🔗 Share this article

Typically, the NFL's Coach of the Year honor adheres to a straightforward script. It frequently serves as a type of apology. Our apologies we misjudged your squad in our preseason predictions.

In theory, it's a direct trajectory: the coach who engineered the biggest improvement wins the award. In reality, it fuels an yearly debate about preseason outlooks and whether we're genuinely honoring excellent coaching or just the greatest upset.

Yet this year's field is profoundly unique. The pool of contenders is exceptionally talented. It has been the year of resurgences. The NFL has been unpredictable, with recent conference winners fading and longtime also-rans ascending together. Under an typical season, Sean Payton leading the Denver Broncos to the top of the AFC would make him the stone-cold favorite. Yet in such a wild and fun season, he's up against five other outstanding candidates.

Here is how the hypothetical ballot ought to look.

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

Coach of the Year selectors adore signal-callers. This is a tradition. A certain coach in 2017. Another in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. When you transform a franchise QB, you're halfway to winning the award.

The Bears' head coach didn't merely fixed his young quarterback; he's unlocked him. Given a proper ecosystem, Williams has been afforded the chance to showcase his otherworldly ability. From midseason onward, the Bears sit at fourth in offensive EPA per play. This isn't a hot streak – it's sustained dominance. With his guidance, the quarterback has become more confident, less reckless, and has eagerly submitted to the scheme instead of going rogue. It is an attack built entirely in Johnson's image: a physical ground attack, a heavy helping of play-action passes and a creative aerial game that creates wide receiver receivers all over the field. The QB has thrived. And when easy reads weren't there, he's been capable to spin magic out of broken plays.

Johnson came to Chicago with a clear offensive philosophy. Virtually every bet – overhauling the trenches, utilizing the pass-catchers, turning Williams into a timing-based thrower – has worked. That's uncommon for a first-year skipper. And it's rarer yet for a coach who walked into the organization with the kind of expectations Johnson did. For consecutive straight offseasons, he was the most sought-after candidate on the head coaching carousel. However when it comes to hiring a leader, there are no guarantees. Remarkably, Johnson has lived up to the hype – and even exceeded them. He's proven not only to be a offensive wizard but the kind of leader that can inject new life into an franchise.

In a typical year, he would be the clear-cut favorite. But the current is not a normal season!

Where Johnson's candidacy comes a bit unstuck is on the defensive side. The Bears currently rank 25th in defensive efficiency. They are surviving on turnovers, and takeaways are famously unreliable. Defensive minds can stress ball disruption, but no one can guarantee it. Johnson is on the list because the offensive production is sustainable. He's ranked lower because variance is doing an outsized share of the defensive work. With a couple breaks of the ball, the team would be two wins behind. It's been an remarkable transformation, and the foundation is established for sustained winning. However Johnson falls short in this ranking.

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

The Jaguars' coach is in a comparable situation to Johnson. He's another rookie leader who has engineered a swift resurgence. During the stretch run of the season, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the best all-around ball of his career. And he's also spearheaded the overhaul of a defense that now ranks fifth in the NFL in EPA per play.

What's more notably, he has excelled at the off-field stuff, which was not a certainty after his initial public appearances and some of his offseason moves.

The coach walked into Jacksonville with an uncommonly raw coaching staff. In contrast to Johnson, who surrounded themselves with the ideal coaching mix of youth and experience, Coen trusted first-timers. From the head coach on down to assistants to position coaches, the Jags are filled with rookies. That type of setup is intriguing in theory, but often fails in practice – with other teams are a cautionary tale – because everybody is figuring out a new job on the fly. Yet Coen has managed to bring the entire group and all elements into sync.

Following an early strong start, there was a chance that the campaign would veer off the track. A midseason setback had the Jags wobbling once more. That's typically when coaches overcorrect. He did not. Instead, he simplified things. Jacksonville stopped pursuing home-run answers and started seeking reliable ones. Coen refocused the offense around key players and the running game, and asked Lawrence to use his mobility more.

The results are evident. The Jaguars have won multiple games consecutively and will be the AFC's number three playoff seed. He receives the tiniest knock in the standings because he took over a skilled team, but he has demonstrated he can get the most out of that roster.

3) The Seattle Seahawks Coach, His Team, 13-3

Every Strong of the Year case has a defining decision. For Mike Macdonald, it was his quarterback move.

Moving on from a incumbent, signing a different signal-caller and pairing him with an new play-caller might have ended the season in the early weeks. Instead, it shaped it. Through the mid point of the year, the acquisition was an Most Valuable Player candidate. He has regressed since that hot streak, dropping to 23rd in efficiency per dropback over the latter part of the schedule, putting him just a single place ahead of other QBs.

Still