🔗 Share this article

Ordinarily, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year award follows a simple pattern. It often acts as a kind of mea culpa. Our apologies we misjudged your team in our pre-campaign forecasts.

Theoretically, it's a clear-cut trajectory: the skipper who engineered the largest improvement is handed the prize. In reality, it creates an yearly argument about preseason outlooks and whether we're actually rewarding superior coaching or simply the greatest shock.

However the current field is fundamentally different. The group of candidates is exceptionally talented. It has been the year of resurgences. The NFL has been unpredictable, with recent conference champions declining and longtime strugglers improving collectively. In an normal year, Sean Payton leading the his team to the summit of the AFC would make him the stone-cold favorite. Yet in such a turbulent and thrilling year, he's up against several other elite candidates.

This is how the projected ballot could look.

5) Ben Johnson, His Team, 11-5

Voters for Coach of the Year selectors are fascinated by QBs. History shows this. A certain coach in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. Should you solve a franchise QB, you're halfway home.

The Bears' head coach not only corrected his young quarterback; he's unleashed him. Given a proper ecosystem, Williams has been given the opportunity to demonstrate his rare ability. From midseason onward, the Bears sit at fourth in offensive EPA per play. This isn't a lucky run – it's consistent dominance. With his guidance, the quarterback has become increasingly confident, far less careless, and has eagerly submitted to the scheme rather than going rogue. It is an attack built entirely in the coach's vision: a bully-ball ground attack, a heavy helping of play-action and a imaginative aerial game that creates wide receiver targets all over the field. The QB has thrived. And when clear throws haven't been available, he's been capable to conjure magic from nothing.

Johnson arrived to Chicago with a clear offensive blueprint. Virtually each gamble – rebuilding the offensive line, utilizing the tight ends, turning Williams into a rhythm passer – has paid off. This is rare for a first-year head coach. And it's rarer yet for a coach who walked into the building with the level of pressure Johnson did. For two straight offseasons, he was the top candidate on the head coaching carousel. But when it comes to selecting a head coach, there are no guarantees. Somehow, he has lived up to the hype – and even surpassed them. He's proven not just to be a offensive genius but the type of culture builder that can breathe new life into an franchise.

During a typical season, he would be the runaway choice. Yet the current is not a typical campaign!

Where his case comes a bit unstuck is on the defensive side. The Chicago defense currently sit in the bottom third in defensive efficiency. They are living on takeaways, and takeaways are notoriously inconsistent. Defensive minds can stress creating turnovers, but nobody can guarantee it. Johnson is on the list because the offensive production is legitimate. He's not higher because variance is doing an outsized share of the defensive work. If not for a few breaks of the ball, the Bears would be several wins behind. It's been an remarkable turnaround, and the foundation is established for sustained success. However he comes up just short here.

4) Liam Coen, Jacksonville Jaguars, Their Record

Coen is in a comparable spot to his counterpart. He's a fellow rookie leader who has orchestrated a swift resurgence. Over the stretch run of the season, he has his franchise quarterback playing the most complete overall ball of his career. And he's also spearheaded the overhaul of a defense that now ranks fifth in the league in EPA per play.

Even more notably, Coen has mastered the off-field stuff, which was not a given following his initial press conference introduction and some of his offseason decisions.

Coen walked into Jacksonville with an uncommonly inexperienced staff. In contrast to other coaches, who surrounded their staff with the ideal coaching cocktail of new ideas and experience, Coen trusted first-timers. From the leader on down to coordinators to assistant coaches, the Jags are stocked with first-timers. That kind of approach is intriguing in theory, but often collapses in reality – with other teams are a warning – because everybody is learning a their job on the fly. But he has pulled everyone and all elements together.

After an early strong beginning, there was a risk that the campaign would go off the track. A midseason setback had the team stumbling once more. That's usually when leaders overcorrect. Coen didn't. Instead, he simplified things. Jacksonville stopped pursuing explosive plays and started seeking sustainable ones. Coen recentered the attack around key players and the running game, and asked his QB to use his mobility more.

The results are clear. The Jags have won multiple games consecutively and will be the conference's number three seed. Coen receives the slightest knock in the standings because he inherited a talented roster, but he has demonstrated he can maximize that roster.

3) Mike Macdonald, Seattle Seahawks, 13-3

Every Coach of the Year narrative has a pivotal moment. For Mike Macdonald, it was his quarterback decision.

Moving on from a veteran, bringing in a different signal-caller and pairing him with an innovative offensive coordinator could have derailed the season in October. Rather, it made it. Through the middle point of the season, the acquisition was an MVP contender. He has cooled off since that time, dropping to 23rd in EPA per dropback over the latter part of the schedule, placing him only one place ahead of peers.

Still