How The Unusual Campaign Broke the Traditional Coach of the Year Formula.
Typically, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year trophy follows a simple script. It frequently serves as a form of apology. Sorry we underestimated your team in our pre-campaign forecasts.
In theory, it's a direct trajectory: the skipper who orchestrated the largest resurgence receives the award. In practice, it fuels an yearly debate about expectations and whether we're genuinely honoring excellent coaching or just the most shocking surprise.
But this year's competition is distinctly different. The list of nominees is unusually deep. It has been the season of comebacks. The NFL has been chaotic, with recent division champions fading and longtime underperformers rising together. During an ordinary season, a coach guiding the his team to the top of the conference would make him the stone-cold favorite. Yet in such a chaotic and thrilling year, he's up against several other exceptional candidates.
This is how the ideal ballot should look.
5) Ben Johnson, His Team, 11-5
Coach of the Year selectors are fascinated by signal-callers. History shows this. Sean McVay in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. A third in 2022. Should you solve a quarterback, you're halfway to winning the award.
The Bears' head coach hasn't just fixed Caleb Williams; he's freed him. In the right environment, the QB has been given the opportunity to showcase his otherworldly talent. From Week 9, the Bears sit at fourth in offensive Expected Points Added per play. This isn't a hot streak – it's sustained performance. Under Johnson, the quarterback has become more decisive, far less careless, and has eagerly submitted to the scheme rather than freelancing. It is an attack built solely in the coach's vision: a physical ground attack, a steady helping of play-action passes and a imaginative passing attack that springs wide-open receivers consistently. Williams has capitalized. And when clear throws weren't available, he's been capable to spin big plays from nothing.
The coach arrived to Chicago with a specific offensive philosophy. Virtually every decision – rebuilding the trenches, highlighting the pass-catchers, transforming Williams into a rhythm thrower – has succeeded. That's uncommon for a first-year skipper. And it's rarer yet for a coach who entered the building with the kind of expectations Johnson did. For two straight cycles, he was the top candidate on the coaching carousel. But when it comes to hiring a head coach, there are zero guarantees. Somehow, he has met expectations – and even exceeded them. He's proven not only to be a scheme wizard but the kind of leader that can inject new life into an franchise.
During a ordinary season, Johnson would be the runaway choice. Yet the current is not a normal campaign!
Where Johnson's case runs a bit into trouble is on defense. The Bears presently sit 25th in defensive success rate. They are relying on takeaways, and takeaways are famously inconsistent. Coaches can stress creating turnovers, but no one can ensure it. Johnson is on the list because the offense is sustainable. He's not higher because luck is doing an outsized share of the defensive heavy lifting. If not for a few bounces of the ball, the Bears would be several wins worse off. It's been an exceptional turnaround, and the foundation is established for sustained winning. However he falls short in this ranking.
4) The Jacksonville Jaguars Coach, Jacksonville Jaguars, 12-4
Coen is in a comparable situation to Johnson. He's another rookie leader who has masterminded a swift resurgence. Over the crucial final weeks of the year, he has his franchise quarterback playing the most complete all-around ball of his career. And he's also overseen the remaking of a defensive unit that now sits at number five in the league in EPA per play.
Even more impressively, Coen has mastered the leadership stuff, which was not a given after his initial press conference appearances and some of his offseason decisions.
Coen took over Jacksonville with an uncommonly raw coaching staff. In contrast to Johnson, who surrounded themselves with the ideal staff mix of youth and experience, he hired first-timers. Starting with the leader on down to assistants to position coaches, the Jags are filled with rookies. That type of setup is exciting on paper, but frequently fails in reality – as past failures are a cautionary tale – because everybody is figuring out a their job in real-time. Yet Coen has pulled the entire group and everything together.
Following an initial hot start, there was a chance that the campaign would veer off the track. A mid-year collapse had the team stumbling once more. That's usually when coaches panic and change too much. Coen didn't. Rather, he simplified things. The offense stopped chasing explosive plays and started seeking sustainable ones. Coen recentered the attack around his playmakers and the ground attack, and encouraged Lawrence to use his legs more.
The outcomes are clear. The Jaguars have won multiple games consecutively and will be the AFC's number three playoff seed. Coen gets the tiniest deduction in the rankings because he took over a talented team, but he has proven he can get the most out of that roster.
3) Mike Macdonald, Seattle Seahawks, Their Record
Every Coach of the Year argument has a pivotal decision. For Mike Macdonald, it was his quarterback decision.
Moving on from a veteran, signing a different signal-caller and partnering him with an innovative play-caller could have derailed the season in the early weeks. Instead, it defined it. By the mid point of the season, the acquisition was an Most Valuable Player candidate. He has cooled off since that hot streak, slipping to a lower rank in efficiency per pass attempt over the latter part of the season, putting him only a single place ahead of peers.
Still
