How The Unusual Campaign Shattered the Conventional Coach of the Year Blueprint.
Ordinarily, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year trophy follows a simple pattern. It often functions as a type of mea culpa. Sorry we misjudged your squad in our preseason predictions.
On paper, it's a clear-cut path: the coach who oversaw the largest improvement is handed the prize. In reality, it fuels an annual debate about preseason outlooks and whether we're genuinely honoring excellent coaching or merely the biggest shock.
But the latest competition is profoundly different. The list of contenders is remarkably strong. It has been the season of turnarounds. The league has been messy, with recent division winners fading and recent also-rans ascending together. In an typical year, Sean Payton guiding the his team to the top of the conference would make him the clear front-runner. Yet in this chaotic and thrilling season, he's up against five other outstanding candidates.
Here is how the ideal vote should be structured.
5) Ben Johnson, Chicago Bears, 11-5
Voters for Coach of the Year voters adore signal-callers. They always have. Sean McVay in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. A third in 2022. Should you fix a franchise QB, you're halfway to winning the award.
The Bears' head coach hasn't just fixed Caleb Williams; he's unleashed him. In the right system, Williams has been given the opportunity to display his special talent. Since Week 9, the Bears rank fourth in offensive EPA per play. This isn't a hot streak – it's sustained excellence. With Johnson, Williams has become increasingly decisive, less careless, and has willingly surrendered to the scheme rather than freelancing. It is an offense designed solely in the coach's vision: a physical run game, a consistent dose of play-action passes and a imaginative passing attack that creates wide receiver targets everywhere. The QB has thrived. And when clear throws haven't been there, he's been able to spin big plays from nothing.
Johnson came to the Bears with a defined offensive philosophy. Almost every gamble – rebuilding the trenches, utilizing the pass-catchers, turning Williams into a timing-based passer – has paid off. This is uncommon for a first-year head coach. And it's rarer yet for a coach who walked into the building with the kind of hype Johnson did. For two straight offseasons, he was the hottest candidate on the coaching carousel. However when it comes to hiring a head coach, there are no sure things. Remarkably, he has lived up to expectations – and even exceeded them. He's demonstrated not just to be a scheme genius but the kind of culture builder that can inject fresh energy into an franchise.
During a normal season, Johnson would be the clear-cut choice. But the current is not a typical year!
Where Johnson's case runs a bit unstuck is on defense. The Chicago defense currently rank in the bottom third in defensive efficiency. They are living on takeaways, and takeaways are notoriously fickle. Coaches can stress ball disruption, but no one can guarantee it. He is on the ballot because the offense is legitimate. He's not higher because variance is doing an outsized share of the defense's heavy lifting. With a few breaks of the ball, the Bears would be several wins worse off. It's been an remarkable transformation, and the core is in place for long-term success. But he falls short in this ranking.
4) The Jacksonville Jaguars Coach, Jacksonville Jaguars, Their Record
The Jaguars' coach is in a similar spot to Johnson. He's a fellow rookie leader who has orchestrated a rapid resurgence. During the stretch run of the season, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the most complete all-around football of his career. And he's also overseen the transformation of a defense that now ranks number five in the NFL in Expected Points Added per play.
Even more notably, he has mastered the intangibles stuff, which wasn't a guarantee after his early press conference appearances and some of his offseason decisions.
Coen took over the Jaguars with an exceptionally inexperienced staff. In contrast to Johnson, who surrounded themselves with the ideal staff blend of new ideas and experience, he bet on first-timers. Starting with the head coach on down to assistants to assistant coaches, the Jaguars are filled with first-timers. That type of approach is intriguing in theory, but often collapses in reality – as past failures are a cautionary tale – because everybody is figuring out a their job on the fly. But he has pulled everyone and everything into sync.
After an early strong beginning, there was a chance that the campaign would go off the track. A mid-year setback had the Jags stumbling again. That's typically when leaders panic and change too much. Coen didn't. Rather, he simplified things. The offense stopped pursuing home-run answers and started hunting sustainable ones. The coach refocused the attack around his playmakers and the ground attack, and asked Lawrence to use his mobility more often.
The results are obvious. The Jags have won seven games in a row and will be the conference's number three seed. He gets the tiniest knock in the standings because he took over a talented roster, but he has proven he can maximize that talent.
3) Mike Macdonald, His Team, 13-3
Each Strong of the Year case has a hinge decision. For Mike Macdonald, it was his quarterback decision.
Parting ways from a incumbent, signing a different signal-caller and partnering him with an new play-caller could have ended the campaign in October. Rather, it defined it. Through the middle point of the season, the new QB was an Most Valuable Player front-runner. He has fallen away since that hot streak, dropping to 23rd in EPA per pass attempt over the latter part of the season, placing him only one spot ahead of peers.
Still