🔗 Share this article

Usually, the NFL's Coach of the Year trophy follows a straightforward pattern. It commonly functions as a kind of apology. Sorry we underestimated your squad in our preseason predictions.

In theory, it's a clear-cut trajectory: the coach who orchestrated the biggest turnaround wins the prize. However, it sparks an yearly argument about preseason outlooks and whether we're actually rewarding excellent leadership or merely the greatest surprise.

Yet the current race is fundamentally different. The group of nominees is exceptionally deep. It has been the season of resurgences. The league has been unpredictable, with recent conference champions fading and recent also-rans improving in unison. In an typical season, a coach leading the his team to the summit of the conference would make him the clear favorite. Yet in such a wild and fun year, he's up against multiple other exceptional coaches.

Here is how the hypothetical ballot should shake out.

5) Ben Johnson, His Team, 11-5

Coach of the Year voters adore signal-callers. History shows this. Sean McVay in 2017. Another in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. When you solve a franchise QB, you're well on your way to winning the award.

The Bears' head coach didn't merely corrected his young quarterback; he's unlocked him. Within an ideal environment, the QB has been afforded the chance to demonstrate his otherworldly ability. From Week 9, the Bears rank fourth in offensive EPA per play. That's not a lucky run – it's sustained performance. Under his guidance, the quarterback has become more confident, far less careless, and has eagerly surrendered to the scheme rather than freelancing. It is an offense constructed solely in Johnson's vision: a bully-ball run game, a consistent dose of play-action passes and a imaginative aerial game that frees wide-open receivers consistently. Williams has taken advantage. And when clear throws weren't available, he's been able to spin big plays out of nothing.

The coach arrived to the Bears with a defined offensive philosophy. Almost each decision – overhauling the trenches, featuring the tight ends, turning Williams into a timing-based passer – has paid off. This is uncommon for a rookie head coach. And it's even more uncommon still for a coach who walked into the organization with the immense hype Johnson did. For consecutive straight offseasons, he was the hottest candidate on the coaching market. However when it comes to selecting a head coach, there are no sure things. Remarkably, Johnson has met expectations – and even exceeded them. He's demonstrated not just to be a scheme genius but the type of culture builder that can inject new life into an organization.

During a typical year, he would be the runaway favorite. But the current is not a typical year!

Where his candidacy comes a bit unstuck is on defense. The Bears presently rank in the bottom third in defensive efficiency. They are surviving on turnovers, and takeaways are notoriously fickle. Defensive minds can stress ball disruption, but no one can ensure it. Johnson is on the list because the offensive production is real. He's not higher because luck is doing an outsized share of the defensive heavy lifting. With a few bounces of the ball, the team would be several wins worse off. It's been an remarkable transformation, and the foundation is in place for sustained success. But Johnson falls just short here.

4) Liam Coen, Jacksonville Jaguars, Their Record

Coen is in a comparable position to his counterpart. He's another first-time leader who has masterminded a rapid resurgence. Over the stretch run of the year, he has his franchise quarterback playing the best overall ball of his professional life. And he's also overseen the remaking of a defense that now ranks fifth in the league in Expected Points Added per play.

Even more impressively, Coen has excelled at the off-field stuff, which wasn't a given after his early press conference appearances and some of his offseason moves.

The coach walked into Jacksonville with an exceptionally raw staff. Unlike Johnson, who packed their staff with the perfect coaching cocktail of new ideas and veteran savvy, he hired first-timers. Starting with the leader on down to coordinators to assistant coaches, the Jaguars are filled with first-timers. That type of setup is exciting in theory, but frequently collapses in reality – with other teams are a warning – because everybody is figuring out a new job on the fly. Yet Coen has managed to bring everyone and all elements together.

After an initial hot start, there was a chance that the season would go off the rails. A midseason collapse caused the Jags stumbling once more. That's typically when coaches panic and change too much. He did not. Instead, he streamlined things. Jacksonville stopped pursuing home-run answers and started seeking reliable ones. The coach recentered the attack around key players and the ground attack, and encouraged his QB to use his mobility more often.

The results are clear. The Jags have won multiple games in a row and will be the conference's No 3 playoff seed. He receives the tiniest knock in the rankings because he took over a talented team, but he has demonstrated he can maximize that talent.

3) The Seattle Seahawks Coach, Seattle Seahawks, 13-3

Every Coach of the Year narrative has a defining moment. For Mike Macdonald, it was his quarterback choice.

Moving on from a veteran, signing a new signal-caller and partnering him with an innovative offensive coordinator could have derailed the season in the early weeks. Instead, it shaped it. By the middle point of the year, the acquisition was an MVP contender. He has fallen away after that time, dropping to 23rd in efficiency per dropback over the second half of the schedule, putting him just one place ahead of other QBs.

Still