🔗 Share this article

Usually, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year honor adheres to a simple formula. It frequently acts as a type of apology. Sorry we underestimated your squad in our pre-campaign predictions.

Theoretically, it's a direct path: the skipper who engineered the biggest improvement receives the prize. However, it fuels an yearly argument about preseason outlooks and whether we're genuinely honoring superior leadership or simply the most shocking upset.

Yet the current field is distinctly different. The pool of candidates is unusually strong. It has been the campaign of turnarounds. The NFL has been messy, with reigning division winners falling away and longtime strugglers improving in unison. Under an ordinary year, Sean Payton leading the his team to the summit of the conference would make him the stone-cold favorite. Yet in such a chaotic and entertaining season, he's competing with several other exceptional candidates.

Here is how the projected vote ought to shake out.

5) The Chicago Bears Coach, Chicago Bears, 11-5

Voters for Coach of the Year selectors are fascinated by QBs. They always have. Sean McVay in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. When you transform a franchise QB, you're halfway home.

Ben Johnson hasn't just corrected Caleb Williams; he's unleashed him. Within an ideal system, the QB has been given the chance to display his rare ability. Since midseason onward, the Chicago offense rank number four in offensive Expected Points Added per play. That's not a lucky run – it's prolonged dominance. With his guidance, Williams has become increasingly decisive, less careless, and has willingly submitted to the gameplan rather than freelancing. It is an offense designed entirely in the coach's image: a bully-ball ground attack, a consistent dose of play-action passes and a imaginative aerial game that creates wide-open targets consistently. Williams has taken advantage. And when clear throws weren't available, he's been capable to create big plays from broken plays.

Johnson came to Chicago with a clear offensive philosophy. Almost each gamble – overhauling the trenches, highlighting the pass-catchers, transforming Williams into a timing-based passer – has paid off. This is rare for a rookie head coach. And it's rarer still for a coach who entered the organization with the kind of hype he did. For two straight cycles, he was the top candidate on the head 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 demonstrated not only to be a offensive genius but the type of culture builder that can breathe fresh energy into an organization.

In a normal season, Johnson would be the overwhelming choice. But this is not a typical year!

Where Johnson's case comes slightly into trouble is on the defensive side. The Bears currently rank 25th in defensive success rate. They are relying on turnovers, and turnovers are notoriously unreliable. Defensive minds can focus on creating turnovers, but no one can guarantee it. Johnson is on the ballot because the offensive production is real. He's ranked lower because variance is doing too much of the defense's heavy lifting. 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 foundation is in place for sustained success. But he comes up just short here.

4) Liam Coen, His Team, Their Record

Coen is in a similar spot to his counterpart. He's a fellow rookie leader who has masterminded a rapid turnaround. During the crucial final weeks of the season, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the best overall football of his professional life. And he's also spearheaded the remaking of a defense that now sits at fifth in the NFL in EPA per play.

Even more notably, Coen has excelled at the off-field aspects, which was not a certainty after his early press conference introduction and some of his preseason decisions.

The coach walked into Jacksonville with an exceptionally raw coaching staff. In contrast to other coaches, who packed their staff with the ideal coaching cocktail of youth and experience, Coen bet on newbies. Starting with the leader on down to assistants to assistant coaches, the Jags are filled with rookies. That type of setup is intriguing on paper, but frequently collapses in practice – with other teams are a cautionary tale – because everybody is learning a their job in real-time. But Coen has managed to bring everyone and all elements into sync.

Following an initial strong beginning, there was a chance that the campaign would veer off the track. A midseason collapse had the team stumbling again. That's usually when leaders panic and change too much. Coen didn't. Rather, he simplified the approach. The offense stopped chasing explosive plays and started hunting consistent ones. Coen refocused the offense around key players and the running game, and asked his QB to use his legs more often.

The results are clear. The Jaguars have won seven games consecutively and will be the AFC's number three playoff seed. He gets the slightest knock in the standings because he took over a talented team, but he has proven he can get the most out of that roster.

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

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

Moving on from a incumbent, bringing in a different signal-caller and pairing him with an innovative offensive coordinator might have ended the campaign in the early weeks. Rather, it shaped it. By the mid point of the year, the new QB was an Most Valuable Player candidate. He has fallen away after that hot streak, slipping to a lower rank in EPA per dropback over the second half of the schedule, putting him just a single place ahead of other QBs.

Still