🔗 Share this article

Typically, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year honor follows a straightforward pattern. It frequently acts as a type of apology. We regret we misjudged your squad in our pre-campaign projections.

On paper, it's a direct line: the coach who engineered the biggest improvement wins the prize. In practice, it fuels an yearly discussion about preseason outlooks and whether we're genuinely honoring excellent leadership or simply the biggest surprise.

However the latest competition is profoundly different. The list of contenders is unusually strong. It has been the campaign of comebacks. The league has been messy, with reigning conference champions declining and longtime underperformers improving in unison. In an normal 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 entertaining season, he's competing with several other outstanding candidates.

Below is how the projected vote ought to shake out.

5) Ben Johnson, Chicago Bears, Their Record

Voters for Coach of the Year voters are fascinated by quarterbacks. They always have. A certain coach in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. A third in 2022. If you transform a quarterback, you're well on your way to winning the award.

The Bears' head coach hasn't just corrected Caleb Williams; he's freed him. Within an ideal system, Williams has been afforded the opportunity to display his otherworldly ability. Since Week 9, the Chicago offense rank number four in offensive EPA per play. This isn't a lucky run – it's sustained performance. Under his guidance, the quarterback has become increasingly decisive, far less reckless, and has eagerly submitted to the gameplan instead of going rogue. It is an offense built entirely in Johnson's image: a bully-ball ground attack, a consistent dose of play-action passes and a imaginative passing attack that frees wide receiver targets everywhere. Williams has thrived. And when clear throws haven't been there, he's been capable to create big plays out of broken plays.

Johnson came to Chicago with a specific offensive vision. Almost each gamble – rebuilding the trenches, utilizing the tight ends, transforming Williams into a rhythm thrower – has paid off. That's rare for a first-year head coach. And it's rarer yet for a leader who walked into the organization with the kind of expectations he did. For two straight cycles, he was the top candidate on the head coaching market. But when it comes to hiring a head coach, there are no sure things. Somehow, he has lived up to expectations – and even exceeded them. He's proven not just to be a scheme dork but the kind of leader that can inject fresh energy into an franchise.

In a normal year, he would be the runaway favorite. Yet the current is not a typical season!

The area where Johnson's case runs a bit into trouble is on the defensive side. The Chicago defense presently sit 25th in defensive efficiency. They are relying on turnovers, and takeaways are famously inconsistent. Defensive minds can stress creating turnovers, but no one can ensure it. Johnson is on the list because the offensive production is sustainable. He's ranked lower because luck is doing too much of the defensive heavy lifting. With a couple bounces of the ball, the team would be two victories behind. It's been an exceptional turnaround, and the foundation is established for long-term winning. However he falls short here.

4) The Jacksonville Jaguars Coach, His Team, 12-4

The Jaguars' coach is in a comparable spot to Johnson. He's another first-time leader who has orchestrated a swift resurgence. During the crucial final weeks of the season, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the most complete overall football of his professional life. And he's also spearheaded the overhaul of a defense that now sits at fifth in the league in EPA per play.

Even more notably, he has nailed the intangibles aspects, which was not a given after his initial public introduction and some of his preseason moves.

Coen walked into Jacksonville with an exceptionally raw coaching staff. Unlike other coaches, who packed their staff with the perfect staff mix of new ideas and veteran savvy, he hired newbies. From the leader himself to assistants to assistant coaches, the Jaguars are stocked with rookies. That type of approach is intriguing on paper, but frequently fails in practice – as past failures are a cautionary tale – because everyone is figuring out a new job in real-time. But Coen has pulled the entire group and everything together.

Following an early hot beginning, there was a risk that the season would go off the track. A mid-year setback caused the Jags wobbling again. That's typically when coaches overcorrect. Coen didn't. Rather, he simplified things. Jacksonville stopped pursuing explosive plays and started hunting consistent ones. The coach recentered the attack around key players and the ground attack, and asked Lawrence to use his legs more.

The results are obvious. The Jags have won multiple games in a row and will be the conference's No 3 seed. Coen gets the tiniest deduction in the standings because he took over a skilled roster, but he has demonstrated he can get the most out of that roster.

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

Each Coach of the Year case has a pivotal moment. For Mike Macdonald, it was his quarterback move.

Parting ways from a incumbent, bringing in a different quarterback and pairing him with an innovative offensive coordinator might have derailed the campaign in the early weeks. Instead, it defined it. Through the middle point of the year, the new QB was an MVP candidate. He has cooled off since that hot streak, slipping to a lower rank in efficiency per dropback over the second half of the season, placing him just one spot ahead of other QBs.

Still