The Way This Unusual Campaign Broke the Traditional Coach of the Year Mold.
Usually, the NFL's Head Coach of the Year trophy adheres to a simple script. It often functions as a form of mea culpa. Sorry we underestimated your team in our pre-campaign predictions.
On paper, it's a direct trajectory: the skipper who engineered the biggest resurgence is handed the prize. In practice, it sparks an annual debate about preseason outlooks and whether we're actually honoring excellent coaching or just the greatest upset.
But the current competition is fundamentally unique. The pool of candidates is unusually strong. It has been the campaign of resurgences. The NFL has been messy, with reigning division winners fading and longtime strugglers rising together. In an ordinary year, Sean Payton guiding the his team to the top of the AFC would make him the overwhelming front-runner. Yet in such a chaotic and thrilling season, he's competing with several other elite candidates.
Below is how the projected ballot should look.
5) Ben Johnson, His Team, 11-5
Coach of the Year selectors adore quarterbacks. This is a tradition. Sean McVay in 2017. Another in 2020. A third in 2022. If you transform a franchise QB, you're well on your way to winning the award.
The Bears' head coach not only corrected Caleb Williams; he's unlocked him. In the right system, Williams has been given the chance to display his otherworldly talent. From Week 9, the Bears sit at number four in offensive EPA per play. This isn't a brief surge – it's consistent performance. Under Johnson, the quarterback has become increasingly confident, less careless, and has willingly surrendered to the gameplan rather than going rogue. It is an attack built entirely in the coach's image: a bully-ball run game, a steady dose of play-action passes and a imaginative aerial game that creates wide receiver receivers consistently. The QB has thrived. And when easy reads weren't there, he's been capable to spin big plays out of nothing.
Johnson came to the Bears with a clear offensive blueprint. Virtually every decision – rebuilding the trenches, utilizing the pass-catchers, transforming Williams into a timing-based thrower – has worked. That's uncommon for a rookie head coach. And it's rarer still for a leader who entered the building with the level of expectations he did. For consecutive straight cycles, he was the top candidate on the coaching market. However when it comes to selecting a leader, there are no sure things. Somehow, Johnson has met expectations – and even exceeded them. He's proven not just to be a offensive wizard but the type of leader that can breathe fresh energy into an franchise.
During a ordinary year, he would be the clear-cut choice. Yet this is not a typical season!
Where his candidacy comes a bit unstuck is on defense. The Bears presently sit in the bottom third in defensive success rate. They are surviving on turnovers, and takeaways are notoriously inconsistent. Coaches can stress ball disruption, but nobody can ensure it. Johnson is on the ballot because the offense is legitimate. He's ranked lower because luck is doing an outsized share of the defense's work. With a few breaks of the ball, the Bears would be several victories behind. It's been an remarkable turnaround, and the core is established for long-term success. However Johnson falls just short in this ranking.
4) The Jacksonville Jaguars Coach, His Team, 12-4
The Jaguars' coach is in a similar situation to his counterpart. He's a fellow rookie leader who has masterminded a swift resurgence. During the stretch run of the season, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the most complete all-around ball of his professional life. And he's also overseen the remaking of a defense that now sits at fifth in the league in Expected Points Added per play.
Even more notably, Coen has nailed the intangibles aspects, which wasn't a guarantee after his initial public appearances and some of his preseason decisions.
The coach took over the Jaguars with an exceptionally raw staff. In contrast to Johnson, who packed their staff with the ideal staff mix of youth and experience, he hired newbies. From the head coach himself to assistants to assistant coaches, the Jags are filled with first-timers. That kind of setup is exciting in theory, but often fails in practice – with other teams are a warning – because everyone is figuring out a their job in real-time. Yet Coen has pulled the entire group and everything into sync.
After an early hot start, there was a possibility that the campaign would go off the track. A mid-year setback caused the Jags stumbling again. That's typically when coaches overcorrect. He did not. Rather, he simplified things. The offense stopped chasing explosive answers and started hunting consistent ones. Coen refocused the attack around key players and the ground attack, and asked Lawrence to use his mobility more.
The outcomes are obvious. The Jags have won seven games in a row and will be the conference's number three seed. Coen receives the slightest knock in the rankings because he inherited a skilled roster, but he has proven he can maximize that talent.
3) The Seattle Seahawks Coach, His Team, 13-3
Each Coach of the Year narrative has a pivotal moment. For Mike Macdonald, it was his QB choice.
Moving on from a incumbent, signing a different quarterback and pairing him with an new offensive coordinator could have derailed the season in the early weeks. Instead, it shaped it. By the mid point of the season, the new QB was an Most Valuable Player candidate. He has fallen away after that hot streak, dropping to a lower rank in EPA per pass attempt over the second half of the schedule, putting him only a single place ahead of peers.
Still
