How This Bizarre Season Broke the Traditional NFL Coach of the Year Mold.
Usually, the NFL's Coach of the Year award follows a straightforward pattern. It commonly functions as a form of apology. Sorry we got wrong your squad in our preseason projections.
On paper, it's a clear-cut path: the skipper who oversaw the largest turnaround is handed the award. In reality, it creates an yearly argument about preseason outlooks and whether we're actually honoring excellent leadership or simply the biggest shock.
Yet this year's field is profoundly unique. The group of contenders is unusually strong. It has been the year of comebacks. The NFL has been unpredictable, with reigning division winners fading and longtime strugglers ascending together. In an normal season, a coach leading the Denver Broncos to the top of the conference would make him the stone-cold favorite. Yet in such a turbulent and fun year, he's competing with five other outstanding coaches.
Below is how the projected vote should look.
5) Ben Johnson, His Team, Their Record
Coach of the Year selectors love QBs. This is a tradition. Sean McVay in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. A third in 2022. If you transform a quarterback, you're halfway home.
Ben Johnson hasn't just fixed Caleb Williams; he's freed him. In the right environment, the QB has been given the chance to showcase his otherworldly ability. From Week 9, the Bears rank fourth in offensive EPA per play. That's not a hot streak – it's sustained performance. Under Johnson, the quarterback has become more confident, less careless, and has eagerly surrendered to the scheme instead of improvising. It is an offense constructed entirely in Johnson's vision: a bully-ball run game, a steady dose of play-action and a imaginative aerial game that springs wide receiver receivers consistently. Williams has taken advantage. And when easy reads haven't been there, he's been able to conjure magic out of nothing.
The coach came to Chicago with a defined offensive philosophy. Almost every bet – rebuilding the trenches, utilizing the pass-catchers, turning Williams into a rhythm passer – has worked. This is uncommon for a rookie skipper. And it's even more uncommon still for a leader who walked into the building with the kind of expectations he did. For two straight offseasons, he was the most sought-after name on the head coaching market. But when it comes to hiring a leader, there are zero guarantees. Remarkably, he has met expectations – and even exceeded them. He's proven not just to be a scheme wizard but the type of culture builder that can breathe fresh energy into an franchise.
In a normal year, Johnson would be the runaway favorite. But the current is not a typical season!
The area where his case runs slightly unstuck is on defense. The Chicago defense presently sit 25th in defensive efficiency. They are living on takeaways, and turnovers are notoriously unreliable. Coaches can focus on creating turnovers, but nobody can guarantee it. Johnson is on the list because the offense is sustainable. He's not higher because luck is doing too much of the defense's work. With a few breaks of the ball, the Bears would be two wins behind. It's been an exceptional turnaround, and the foundation is in place for sustained winning. However he comes up short in this ranking.
4) The Jacksonville Jaguars Coach, Jacksonville Jaguars, 12-4
The Jaguars' coach is in a similar position to his counterpart. He's another rookie head coach who has masterminded a swift resurgence. During the stretch run of the year, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the best all-around football of his professional life. And he's also overseen the remaking of a defense that now sits at number five in the league in Expected Points Added per play.
What's more impressively, he has mastered the off-field aspects, which was not a certainty following his early press conference appearances and some of his preseason moves.
The coach walked into Jacksonville with an uncommonly raw coaching staff. In contrast to other coaches, who packed themselves with the ideal staff mix of youth and experience, Coen trusted first-timers. Starting with the leader on down to coordinators to assistant coaches, the Jags are filled with first-timers. That type of approach is exciting in theory, but frequently collapses in reality – with other teams are a cautionary tale – because everyone is learning a their job on the fly. Yet he has pulled the entire group and everything into sync.
Following an initial strong beginning, there was a possibility that the season would veer off the track. A midseason collapse caused the Jags stumbling again. That's usually when coaches panic and change too much. He didn't. Instead, he streamlined things. Jacksonville stopped pursuing home-run plays and started seeking sustainable ones. The coach refocused the offense around key players and the running game, and asked his QB to use his legs more often.
The outcomes are evident. The Jaguars have won multiple games in a row and will be the conference's No 3 seed. Coen receives the slightest deduction in the rankings because he inherited a talented roster, but he has demonstrated he can maximize that roster.
3) Mike Macdonald, His Team, 13-3
Each Coach of the Year argument has a defining moment. For the Seahawks coach, it was his QB move.
Moving on from a veteran, bringing in a new quarterback and pairing him with an innovative offensive coordinator might have ended the campaign in October. Instead, it defined it. By the middle point of the season, the new QB was an Most Valuable Player front-runner. He has cooled off after that time, slipping to a lower rank in efficiency per pass attempt over the second half of the schedule, putting him just a single place ahead of peers.
Still
