🔗 Share this article

Typically, the NFL's Head Coach of the Year award adheres to a simple script. It commonly serves as a kind of apology. Sorry we misjudged your squad in our preseason predictions.

In theory, it's a direct trajectory: the coach who oversaw the largest turnaround receives the award. In reality, it sparks an annual discussion about preseason outlooks and whether we're truly rewarding superior coaching or merely the most shocking upset.

However this year's competition is fundamentally different. The list of candidates is remarkably talented. It has been the campaign of turnarounds. The league has been chaotic, with recent division champions declining and recent underperformers rising together. In an normal year, Sean Payton leading the Denver Broncos to the top of the AFC would make him the stone-cold favorite. Yet in this wild and thrilling season, he's facing several other elite candidates.

Here is how the projected ballot ought to be structured.

5) The Chicago Bears Coach, Chicago Bears, 11-5

Voters for Coach of the Year voters love QBs. History shows this. Sean McVay in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. A third in 2022. If you fix a quarterback, you're well on your way home.

Ben Johnson hasn't just corrected Caleb Williams; he's unlocked him. Given a proper ecosystem, the QB has been afforded the opportunity to display his special talent. From Week 9, the Chicago offense rank number four in offensive EPA per play. That's not a hot streak – it's consistent dominance. With his guidance, the quarterback has become increasingly decisive, less careless, and has willingly surrendered to the system rather than improvising. It is an offense constructed solely in Johnson's image: a bully-ball run game, a steady dose of play-action passes and a innovative passing attack that frees wide-open targets all over the field. The QB has taken advantage. And when openings weren't there, he's been capable to spin big plays out of nothing.

The coach arrived to Chicago with a defined offensive vision. Virtually every gamble – rebuilding the offensive line, utilizing the tight ends, turning the QB into a rhythm thrower – has worked. This is rare for a rookie skipper. And it's even more uncommon still for a leader who walked into the organization with the level of hype Johnson did. For consecutive straight offseasons, he was the most sought-after name on the coaching carousel. But when it comes to hiring a head coach, there are zero sure things. Remarkably, he has lived up to expectations – and even surpassed them. He's proven not only to be a scheme wizard but the type of leader that can breathe fresh energy into an franchise.

In a normal year, Johnson would be the runaway choice. Yet this isn't a normal season!

Where Johnson's case comes slightly unstuck is on the defensive side. The Chicago defense presently sit 25th in defensive success rate. They are living on takeaways, and takeaways are notoriously fickle. Defensive minds can focus on creating turnovers, but nobody can ensure it. He is on the ballot because the offense is real. He's ranked lower because variance is doing too much of the defense's work. With a couple bounces of the ball, the Bears would be two victories worse off. It's been an remarkable turnaround, and the foundation is in place for sustained winning. But Johnson comes up just short here.

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

The Jaguars' coach is in a similar situation to Johnson. He's another rookie head coach who has masterminded a swift resurgence. Over the crucial final weeks of the season, he has his franchise quarterback playing the best overall football of his career. And he's also overseen the transformation of a defense that now ranks fifth in the league in Expected Points Added per play.

What's more impressively, he has mastered the intangibles stuff, which was not a guarantee after his initial press conference appearances and some of his offseason moves.

The coach walked into the Jaguars with an exceptionally inexperienced coaching staff. Unlike Johnson, who packed their staff with the ideal coaching blend of new ideas and experience, Coen bet on first-timers. From the head coach on down to coordinators to assistant coaches, the Jaguars are filled with rookies. That type of setup is intriguing on paper, but frequently collapses in practice – as past failures are a warning – because everybody is learning a new job in real-time. Yet he has pulled everyone and all elements together.

Following an early strong beginning, there was a possibility that the campaign would go off the track. A midseason setback caused the Jags stumbling again. That's usually when coaches panic and change too much. He did not. Instead, he streamlined the approach. Jacksonville stopped pursuing explosive plays and started hunting reliable ones. Coen refocused the offense around his playmakers and the running game, and encouraged Lawrence to use his mobility more often.

The results are obvious. The Jaguars have won seven games consecutively and will be the AFC's number three seed. Coen receives the tiniest knock in the rankings because he inherited a skilled roster, but he has proven he can maximize that roster.

3) Mike Macdonald, His Team, 13-3

Each Strong of the Year argument has a hinge moment. For the Seahawks coach, it was his quarterback decision.

Parting ways from a veteran, bringing in a different quarterback and partnering him with an new offensive coordinator might have derailed the campaign in the early weeks. Rather, it shaped it. By the mid point of the season, the acquisition was an MVP candidate. He has fallen away since that hot streak, slipping to a lower rank in efficiency per dropback over the latter part of the schedule, putting him just a single place ahead of peers.

Still