How The Strange Season Broke the Typical Coach of the Year Mold.
Ordinarily, the NFL's Head Coach of the Year award adheres to a straightforward script. It often serves as a form of mea culpa. Sorry we misjudged your team in our preseason forecasts.
In theory, it's a direct line: the coach who engineered the largest improvement is handed the award. In reality, it fuels an annual discussion about preseason outlooks and whether we're truly rewarding excellent leadership or just the greatest upset.
However the current race is profoundly unique. The group of nominees is remarkably talented. It has been the year of turnarounds. The NFL has been chaotic, with recent division winners fading and longtime also-rans ascending in unison. Under an typical season, Sean Payton guiding the Denver Broncos to the top of the conference would make him the stone-cold front-runner. Yet in such a wild and thrilling year, he's up against several other outstanding coaches.
This is how the ideal ballot ought to shake out.
5) The Chicago Bears Coach, His Team, Their Record
Coach of the Year selectors love signal-callers. They always have. Sean McVay in 2017. Another in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. If you fix a franchise QB, you're halfway to winning the award.
Ben Johnson hasn't just fixed his young quarterback; he's unleashed him. In the right ecosystem, the QB has been afforded the opportunity to showcase his special talent. Since midseason onward, the Chicago offense rank number four in offensive Expected Points Added per play. This isn't a hot streak – it's consistent excellence. Under his guidance, the quarterback has become increasingly decisive, far less reckless, and has willingly surrendered to the gameplan rather than improvising. It is an offense built entirely in the coach's vision: a physical run game, a heavy helping of play-action and a innovative passing attack that springs wide-open targets everywhere. Williams has thrived. And when easy reads haven't been available, he's been capable to spin big plays out of broken plays.
The coach arrived to the Bears with a clear offensive vision. Virtually every gamble – rebuilding the trenches, featuring the tight ends, turning Williams into a rhythm thrower – has succeeded. This is rare for a rookie head coach. And it's even more uncommon still for a leader who entered the organization with the level of hype he did. For consecutive straight offseasons, he was the most sought-after name on the head coaching carousel. But when it comes to selecting a leader, there are no guarantees. Somehow, he has lived up to the hype – and even exceeded them. He's proven not only to be a scheme dork but the kind of culture builder that can breathe new life into an organization.
In a normal year, Johnson would be the runaway choice. But this isn't a normal year!
Where Johnson's case runs a bit into trouble is on the defensive side. The Bears presently sit 25th in defensive efficiency. They are relying on takeaways, and takeaways are notoriously unreliable. Coaches can stress creating turnovers, but no one can ensure it. Johnson is on the list because the offense is sustainable. He's ranked lower because luck is doing too much of the defensive work. With a couple breaks of the ball, the team would be two victories worse off. It's been an remarkable turnaround, and the foundation is in place for long-term winning. However he comes up just short here.
4) The Jacksonville Jaguars Coach, Jacksonville Jaguars, 12-4
Coen is in a similar position to Johnson. He's another first-time leader who has orchestrated a swift turnaround. During the stretch run of the year, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the finest all-around ball of his career. And he's also overseen the remaking of a defensive unit that now sits at fifth in the NFL in EPA per play.
Even more notably, he has mastered the intangibles stuff, which was not a given following his early press conference appearances and some of his offseason moves.
The coach walked into Jacksonville with an exceptionally raw staff. Unlike other coaches, who surrounded their staff with the ideal coaching mix of new ideas and veteran savvy, Coen bet on newbies. From the leader on down to assistants to position coaches, the Jaguars are filled with rookies. That type of approach is exciting in theory, but often collapses in practice – as past failures are a cautionary tale – because everyone is figuring out a their job in real-time. Yet he has managed to bring the entire group and all elements into sync.
Following an initial strong beginning, there was a chance that the season would go off the rails. A midseason setback had the Jags wobbling again. That's typically when coaches overcorrect. Coen didn't. Rather, he streamlined the approach. The offense stopped chasing home-run answers and started hunting sustainable ones. The coach refocused the offense around his playmakers and the ground attack, and encouraged his QB to use his mobility more.
The results are clear. The Jags have won multiple games consecutively and will be the conference's No 3 playoff seed. He gets the tiniest knock in the standings because he inherited a skilled team, but he has proven he can maximize that talent.
3) The Seattle Seahawks Coach, Seattle Seahawks, 13-3
Every Strong of the Year narrative has a hinge decision. For Mike Macdonald, it was his quarterback decision.
Moving on from a incumbent, signing a different signal-caller and pairing him with an new offensive coordinator could have ended the season in October. Rather, it defined it. Through the mid point of the season, the new QB was an MVP contender. He has regressed since that time, slipping to 23rd in efficiency per dropback over the second half of the season, putting him just a single place ahead of peers.
Still
