🔗 Share this article

Usually, the NFL's Coach of the Year honor adheres to a simple script. It commonly serves as a kind of mea culpa. We regret we got wrong your squad in our pre-campaign forecasts.

In theory, it's a direct path: the coach who orchestrated the largest turnaround receives the award. In reality, it creates an yearly argument about expectations and whether we're actually rewarding excellent coaching or simply the greatest surprise.

But the current competition is fundamentally different. The group of candidates is exceptionally deep. It has been the campaign of comebacks. The league has been messy, with recent conference winners fading and longtime strugglers rising collectively. Under an normal year, a coach guiding the his team to the summit of the conference would make him the stone-cold front-runner. Yet in such a chaotic and fun season, he's up against multiple other outstanding candidates.

Here is how the hypothetical vote could look.

5) Ben Johnson, Chicago Bears, 11-5

Coach of the Year voters love QBs. They always have. A certain coach in 2017. Another in 2020. A third in 2022. Should you solve a quarterback, you're well on your way to winning the award.

Ben Johnson didn't merely corrected Caleb Williams; he's freed him. Within an ideal environment, the QB has been afforded the opportunity to showcase his otherworldly ability. From midseason onward, the Bears sit at number four in offensive Expected Points Added per play. This isn't a lucky run – it's prolonged performance. With Johnson, Williams has become more decisive, less reckless, and has willingly surrendered to the gameplan rather than going rogue. It is an attack designed solely in Johnson's vision: a bully-ball run game, a heavy dose of play-action and a innovative aerial game that springs wide receiver targets everywhere. The QB has capitalized. And when clear throws weren't available, he's been capable to spin big plays out of nothing.

The coach came to Chicago with a defined offensive blueprint. Virtually each gamble – overhauling the trenches, featuring the tight ends, turning the QB into a timing-based passer – has paid off. This is uncommon for a rookie head coach. And it's rarer yet for a coach who entered the building with the immense pressure he did. For consecutive straight offseasons, he was the top candidate on the coaching carousel. But when it comes to hiring a leader, there are zero guarantees. Somehow, Johnson has lived up to the hype – and even exceeded them. He's proven not only to be a offensive dork but the kind of culture builder that can breathe new life into an organization.

During a typical year, he would be the clear-cut choice. Yet this is not a normal season!

The area where Johnson's candidacy runs slightly unstuck is on defense. The Bears presently rank 25th in defensive success rate. They are surviving on turnovers, and takeaways are famously fickle. Defensive minds can emphasise creating turnovers, but nobody can ensure it. Johnson is on the list because the offense is sustainable. He's not higher because variance is doing too much of the defensive heavy lifting. With a couple bounces of the ball, the Bears would be several victories behind. It's been an remarkable turnaround, and the foundation is in place for long-term success. But Johnson comes up just short in this ranking.

4) Liam Coen, Jacksonville Jaguars, 12-4

Coen is in a similar spot to Johnson. He's a fellow first-time head coach who has engineered a swift turnaround. Over the crucial final weeks of the season, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the most complete all-around ball of his career. And he's also overseen the transformation of a defense that now sits at fifth in the NFL in EPA per play.

What's more impressively, Coen has mastered the intangibles aspects, which wasn't a given following his early public appearances and some of his preseason decisions.

Coen walked into the Jaguars with an uncommonly raw staff. In contrast to other coaches, who packed themselves with the perfect staff cocktail of youth and experience, Coen bet on newbies. From the head coach on down to coordinators to position coaches, the Jaguars are stocked with first-timers. That type of approach is exciting on paper, but often collapses in reality – with other teams are a warning – because everybody is learning a their job on the fly. But Coen has pulled everyone and all elements into sync.

After an initial strong start, there was a possibility that the season would veer off the track. A midseason setback caused the Jags stumbling once more. That's usually when leaders overcorrect. Coen didn't. Instead, he streamlined things. The offense stopped chasing home-run plays and started hunting sustainable ones. Coen recentered the attack around key players and the running game, and asked his QB to use his mobility more often.

The outcomes are evident. The Jaguars have won multiple games consecutively and will be the AFC's number three playoff seed. Coen gets the tiniest knock in the rankings because he took over a talented roster, but he has proven he can maximize that talent.

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

Each Coach of the Year narrative has a pivotal moment. For the Seahawks coach, it was his quarterback move.

Moving on from a veteran, signing a new signal-caller and pairing him with an new offensive coordinator might have derailed the season in October. Instead, it made it. Through the middle point of the season, the acquisition was an Most Valuable Player front-runner. He has fallen away since that hot streak, dropping to 23rd in efficiency per dropback over the latter part of the season, placing him just one spot ahead of other QBs.

Still