🔗 Share this article

Ordinarily, the NFL's Head Coach of the Year award adheres to a simple script. It frequently acts as a type of mea culpa. We regret we underestimated your franchise in our preseason forecasts.

On paper, it's a clear-cut line: the skipper who oversaw the biggest resurgence wins the prize. In reality, it sparks an annual debate about preseason outlooks and whether we're truly honoring superior leadership or just the most shocking upset.

Yet the latest field is fundamentally different. The list of candidates is unusually talented. It has been the year of turnarounds. The NFL has been chaotic, with recent division champions falling away and recent strugglers improving collectively. During an typical season, a coach guiding the his team to the summit of the AFC would make him the stone-cold front-runner. But in such a wild and fun year, he's up against multiple other outstanding coaches.

Here is how the ideal ballot should look.

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

Coach of the Year selectors are fascinated by QBs. They always have. Sean McVay in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. When you transform a franchise QB, you're halfway home.

Ben Johnson not only corrected Caleb Williams; he's freed him. Given a proper system, the QB has been given the opportunity to demonstrate his otherworldly talent. Since Week 9, the Chicago offense sit at number four in offensive EPA per play. That's not a lucky run – it's prolonged excellence. Under his guidance, Williams has become increasingly decisive, less reckless, and has eagerly submitted to the scheme instead of going rogue. It is an offense designed entirely in the coach's vision: a physical run game, a steady dose of play-action passes and a imaginative aerial game that frees wide-open receivers everywhere. The QB has taken advantage. And when easy reads weren't available, he's been able to conjure magic out of broken plays.

Johnson came to Chicago with a specific offensive blueprint. Almost each decision – rebuilding the trenches, highlighting the pass-catchers, transforming the QB into a rhythm thrower – has paid off. That's rare for a rookie skipper. And it's rarer still for a leader who walked into the organization with the immense hype he did. For two straight offseasons, he was the top candidate on the head coaching market. But when it comes to selecting a leader, there are no sure things. Somehow, Johnson has lived up to expectations – and even exceeded them. He's proven not only to be a scheme dork but the kind of leader that can inject new life into an franchise.

In a typical year, he would be the overwhelming choice. But this isn't a normal season!

The area where his case runs slightly unstuck is on defense. The Bears presently rank 25th in defensive success rate. They are surviving on takeaways, and takeaways are notoriously fickle. Coaches can stress ball disruption, but no one can guarantee it. He is on the list because the offense is legitimate. He's not higher because variance is doing too much of the defensive heavy lifting. If not for a few breaks of the ball, the Bears would be two wins behind. It's been an exceptional transformation, and the foundation is established for long-term winning. However Johnson comes up short in this ranking.

4) Liam Coen, Jacksonville Jaguars, 12-4

The Jaguars' coach is in a comparable position to his counterpart. He's a fellow first-time head coach who has orchestrated a swift resurgence. Over the crucial final weeks of the year, he has his franchise quarterback playing the finest overall football of his career. And he's also spearheaded the remaking of a defensive unit that now sits at fifth in the league in EPA per play.

Even more impressively, Coen has excelled at the leadership aspects, which was not a given following his early public introduction and some of his preseason decisions.

The coach took over Jacksonville with an exceptionally raw staff. In contrast to other coaches, who packed their staff with the ideal staff mix of youth and veteran savvy, Coen bet on first-timers. From the head coach on down to coordinators to position coaches, the Jags are stocked with rookies. That kind of approach is intriguing on paper, but frequently collapses in reality – with other teams are a warning – because everyone is learning a new job on the fly. But he has managed to bring the entire group and all elements into sync.

Following an early hot start, there was a risk that the campaign would veer off the track. A midseason setback caused the team wobbling once more. That's typically when leaders panic and change too much. He did not. Instead, he streamlined things. Jacksonville stopped chasing explosive answers and started seeking sustainable ones. Coen recentered the offense around key players and the ground attack, and asked his QB to use his legs more often.

The results are clear. The Jaguars have won seven games consecutively and will be the conference's No 3 seed. Coen gets the slightest deduction in the rankings because he inherited 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 Coach of the Year case has a pivotal decision. For the Seahawks coach, it was his quarterback move.

Moving on from a incumbent, signing a different signal-caller and pairing him with an innovative offensive coordinator might have ended the season in October. Rather, it shaped it. Through the mid point of the year, the new QB was an MVP front-runner. He has regressed since that hot streak, dropping to 23rd in efficiency per dropback over the second half of the season, placing him just a single place ahead of peers.

Still