🔗 Share this article

Typically, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year honor follows a straightforward pattern. It often functions as a form of mea culpa. We regret we got wrong your franchise in our preseason projections.

In theory, it's a direct trajectory: the skipper who oversaw the most dramatic turnaround receives the award. However, it creates an yearly discussion about preseason outlooks and whether we're actually honoring superior coaching or just the biggest shock.

But the latest race is profoundly different. The list of contenders is unusually strong. It has been the year of resurgences. The league has been unpredictable, with recent conference champions fading and recent strugglers improving collectively. In an typical season, a coach leading the Denver Broncos to the top of the AFC would make him the overwhelming favorite. But in this wild and entertaining season, he's competing with five other exceptional coaches.

Below is how the hypothetical ballot should shake out.

5) The Chicago Bears Coach, Chicago Bears, Their Record

Voters for Coach of the Year voters are fascinated by signal-callers. They always have. Sean McVay in 2017. Another in 2020. A third in 2022. When you transform a quarterback, you're well on your way home.

The Bears' head coach didn't merely corrected his young quarterback; he's unleashed him. In the right environment, the QB has been given the opportunity to display his rare talent. Since midseason onward, the Bears sit at number four in offensive Expected Points Added per play. That's not a lucky run – it's sustained performance. Under his guidance, the quarterback has become increasingly decisive, far less careless, and has willingly submitted to the system rather than improvising. It is an offense constructed entirely in Johnson's vision: a physical run game, a consistent helping of play-action and a imaginative passing attack that creates wide receiver targets all over the field. Williams has thrived. And when easy reads haven't been available, he's been able to create big plays from broken plays.

The coach came to the Bears with a defined offensive philosophy. Virtually each bet – overhauling the trenches, highlighting the pass-catchers, transforming the QB into a timing-based thrower – has paid off. That's uncommon for a first-year head coach. And it's even more uncommon yet for a leader who entered the organization with the kind of pressure he did. For two straight offseasons, he was the hottest name on the coaching market. However when it comes to selecting a head coach, there are zero sure things. Remarkably, he has lived up to the hype – and even surpassed them. He's demonstrated not just to be a offensive genius but the type of leader that can inject fresh energy into an organization.

In a ordinary year, he would be the clear-cut favorite. But this is not a typical campaign!

Where his case comes slightly into trouble is on defense. The Chicago defense currently rank in the bottom third in defensive success rate. They are living on turnovers, and takeaways are famously inconsistent. Defensive minds can emphasise ball disruption, but nobody can guarantee it. Johnson is on the ballot because the offensive production is real. He's ranked lower because luck is doing too much of the defensive work. With a couple bounces of the ball, the Bears would be several victories worse off. It's been an remarkable turnaround, and the foundation is in place for long-term winning. But he falls just short in this ranking.

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

Coen is in a comparable spot to his counterpart. He's another first-time head coach who has orchestrated a dramatic turnaround. Over the stretch run of the year, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the finest overall football of his career. And he's also overseen the transformation of a defensive unit that now sits at number five in the NFL in Expected Points Added per play.

What's more notably, Coen has excelled at the leadership aspects, which was not a given after his early press conference appearances and some of his preseason moves.

The coach took over the Jaguars with an exceptionally raw coaching staff. Unlike Johnson, who surrounded themselves with the perfect staff blend of youth and veteran savvy, he trusted first-timers. From the head coach on down to coordinators to assistant coaches, the Jags are stocked with first-timers. That kind of approach is intriguing on paper, but frequently fails in reality – with other teams are a warning – because everybody is learning a their job on the fly. But he has managed to bring everyone and all elements together.

After an early hot start, there was a chance that the season would go off the track. A midseason collapse caused the team stumbling again. That's typically when leaders overcorrect. Coen didn't. Rather, he streamlined things. The offense stopped pursuing home-run answers and started seeking reliable ones. The coach recentered the offense around key players and the ground attack, and asked Lawrence to use his legs more often.

The outcomes are clear. The Jaguars have won multiple games consecutively and will be the conference's number three seed. He gets the slightest knock in the standings because he took over a talented team, but he has demonstrated he can maximize that roster.

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

Every Coach of the Year argument has a defining moment. For Mike Macdonald, it was his QB move.

Moving on from a incumbent, signing a different quarterback and partnering him with an innovative play-caller could have ended the campaign in October. Instead, it made it. By the mid point of the season, the acquisition was an Most Valuable Player candidate. He has regressed since that hot streak, dropping to 23rd in EPA per pass attempt over the second half of the schedule, placing him only a single place ahead of peers.

Still