How The Unusual Season Broke the Conventional Coach of the Year Mold.
Ordinarily, the NFL's Coach of the Year award follows a straightforward formula. It often acts as a form of apology. We regret we underestimated your team in our pre-campaign forecasts.
On paper, it's a direct line: the skipper who engineered the largest turnaround wins the prize. However, it creates an yearly debate about preseason outlooks and whether we're genuinely honoring superior coaching or simply the biggest surprise.
However this year's field is distinctly unique. The group of contenders is remarkably strong. It has been the season of resurgences. The NFL has been chaotic, with recent conference champions declining and longtime strugglers rising collectively. During an normal year, Sean Payton leading the his team to the top of the AFC would make him the clear favorite. Yet in this chaotic and fun season, he's facing several other outstanding coaches.
Below is how the hypothetical vote ought to shake out.
5) Ben Johnson, His Team, 11-5
Voters for Coach of the Year selectors love QBs. This is a tradition. Sean McVay in 2017. Another in 2020. A third in 2022. If you fix a quarterback, you're well on your way home.
Ben Johnson hasn't just corrected his young quarterback; he's unlocked him. Given a proper ecosystem, the QB has been afforded the chance to demonstrate his otherworldly talent. From midseason onward, the Bears rank number four in offensive EPA per play. This isn't a brief surge – it's prolonged performance. Under Johnson, Williams has become more confident, far less reckless, and has willingly submitted to the gameplan rather than going rogue. It is an attack built entirely in Johnson's vision: a bully-ball ground attack, a steady helping of play-action passes and a innovative passing attack that creates wide-open receivers all over the field. Williams has thrived. And when openings haven't been available, he's been capable to conjure magic from broken plays.
The coach came to the Bears with a specific offensive vision. Almost every gamble – rebuilding the offensive line, featuring the tight ends, transforming the QB into a timing-based thrower – has paid off. This is rare for a first-year head coach. And it's even more uncommon yet for a coach who walked into the organization with the kind of hype Johnson did. For consecutive straight cycles, he was the top name on the coaching market. But when it comes to hiring a leader, there are no guarantees. Somehow, Johnson has lived up to expectations – and even exceeded them. He's proven not just to be a scheme genius but the kind of leader that can breathe fresh energy into an organization.
During a typical year, he would be the overwhelming favorite. But this isn't a typical year!
Where his case runs slightly unstuck is on defense. The Chicago defense currently sit 25th in defensive success rate. They are surviving on turnovers, and takeaways are notoriously fickle. Coaches can stress ball disruption, but no one can guarantee it. He is on the ballot because the offensive production is legitimate. He's not higher because variance is doing too much of the defense's work. If not for a couple bounces of the ball, the team would be several wins worse off. It's been an remarkable transformation, and the foundation is in place for sustained winning. However he comes up just short in this ranking.
4) Liam Coen, Jacksonville Jaguars, 12-4
The Jaguars' coach is in a comparable spot to his counterpart. He's another first-time leader who has orchestrated a rapid resurgence. During the stretch run of the season, he has his franchise quarterback playing the best overall ball of his career. And he's also spearheaded the overhaul of a defensive unit that now sits at fifth in the league in Expected Points Added per play.
What's more notably, Coen has nailed the leadership stuff, which was not a given following his early public introduction and some of his offseason moves.
The coach took over the Jaguars with an uncommonly raw staff. Unlike Johnson, who packed their staff with the ideal coaching blend of new ideas and veteran savvy, Coen bet on newbies. Starting with the head coach on down to assistants to assistant coaches, the Jags are filled with first-timers. That type of approach is exciting on paper, but often collapses in reality – as past failures are a warning – because everybody is figuring out a their job on the fly. Yet Coen has pulled everyone and everything into sync.
After an early hot start, there was a possibility that the season would veer off the rails. A mid-year collapse caused the Jags wobbling again. That's usually when coaches panic and change too much. Coen did not. Instead, he simplified things. Jacksonville stopped pursuing explosive plays and started seeking consistent ones. Coen recentered the offense around key players and the running game, and encouraged Lawrence to use his legs more often.
The outcomes are clear. The Jaguars have won seven games in a row and will be the conference's number three playoff seed. Coen gets the slightest deduction in the standings because he took over a talented team, but he has demonstrated he can get the most out of that roster.
3) Mike Macdonald, His Team, Their Record
Every Strong of the Year case has a pivotal decision. For Mike Macdonald, it was his QB decision.
Parting ways from a veteran, bringing in a new signal-caller and partnering him with an new play-caller could have derailed the campaign in October. Instead, it defined it. Through the middle point of the season, the acquisition was an MVP candidate. 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 a single spot ahead of peers.
Still
