🔗 Share this article

Ordinarily, the National Football League's Coach of the Year award follows a simple formula. It often functions as a type of apology. Sorry we underestimated your team in our pre-campaign predictions.

On paper, it's a direct trajectory: the coach who oversaw the most dramatic turnaround receives the prize. In practice, it sparks an annual discussion about expectations and whether we're truly rewarding superior coaching or simply the greatest upset.

Yet this year's field is distinctly different. The pool of nominees is remarkably talented. It has been the campaign of resurgences. The league has been messy, with reigning conference champions fading and recent also-rans ascending in unison. During an typical year, a coach leading the Denver Broncos to the summit of the conference would make him the clear front-runner. But in this chaotic and fun season, he's facing several other outstanding coaches.

Below is how the ideal vote could shake out.

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

Coach of the Year selectors are fascinated by signal-callers. This is a tradition. Sean McVay in 2017. Another in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. If you transform a quarterback, you're well on your way home.

Ben Johnson not only corrected Caleb Williams; he's unlocked him. Within an ideal environment, Williams has been given the opportunity to display his special talent. Since midseason onward, the Bears sit at fourth in offensive EPA per play. That's not a lucky run – it's prolonged performance. Under Johnson, the quarterback has become increasingly decisive, far less careless, and has eagerly surrendered to the scheme instead of improvising. It is an offense constructed solely in the coach's vision: a physical ground attack, a consistent helping of play-action and a imaginative passing attack that springs wide receiver targets everywhere. Williams has thrived. And when easy reads haven't been there, he's been capable to conjure big plays out of nothing.

The coach arrived to the Bears with a specific offensive vision. Almost every bet – overhauling the offensive line, featuring the tight ends, turning Williams into a rhythm thrower – has worked. That's rare for a rookie skipper. And it's rarer yet for a leader who walked into the building with the kind of hype he did. For consecutive straight offseasons, he was the most sought-after name on the head coaching market. However when it comes to hiring a leader, there are no sure things. Remarkably, Johnson has met expectations – and even surpassed them. He's demonstrated not only to be a scheme genius but the type of culture builder that can breathe fresh energy into an franchise.

During a normal year, he would be the runaway favorite. But the current isn't a normal season!

Where Johnson's case runs slightly unstuck is on defense. The Bears currently sit in the bottom third in defensive success rate. They are surviving on turnovers, and takeaways are famously unreliable. Coaches can emphasise ball disruption, but nobody can ensure it. Johnson is on the list because the offense is real. He's not higher because variance is doing too much of the defense's work. If not for a few breaks of the ball, the team would be several victories worse off. It's been an exceptional turnaround, and the core is in place for long-term success. However he comes up just short in this ranking.

4) The Jacksonville Jaguars Coach, His Team, Their Record

The Jaguars' coach is in a similar position to his counterpart. He's another rookie leader who has orchestrated a rapid turnaround. Over the crucial final weeks of the year, he has his franchise quarterback playing the best all-around football of his professional life. And he's also spearheaded the overhaul of a defense that now ranks number five in the NFL in Expected Points Added per play.

Even more impressively, Coen has excelled at the off-field stuff, which was not a given following his initial press conference introduction and some of his preseason decisions.

The coach walked into the Jaguars with an exceptionally inexperienced coaching staff. In contrast to Johnson, who surrounded themselves with the perfect staff blend of new ideas and veteran savvy, Coen trusted first-timers. From the leader himself to coordinators to assistant coaches, the Jags are stocked with rookies. That kind of approach is exciting in theory, but often collapses in reality – with other teams are a warning – because everyone is figuring out a new job on the fly. Yet Coen has pulled everyone and everything into sync.

Following an initial strong beginning, there was a possibility that the campaign would veer off the rails. A mid-year collapse had the team wobbling once more. That's usually when coaches overcorrect. He didn't. Rather, he streamlined the approach. Jacksonville stopped chasing explosive answers and started hunting sustainable ones. The coach refocused the attack around key players and the running game, and encouraged his QB to use his mobility more often.

The results are clear. The Jaguars have won multiple games consecutively and will be the AFC's number three seed. Coen gets the tiniest knock in the rankings because he took over a talented roster, but he has demonstrated he can maximize that talent.

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

Each Strong of the Year narrative has a defining moment. For the Seahawks coach, it was his quarterback move.

Parting ways from a veteran, signing a new signal-caller and pairing him with an innovative offensive coordinator could have ended the campaign in the early weeks. Instead, it shaped it. By the mid point of the year, the acquisition was an MVP front-runner. He has fallen away after that time, dropping to 23rd in efficiency per dropback over the latter part of the season, placing him only one place ahead of other QBs.

Still