🔗 Share this article

Typically, the NFL's Head Coach of the Year honor follows a simple formula. It commonly functions as a kind of mea culpa. Our apologies we underestimated your franchise in our pre-campaign predictions.

In theory, it's a direct path: the skipper who engineered the most dramatic resurgence is handed the award. In reality, it fuels an annual argument about preseason outlooks and whether we're actually honoring excellent coaching or merely the most shocking upset.

However the latest field is profoundly different. The pool of contenders is unusually deep. It has been the year of resurgences. The NFL has been unpredictable, with reigning division champions fading and longtime underperformers improving collectively. In an normal year, a coach leading the his team to the top of the AFC would make him the overwhelming favorite. But in this wild and fun season, he's up against several other outstanding coaches.

Here is how the hypothetical vote should shake out.

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

Voters for Coach of the Year voters adore quarterbacks. They always have. A certain coach in 2017. Another in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. Should you transform a franchise QB, you're halfway home.

The Bears' head coach hasn't just corrected Caleb Williams; he's unleashed him. Within an ideal ecosystem, the QB has been afforded the chance to demonstrate his rare ability. Since Week 9, the Chicago offense rank number four in offensive Expected Points Added per play. That's not a brief surge – it's sustained dominance. With Johnson, Williams has become increasingly confident, less careless, and has eagerly surrendered to the gameplan instead of improvising. It is an offense constructed solely in the coach's vision: a physical ground attack, a steady dose of play-action and a innovative aerial game that creates wide-open targets all over the field. Williams has capitalized. And when clear throws haven't been available, he's been capable to spin big plays out of broken plays.

Johnson arrived to Chicago with a defined offensive vision. Almost every decision – rebuilding the trenches, highlighting the tight ends, transforming the QB into a rhythm thrower – has paid off. This is uncommon for a rookie skipper. And it's even more uncommon yet for a coach who entered the building with the kind of pressure he did. For two straight cycles, he was the hottest candidate on the head coaching market. But when it comes to hiring a leader, there are zero guarantees. Remarkably, Johnson has lived up to the hype – and even surpassed them. He's demonstrated not just to be a offensive genius but the type of leader that can breathe new life into an organization.

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

Where Johnson's candidacy runs slightly into trouble is on the defensive side. The Bears currently rank 25th in defensive success rate. They are surviving on takeaways, and takeaways are notoriously fickle. Coaches can stress ball disruption, but nobody can guarantee it. He is on the ballot because the offensive production is sustainable. He's not higher because luck is doing too much of the defense's work. If not for a few bounces of the ball, the Bears would be several victories behind. It's been an remarkable transformation, and the core is established for sustained success. However Johnson falls just short in this ranking.

4) Liam Coen, His Team, 12-4

The Jaguars' coach is in a similar situation to his counterpart. He's another rookie leader who has masterminded a rapid turnaround. Over the stretch run of the season, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the most complete overall football of his career. And he's also overseen the remaking of a defensive unit that now sits at fifth in the league in Expected Points Added per play.

What's more notably, he has excelled at the off-field stuff, which was not a given after his early public introduction and some of his offseason decisions.

Coen walked into the Jaguars with an uncommonly inexperienced staff. Unlike other coaches, who packed themselves with the perfect staff mix of youth and experience, he hired first-timers. Starting with the leader himself to coordinators to position coaches, the Jaguars are filled with rookies. That kind of approach is intriguing on paper, but frequently collapses in practice – as past failures are a cautionary tale – because everybody is learning a their job on the fly. But he has managed to bring the entire group and everything into sync.

After an early hot beginning, there was a chance that the campaign would go off the rails. A midseason setback had the team wobbling once more. That's usually when coaches panic and change too much. He did not. Rather, he simplified the approach. Jacksonville stopped chasing home-run answers and started seeking reliable ones. Coen recentered the offense around key players and the running game, and asked his QB to use his mobility more often.

The results are clear. The Jags have won multiple games in a row and will be the AFC's number three playoff seed. He receives the tiniest knock in the rankings because he inherited a talented roster, but he has proven he can maximize that talent.

3) Mike Macdonald, Seattle Seahawks, Their Record

Every Strong of the Year argument has a hinge decision. For Mike Macdonald, it was his quarterback move.

Moving on from a incumbent, bringing in a different signal-caller and partnering him with an innovative offensive coordinator might have derailed the campaign in October. Rather, it shaped it. By the mid point of the season, the new QB was an MVP candidate. He has cooled off since that hot streak, slipping to a lower rank in efficiency per pass attempt over the latter part of the season, putting him just a single spot ahead of peers.

Still