🔗 Share this article

Usually, the NFL's Coach of the Year award adheres to a simple formula. It commonly functions as a form of mea culpa. We regret we got wrong your squad in our preseason predictions.

In theory, it's a direct line: the skipper who orchestrated the most dramatic turnaround is handed the prize. In reality, it sparks an annual discussion about expectations and whether we're genuinely honoring superior leadership or merely the most shocking surprise.

Yet this year's field is fundamentally unique. The group of contenders is remarkably talented. It has been the campaign of turnarounds. The league has been chaotic, with recent conference champions falling away and recent strugglers improving collectively. In an normal season, a coach leading the his team to the summit of the AFC would make him the clear favorite. But in such a wild and entertaining year, he's competing with several other outstanding candidates.

This is how the hypothetical vote ought to shake out.

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

Coach of the Year voters love signal-callers. They always have. Sean McVay in 2017. Another in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. Should you transform a quarterback, you're halfway home.

Ben Johnson didn't merely corrected Caleb Williams; he's unlocked him. In the right environment, the QB has been given the chance to showcase his otherworldly talent. From Week 9, the Bears sit at number four in offensive Expected Points Added per play. That's not a lucky run – it's consistent performance. Under Johnson, Williams has become more decisive, far less careless, and has willingly surrendered to the scheme rather than freelancing. It is an attack designed entirely in the coach's vision: a physical run game, a consistent dose of play-action passes and a creative aerial game that creates wide receiver targets consistently. The QB has taken advantage. And when clear throws haven't been available, he's been capable to conjure big plays out of nothing.

The coach came to the Bears with a specific offensive blueprint. Virtually every gamble – overhauling the trenches, featuring the pass-catchers, transforming Williams into a rhythm passer – has succeeded. This is uncommon for a rookie head coach. And it's even more uncommon still for a coach who entered the building with the level of pressure he did. For two straight cycles, he was the most sought-after candidate on the head coaching market. But when it comes to selecting a leader, there are no guarantees. Remarkably, he has met expectations – and even surpassed them. He's proven not just to be a scheme genius but the kind of culture builder that can inject new life into an organization.

During a typical year, he would be the clear-cut choice. But the current isn't a normal campaign!

Where his case runs slightly into trouble is on the defensive side. The Bears presently sit in the bottom third in defensive success rate. They are surviving on turnovers, and turnovers are notoriously unreliable. Coaches can focus on creating turnovers, but no one can guarantee it. Johnson is on the ballot because the offensive production is legitimate. He's not higher because variance is doing an outsized share of the defensive heavy lifting. With a couple breaks of the ball, the team would be two wins worse off. It's been an remarkable turnaround, and the foundation is established for long-term success. However Johnson falls just short in this ranking.

4) Liam Coen, Jacksonville Jaguars, 12-4

Coen is in a comparable spot to Johnson. He's a fellow first-time head coach who has masterminded a rapid turnaround. Over the crucial final weeks of the year, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the finest all-around ball of his career. And he's also spearheaded the remaking of a defensive unit that now sits at number five in the league in Expected Points Added per play.

What's more notably, he has excelled at the off-field stuff, which wasn't a certainty following his early public appearances and some of his preseason decisions.

Coen walked into the Jaguars with an uncommonly inexperienced staff. In contrast to other coaches, who surrounded their staff with the ideal staff cocktail of new ideas and experience, he trusted first-timers. Starting with the leader himself to assistants to position coaches, the Jags are filled with first-timers. That kind of approach is intriguing in theory, but frequently fails in reality – with other teams are a cautionary tale – because everyone is learning a their job in real-time. But Coen has pulled everyone and all elements together.

After an early hot start, there was a risk that the campaign would veer off the track. A mid-year collapse caused the team stumbling again. That's usually when coaches overcorrect. He did not. Rather, he simplified things. Jacksonville stopped pursuing explosive answers and started hunting sustainable ones. Coen recentered the offense around key players and the running game, and asked Lawrence to use his mobility more often.

The outcomes are obvious. The Jaguars have won seven games consecutively and will be the AFC's number three seed. Coen gets the slightest knock in the standings because he inherited a skilled roster, but he has proven he can maximize that roster.

3) The Seattle Seahawks Coach, His Team, Their Record

Every Strong of the Year narrative has a hinge moment. For Mike Macdonald, it was his QB decision.

Parting ways from a veteran, signing a new signal-caller and partnering him with an new play-caller could have ended the campaign in the early weeks. Instead, it defined it. Through the mid point of the year, the new QB was an MVP front-runner. He has cooled off since that hot streak, dropping to a lower rank in EPA per dropback over the second half of the schedule, placing him only a single spot ahead of peers.

Still