🔗 Share this article

Usually, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year award adheres to a simple pattern. It frequently acts as a type of apology. We regret we got wrong your team in our pre-campaign projections.

In theory, it's a clear-cut path: the skipper who orchestrated the most dramatic turnaround wins the award. However, it fuels an yearly argument about preseason outlooks and whether we're truly rewarding excellent leadership or just the biggest surprise.

But the current competition is distinctly unique. The pool of contenders is unusually strong. It has been the campaign of comebacks. The league has been chaotic, with reigning division winners falling away and recent also-rans improving together. In an typical year, a coach leading the Denver Broncos to the summit of the AFC would make him the stone-cold favorite. But in such a chaotic and thrilling year, he's competing with five other outstanding coaches.

This is how the ideal ballot could look.

5) Ben Johnson, His Team, Their Record

Coach of the Year selectors adore quarterbacks. History shows this. Sean McVay in 2017. Another in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. When you fix a quarterback, you're well on your way home.

The Bears' head coach didn't merely corrected Caleb Williams; he's unlocked him. Given a proper ecosystem, Williams has been given the opportunity to demonstrate his rare ability. Since midseason onward, the Chicago offense sit at number four in offensive Expected Points Added per play. This isn't a hot streak – it's prolonged performance. Under his guidance, the quarterback has become increasingly confident, far less reckless, and has willingly submitted to the scheme rather than improvising. It is an offense constructed entirely in Johnson's vision: a physical run game, a heavy helping of play-action passes and a innovative passing attack that creates wide receiver receivers consistently. The QB has thrived. And when clear throws haven't been there, he's been able to spin big plays from nothing.

The coach arrived to the Bears with a specific offensive philosophy. Almost every gamble – rebuilding the offensive line, utilizing the pass-catchers, transforming the QB into a rhythm passer – has succeeded. That's uncommon for a rookie skipper. And it's rarer yet for a leader who entered the organization with the kind of expectations he did. For two straight cycles, he was the top name on the coaching carousel. But when it comes to hiring a leader, there are zero guarantees. Remarkably, Johnson has met the hype – and even exceeded them. He's demonstrated not just to be a scheme dork but the type of culture builder that can inject fresh energy into an franchise.

During a ordinary year, he would be the clear-cut favorite. Yet the current is not a typical campaign!

Where his candidacy comes a bit into trouble is on the defensive side. The Chicago defense currently rank in the bottom third in defensive efficiency. They are living on takeaways, and turnovers are famously inconsistent. Defensive minds can stress creating turnovers, but no one can guarantee it. Johnson is on the ballot because the offensive production is legitimate. He's not higher because luck is doing an outsized share of the defensive work. If not for a couple bounces of the ball, the team would be several victories worse off. It's been an remarkable turnaround, and the foundation is in place for long-term success. But Johnson comes up short in this ranking.

4) The Jacksonville Jaguars Coach, Jacksonville Jaguars, Their Record

Coen is in a similar situation to Johnson. He's a fellow first-time leader who has engineered a dramatic turnaround. During the stretch run of the year, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the finest overall ball of his professional life. And he's also spearheaded the overhaul of a defense that now ranks fifth in the league in EPA per play.

What's more impressively, he has excelled at the intangibles stuff, which was not a certainty following his initial public appearances and some of his offseason moves.

The coach walked into Jacksonville with an uncommonly inexperienced staff. Unlike Johnson, who packed themselves with the ideal staff blend of youth and veteran savvy, he trusted newbies. Starting with the head coach on down to coordinators to position coaches, the Jags are stocked with rookies. That type of approach is intriguing in theory, but often fails in reality – with other teams are a cautionary tale – because everybody is figuring out a new job in real-time. Yet he has pulled everyone and everything together.

After an early hot start, there was a possibility that the campaign would veer off the track. A midseason collapse caused the team stumbling again. That's typically when leaders panic and change too much. Coen did not. Instead, he simplified the approach. The offense stopped chasing home-run plays and started seeking sustainable ones. Coen recentered the offense around his playmakers and the running game, and asked Lawrence to use his legs more.

The results are clear. The Jags have won multiple games consecutively and will be the conference's number three seed. Coen receives the tiniest knock in the standings because he inherited a skilled team, but he has demonstrated he can maximize that talent.

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

Each Strong of the Year argument has a pivotal moment. For Mike Macdonald, it was his QB choice.

Moving on from a veteran, bringing in a different signal-caller and pairing him with an innovative play-caller could have derailed the season in October. Instead, it defined it. Through the mid point of the year, the new QB was an Most Valuable Player candidate. He has fallen away since that hot streak, slipping to 23rd in EPA per pass attempt over the second half of the season, placing him just a single spot ahead of other QBs.

Still