How This Bizarre Season Shattered the Traditional Coach of the Year Formula.
Usually, the NFL's Head Coach of the Year honor follows a simple pattern. It commonly serves as a kind of mea culpa. Sorry we misjudged your squad in our preseason predictions.
Theoretically, it's a clear-cut path: the skipper who orchestrated the most dramatic turnaround wins the prize. In practice, it fuels an annual discussion about preseason outlooks and whether we're actually honoring excellent leadership or merely the greatest shock.
However this year's field is fundamentally different. The list of nominees is remarkably deep. It has been the season of comebacks. The league has been chaotic, with reigning conference champions fading and recent strugglers improving in unison. Under an normal year, Sean Payton leading the Denver Broncos to the top of the conference would make him the overwhelming favorite. Yet in this chaotic and entertaining year, he's up against multiple other exceptional candidates.
Below is how the hypothetical ballot could look.
5) Ben Johnson, His Team, 11-5
Voters for Coach of the Year voters are fascinated by signal-callers. They always have. Sean McVay in 2017. Another in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. Should you transform a franchise QB, you're halfway to winning the award.
The Bears' head coach didn't merely fixed his young quarterback; he's unlocked him. Given a proper system, Williams has been afforded the opportunity to demonstrate his special ability. From Week 9, the Bears rank number four in offensive Expected Points Added per play. That's not a brief surge – it's consistent performance. Under his guidance, the quarterback has become increasingly decisive, far less careless, and has willingly surrendered to the gameplan instead of going rogue. It is an offense built solely in the coach's image: a physical run game, a consistent dose of play-action and a imaginative aerial game that frees wide-open targets consistently. The QB has taken advantage. And when openings haven't been there, he's been capable to create big plays out of nothing.
Johnson arrived to the Bears with a clear offensive philosophy. Virtually each bet – rebuilding the offensive line, utilizing the pass-catchers, transforming the QB into a rhythm passer – has worked. That's uncommon for a first-year head coach. And it's rarer still for a leader who walked into the building with the level of hype he did. For consecutive straight offseasons, he was the most sought-after name on the coaching carousel. But when it comes to hiring a head coach, there are zero guarantees. Somehow, he has lived up to expectations – and even surpassed them. He's demonstrated not just to be a scheme wizard but the kind of culture builder that can breathe new life into an organization.
During a typical season, Johnson would be the clear-cut choice. But the current is not a normal campaign!
Where his candidacy runs slightly into trouble is on the defensive side. The Chicago defense currently sit 25th in defensive success rate. They are relying on turnovers, and takeaways are notoriously inconsistent. Defensive minds can stress creating turnovers, but no one can guarantee it. He is on the ballot because the offensive production is legitimate. He's ranked lower because luck is doing too much of the defensive work. If not for a couple bounces of the ball, the team would be two wins worse off. It's been an remarkable transformation, and the core is established for sustained winning. But he comes up short in this ranking.
4) Liam Coen, Jacksonville Jaguars, Their Record
Coen is in a comparable spot to Johnson. He's another rookie leader who has orchestrated a swift turnaround. During the stretch run of the year, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the most complete all-around ball of his career. And he's also overseen the overhaul of a defense that now ranks number five in the NFL in EPA per play.
Even more impressively, he has nailed the off-field stuff, which wasn't a guarantee following his initial public introduction and some of his preseason decisions.
Coen took over the Jaguars with an exceptionally raw staff. Unlike Johnson, who surrounded themselves with the perfect staff blend of new ideas and experience, he trusted first-timers. From the head coach on down to assistants to assistant coaches, the Jags are stocked with first-timers. That kind of approach is intriguing in theory, but frequently collapses in practice – as past failures are a cautionary tale – because everybody is learning a new job in real-time. But he has pulled everyone and all elements into sync.
Following an early hot start, there was a risk that the season would go off the track. A mid-year collapse caused the team wobbling again. That's typically when leaders overcorrect. Coen didn't. Rather, he simplified things. The offense stopped pursuing home-run answers and started seeking consistent ones. The coach recentered the offense around his playmakers and the running game, and encouraged his QB to use his mobility more often.
The outcomes are clear. The Jags have won multiple games consecutively and will be the conference's number three playoff seed. Coen gets the tiniest deduction in the standings because he inherited a talented team, but he has demonstrated he can maximize that roster.
3) Mike Macdonald, His Team, 13-3
Each Strong of the Year case has a hinge decision. For Mike Macdonald, it was his quarterback move.
Parting ways from a incumbent, signing a new quarterback and partnering him with an new offensive coordinator could have ended the campaign in the early weeks. Instead, it shaped it. By the mid point of the year, the new QB was an Most Valuable Player front-runner. He has cooled off after that time, dropping to a lower rank in EPA per dropback over the second half of the season, placing him just a single spot ahead of peers.
Still
