How This Bizarre Season Redefined the Traditional Coach of the Year Mould.
Typically, the NFL's Coach of the Year award adheres to a simple script. It frequently acts as a form of apology. Our apologies we underestimated your franchise in our preseason forecasts.
In theory, it's a clear-cut path: the coach who engineered the largest improvement wins the award. In reality, it sparks an annual argument about preseason outlooks and whether we're truly honoring excellent coaching or simply the biggest surprise.
Yet the current field is distinctly different. The group of nominees is exceptionally talented. It has been the campaign of turnarounds. The NFL has been chaotic, with reigning conference winners declining and longtime also-rans rising collectively. In an normal season, Sean Payton guiding the his team to the summit of the AFC would make him the clear front-runner. Yet in this wild and thrilling year, he's facing multiple other elite candidates.
This is how the projected vote ought to be structured.
5) The Chicago Bears Coach, Chicago Bears, 11-5
Voters for Coach of the Year voters adore quarterbacks. History shows this. A certain coach in 2017. Another in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. When you solve a quarterback, you're well on your way to winning the award.
Ben Johnson hasn't just fixed Caleb Williams; he's freed him. Within an ideal ecosystem, Williams has been given the chance to demonstrate his rare talent. Since midseason onward, the Chicago offense rank fourth in offensive EPA per play. This isn't a lucky run – it's consistent dominance. With his guidance, Williams has become more confident, less reckless, and has eagerly submitted to the gameplan instead of freelancing. It is an attack built entirely in Johnson's image: a bully-ball run game, a heavy helping of play-action and a imaginative passing attack that creates wide-open receivers everywhere. Williams has capitalized. And when easy reads haven't been available, he's been capable to conjure big plays from broken plays.
Johnson came to the Bears with a specific offensive vision. Virtually each gamble – rebuilding the trenches, featuring the tight ends, turning the QB into a rhythm passer – has paid off. That's uncommon for a rookie head coach. And it's rarer yet for a leader who walked into the organization with the level of hype Johnson did. For two straight cycles, he was the top candidate on the head coaching carousel. However when it comes to hiring a head coach, there are no sure things. Somehow, Johnson has met the hype – and even exceeded them. He's proven not only to be a scheme wizard but the kind of leader that can inject new life into an organization.
During a ordinary year, he would be the overwhelming choice. But this isn't a typical season!
The area where Johnson's case comes a bit into trouble is on defense. The Bears currently sit 25th in defensive efficiency. They are surviving on turnovers, and takeaways are famously inconsistent. Defensive minds can stress ball disruption, but no one can guarantee it. Johnson is on the ballot because the offensive production is sustainable. He's ranked lower because luck is doing an outsized share of the defense's work. With a few bounces of the ball, the team would be several victories worse off. It's been an remarkable transformation, and the core is established for sustained success. However he comes up short in this ranking.
4) Liam Coen, Jacksonville Jaguars, Their Record
The Jaguars' coach is in a similar position to Johnson. He's a fellow rookie head coach who has engineered a swift resurgence. During the stretch run of the season, he has his franchise quarterback playing the most complete all-around ball of his professional life. And he's also spearheaded the remaking of a defensive unit that now ranks fifth in the league in EPA per play.
What's more notably, he has mastered the intangibles aspects, which wasn't a given following his initial public appearances and some of his offseason moves.
Coen took over the Jaguars with an uncommonly raw staff. In contrast to other coaches, who surrounded their staff with the ideal staff mix of youth and experience, he bet on newbies. Starting with the head coach on down to assistants to assistant coaches, the Jags are stocked with first-timers. That type of approach is exciting in theory, but often collapses in reality – as past failures are a warning – because everybody is figuring out a their job in real-time. Yet Coen has managed to bring the entire group and all elements into sync.
After an initial strong start, there was a chance that the season would go off the track. A mid-year collapse had the Jags wobbling again. That's usually when coaches panic and change too much. Coen didn't. Instead, he streamlined the approach. Jacksonville stopped pursuing home-run plays and started seeking consistent ones. Coen refocused the offense around his playmakers and the ground attack, and encouraged Lawrence to use his legs more often.
The results are evident. The Jaguars have won seven games consecutively and will be the conference's No 3 playoff seed. He receives the slightest knock in the rankings because he inherited a skilled roster, but he has demonstrated he can get the most out of that roster.
3) Mike Macdonald, Seattle Seahawks, 13-3
Every Coach of the Year argument has a hinge moment. For Mike Macdonald, it was his quarterback choice.
Moving on from a veteran, signing a new quarterback and partnering him with an new play-caller might have derailed the campaign in the early weeks. Instead, it shaped it. By the middle point of the year, the acquisition was an MVP front-runner. He has regressed after that time, dropping to 23rd in efficiency per dropback over the second half of the schedule, placing him just a single place ahead of other QBs.
Still
