🔗 Share this article

Typically, the NFL's Coach of the Year award follows a straightforward formula. It often acts as a form of mea culpa. We regret we got wrong your squad in our pre-campaign predictions.

In theory, it's a clear-cut path: the skipper who oversaw the most dramatic resurgence is handed the award. In reality, it sparks an annual argument about preseason outlooks and whether we're genuinely honoring superior leadership or just the most shocking surprise.

However the current race is profoundly unique. The list of nominees is exceptionally strong. It has been the campaign of comebacks. The NFL has been messy, with recent division champions falling away and recent strugglers improving together. Under an normal year, a coach leading the his team to the summit of the AFC would make him the overwhelming favorite. Yet in this wild and entertaining year, he's competing with several other outstanding coaches.

Here is how the hypothetical vote ought to shake out.

5) Ben Johnson, Chicago Bears, Their Record

Coach of the Year selectors love QBs. History shows this. A certain coach in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. If you transform a franchise QB, you're well on your way to winning the award.

Ben Johnson hasn't just corrected his young quarterback; he's freed him. In the right environment, Williams has been given the opportunity to showcase his special ability. Since Week 9, the Chicago offense sit at number four in offensive Expected Points Added per play. That's not a lucky run – it's consistent performance. With his guidance, Williams has become more confident, less careless, and has willingly surrendered to the gameplan instead of freelancing. It is an attack constructed solely in Johnson's vision: a bully-ball ground attack, a consistent helping of play-action and a creative aerial game that creates wide receiver targets everywhere. The QB has taken advantage. And when openings haven't been available, he's been able to spin big plays from nothing.

The coach came to Chicago with a clear offensive vision. Almost every bet – rebuilding the offensive line, utilizing the tight ends, turning the QB into a rhythm thrower – has succeeded. That's uncommon for a first-year head coach. And it's even more uncommon yet for a coach who entered the organization with the immense hype Johnson did. For consecutive straight cycles, he was the most sought-after candidate on the coaching market. However when it comes to hiring a head coach, there are no sure things. Somehow, Johnson has lived up to the hype – and even exceeded them. He's demonstrated not just to be a offensive genius but the type of culture builder that can inject fresh energy into an organization.

In a ordinary season, Johnson would be the overwhelming favorite. But the current is not a typical year!

Where Johnson's candidacy runs a bit unstuck is on the defensive side. The Chicago defense presently rank 25th in defensive success rate. They are living on takeaways, and turnovers are notoriously inconsistent. Coaches can stress ball disruption, but nobody can guarantee it. He is on the ballot because the offense is sustainable. He's not higher because luck is doing an outsized share of the defense's heavy lifting. With a few 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. But Johnson falls short here.

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

Coen is in a comparable situation to his counterpart. He's a fellow first-time head coach who has orchestrated a rapid resurgence. During the stretch run of the season, he has his franchise quarterback playing the best overall ball of his professional life. And he's also overseen the remaking of a defensive unit that now sits at number five in the league in EPA per play.

What's more impressively, Coen has mastered the leadership stuff, which wasn't a certainty following his early public appearances and some of his preseason moves.

The coach took over Jacksonville with an uncommonly raw coaching staff. In contrast to Johnson, who surrounded their staff with the ideal staff cocktail of new ideas and veteran savvy, Coen hired first-timers. Starting with the head coach on down to coordinators to position coaches, the Jaguars are filled with rookies. That type of approach is intriguing on paper, but frequently fails in reality – as past failures are a cautionary tale – because everybody is learning a their job on the fly. But he has managed to bring the entire group and all elements together.

Following an initial hot beginning, there was a possibility that the season would go off the rails. A mid-year setback caused the Jags stumbling again. That's typically when coaches overcorrect. He didn't. Instead, he simplified the approach. Jacksonville stopped pursuing explosive answers and started hunting sustainable ones. Coen refocused the attack around his playmakers and the ground attack, and asked Lawrence to use his mobility more.

The results are obvious. The Jags have won multiple games in a row and will be the AFC's number three playoff seed. Coen receives the tiniest knock in the rankings because he inherited a talented roster, but he has demonstrated he can maximize that roster.

3) Mike Macdonald, Seattle Seahawks, Their Record

Each Strong of the Year case has a hinge decision. For the Seahawks coach, it was his quarterback move.

Parting ways from a incumbent, bringing in a new signal-caller and partnering him with an innovative play-caller might have derailed the campaign in October. Instead, it shaped it. By the mid point of the season, the new QB was an MVP contender. He has regressed since that hot streak, slipping to 23rd in EPA per pass attempt over the second half of the season, placing him only a single place ahead of other QBs.

Still