However this year's field is distinctly unique. The list of nominees is exceptionally talented. It has been the season of comebacks. The NFL has been messy, with recent division winners falling away and recent underperformers improving collectively. During an ordinary season, Sean Payton leading the his team to the top of the AFC would make him the clear front-runner. Yet in this turbulent and thrilling season, he's competing with five other outstanding candidates.
This is how the hypothetical vote could be structured.
5) The Chicago Bears Coach, Chicago Bears, 11-5
Coach of the Year voters adore quarterbacks. This is a tradition. Sean McVay in 2017. Another in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. When you transform a quarterback, you're halfway to winning the award.
Ben Johnson not only fixed Caleb Williams; he's freed him. Within an ideal system, Williams has been given the opportunity to display his otherworldly ability. Since midseason onward, the Bears sit at fourth in offensive EPA per play. That's not a brief surge – it's sustained excellence. With his guidance, Williams has become increasingly confident, less careless, and has eagerly submitted to the system instead of improvising. It is an offense constructed entirely in Johnson's image: a physical run game, a consistent dose of play-action and a innovative aerial game that frees wide receiver targets everywhere. The QB has capitalized. And when clear throws haven't been available, he's been capable to conjure big plays out of nothing.
Johnson came to the Bears with a defined offensive blueprint. Almost each gamble – overhauling the offensive line, highlighting the tight ends, transforming Williams into a rhythm thrower – has worked. That's uncommon for a first-year skipper. And it's even more uncommon yet for a leader who walked into the building with the kind of expectations Johnson did. For two straight offseasons, he was the most sought-after name on the coaching market. However when it comes to selecting a head coach, there are zero sure things. Remarkably, he has lived up to expectations – and even surpassed them. He's proven not only to be a scheme wizard but the kind of culture builder that can breathe fresh energy into an organization.
In a ordinary year, he would be the runaway choice. But the current is not a normal campaign!
Where his case comes slightly into trouble is on the defensive side. The Chicago defense currently rank 25th in defensive success rate. They are relying on takeaways, and turnovers are notoriously fickle. Defensive minds can focus on creating turnovers, but nobody can ensure it. He is on the ballot because the offense is sustainable. He's ranked lower because luck is doing too much of the defensive work. If not for a couple bounces of the ball, the team would be several wins behind. It's been an remarkable turnaround, and the core is established for long-term winning. However he falls short here.
4) Liam Coen, Jacksonville Jaguars, 12-4
The Jaguars' coach is in a similar spot to his counterpart. He's another rookie leader who has masterminded a swift resurgence. Over the crucial final weeks of the season, he has his franchise quarterback playing the best overall football of his professional life. And he's also spearheaded the transformation of a defensive unit that now sits at number five in the league in Expected Points Added per play.
Even more impressively, he has excelled at the intangibles stuff, which wasn't a guarantee following his early press conference appearances and some of his preseason moves.
Coen walked into Jacksonville with an exceptionally inexperienced staff. In contrast to Johnson, who packed their staff with the ideal coaching blend of new ideas and experience, he hired first-timers. From the head coach on down to assistants to assistant coaches, the Jaguars are filled with rookies. That kind of setup is exciting in theory, but frequently collapses in practice – with other teams are a warning – because everybody is learning a new job on the fly. But Coen has pulled everyone and all elements into sync.
After an initial hot start, there was a chance that the campaign would veer off the rails. A mid-year collapse caused the Jags stumbling again. That's typically when leaders overcorrect. Coen didn't. Instead, he simplified the approach. The offense stopped pursuing explosive plays and started hunting reliable ones. Coen recentered the attack around key players and the running game, and encouraged his QB to use his mobility more often.
The outcomes are evident. The Jaguars have won seven games in a row and will be the AFC's number three seed. He gets the slightest deduction in the standings because he inherited a skilled team, but he has demonstrated he can maximize that talent.
3) Mike Macdonald, His Team, 13-3
Each Strong of the Year argument has a hinge decision. For the Seahawks coach, it was his QB move.
Moving on from a incumbent, bringing in a different quarterback and pairing him with an innovative play-caller could have ended the season in October. Rather, it shaped it. By the middle point of the year, the new QB was an MVP candidate. He has fallen away after that hot streak, slipping to a lower rank in EPA per pass attempt over the latter part of the season, putting him just a single place ahead of other QBs.
Still
