How This Unusual Campaign Shattered the Traditional Coach of the Year Mold.
Ordinarily, the NFL's Coach of the Year honor adheres to a straightforward script. It commonly serves as a type of mea culpa. Our apologies we got wrong your franchise in our preseason projections.
On paper, it's a direct trajectory: the coach who oversaw the largest turnaround receives the award. However, it creates an yearly argument about expectations and whether we're genuinely rewarding excellent coaching or simply the biggest upset.
Yet the current race is distinctly unique. The pool of nominees is exceptionally talented. It has been the season of comebacks. The NFL has been chaotic, with reigning division winners declining and longtime strugglers ascending in unison. In an normal season, a coach leading the his team to the top of the conference would make him the stone-cold favorite. Yet in such a wild and thrilling season, he's facing multiple other outstanding coaches.
Below is how the projected ballot ought to shake out.
5) The Chicago Bears Coach, His Team, Their Record
Coach of the Year selectors adore QBs. They always have. Sean McVay in 2017. Another in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. Should you transform a franchise QB, you're well on your way home.
The Bears' head coach not only fixed Caleb Williams; he's freed him. Given a proper environment, Williams has been given the chance to demonstrate his rare talent. Since Week 9, the Chicago offense sit at fourth in offensive Expected Points Added per play. That's not a hot streak – it's consistent performance. Under Johnson, Williams has become more decisive, far less reckless, and has willingly surrendered to the scheme instead of going rogue. It is an offense constructed entirely in the coach's vision: a bully-ball ground attack, a consistent helping of play-action passes and a creative passing attack that creates wide receiver receivers all over the field. Williams has capitalized. And when easy reads haven't been available, he's been able to spin big plays from broken plays.
The coach came to the Bears with a clear offensive blueprint. Almost each decision – rebuilding the offensive line, utilizing the tight ends, turning Williams into a rhythm passer – has succeeded. This is rare for a rookie skipper. And it's even more uncommon yet for a coach who entered the organization with the kind of pressure he did. For consecutive straight cycles, he was the most sought-after candidate on the coaching market. However when it comes to hiring a head coach, there are zero sure things. Remarkably, Johnson has lived up to the hype – and even surpassed them. He's proven not just to be a offensive genius but the type of culture builder that can breathe new life into an franchise.
During a normal season, he would be the overwhelming choice. Yet this isn't a typical campaign!
Where Johnson's case comes a bit into trouble is on defense. The Chicago defense presently sit 25th in defensive efficiency. They are relying on takeaways, and takeaways are notoriously inconsistent. Defensive minds can focus on ball disruption, but nobody can ensure it. Johnson is on the ballot because the offense is sustainable. He's not higher because variance is doing an outsized share of the defense's work. If not for a couple breaks of the ball, the team would be several wins behind. 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, His Team, Their Record
Coen is in a similar spot to his counterpart. He's a fellow first-time head coach who has masterminded a swift turnaround. Over the stretch run of the season, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the most complete all-around ball of his professional life. And he's also overseen the remaking of a defensive unit that now ranks fifth in the league in Expected Points Added per play.
What's more impressively, he has excelled at the leadership aspects, which was not a certainty after his early press conference appearances and some of his offseason decisions.
Coen took over the Jaguars with an exceptionally raw coaching staff. In contrast to Johnson, who surrounded themselves with the ideal staff mix of youth and veteran savvy, he bet on newbies. Starting with the leader on down to coordinators to assistant coaches, the Jags are stocked with rookies. That kind of approach is exciting in theory, but often collapses in practice – with other teams are a cautionary tale – because everybody is learning a new job on the fly. Yet he has managed to bring everyone and everything together.
Following an initial hot start, there was a chance that the season would veer off the rails. A midseason setback caused the team stumbling again. That's typically when leaders overcorrect. Coen didn't. Rather, he simplified things. The offense stopped pursuing explosive answers and started seeking sustainable ones. Coen refocused the attack around his playmakers and the ground attack, and asked his QB to use his mobility more often.
The results are clear. The Jags have won seven games in a row and will be the AFC's No 3 seed. He gets the slightest knock in the rankings because he inherited a skilled team, but he has demonstrated he can get the most out of that talent.
3) The Seattle Seahawks Coach, Seattle Seahawks, 13-3
Every Coach of the Year case has a hinge decision. For the Seahawks coach, it was his quarterback choice.
Parting ways from a incumbent, bringing in a new signal-caller and pairing him with an new play-caller could have derailed the campaign in the early weeks. Rather, it made it. Through the mid point of the season, the acquisition was an Most Valuable Player front-runner. He has regressed after that time, slipping to a lower rank in efficiency per pass attempt over the second half of the season, putting him only one place ahead of other QBs.
Still