🔗 Share this article

Usually, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year trophy follows a straightforward pattern. It commonly acts as a form of apology. Our apologies we underestimated your team in our pre-campaign predictions.

Theoretically, it's a clear-cut line: the coach who orchestrated the biggest improvement wins the award. In reality, it sparks an annual discussion about expectations and whether we're genuinely honoring superior coaching or merely the biggest shock.

But the latest field is distinctly different. The group of contenders is unusually talented. It has been the season of comebacks. The NFL has been unpredictable, with reigning conference winners declining and longtime underperformers rising collectively. Under an ordinary season, Sean Payton leading the Denver Broncos to the top of the conference would make him the stone-cold front-runner. Yet in such a chaotic and entertaining year, he's facing several other exceptional candidates.

Here is how the hypothetical ballot ought to be structured.

5) Ben Johnson, Chicago Bears, 11-5

Coach of the Year voters adore signal-callers. They always have. Sean McVay in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. When you solve a franchise QB, you're halfway home.

Ben Johnson not only corrected his young quarterback; he's unlocked him. Given a proper environment, the QB has been given the chance to demonstrate his rare talent. From Week 9, the Bears rank fourth in offensive Expected Points Added per play. That's not a hot streak – it's consistent dominance. With Johnson, the quarterback has become more decisive, less careless, and has eagerly submitted to the system instead of going rogue. It is an attack constructed solely in Johnson's vision: a physical ground attack, a heavy dose of play-action passes and a creative passing attack that creates wide receiver targets consistently. The QB has thrived. And when openings haven't been there, he's been capable to spin big plays out of nothing.

The coach arrived to the Bears with a specific offensive philosophy. Almost each gamble – rebuilding the offensive line, featuring the tight ends, turning the QB into a rhythm thrower – has worked. This is uncommon for a first-year head coach. And it's even more uncommon yet for a leader who walked into the building with the kind of expectations Johnson did. For two straight offseasons, he was the hottest candidate on the head coaching carousel. However when it comes to hiring a leader, there are no guarantees. Somehow, Johnson has met the hype – and even surpassed them. He's demonstrated not only to be a scheme genius but the type of leader that can breathe new life into an franchise.

During a ordinary season, he would be the overwhelming choice. Yet the current isn't a typical campaign!

The area where his case comes slightly into trouble is on the defensive side. The Chicago defense currently sit 25th in defensive efficiency. They are surviving on takeaways, and turnovers are notoriously inconsistent. Defensive minds can emphasise creating turnovers, but nobody can ensure it. Johnson is on the list because the offensive production is legitimate. He's not higher because luck is doing an outsized share of the defense's heavy lifting. With a couple bounces of the ball, the team would be several wins behind. It's been an exceptional transformation, and the foundation is in place for sustained success. But Johnson falls just short here.

4) Liam Coen, His Team, 12-4

The Jaguars' coach is in a similar spot to his counterpart. He's a fellow rookie leader who has masterminded a swift resurgence. Over the crucial final weeks of the year, he has his franchise quarterback playing the best overall football of his professional life. And he's also spearheaded the overhaul of a defense that now ranks fifth in the league in EPA per play.

Even more notably, he has excelled at the leadership aspects, which was not a given after his initial press conference introduction and some of his preseason moves.

The coach walked into the Jaguars with an exceptionally inexperienced coaching staff. In contrast to other coaches, who packed themselves with the ideal staff mix of youth and veteran savvy, Coen hired first-timers. From the leader on down to assistants to position coaches, the Jags are filled with first-timers. That kind of approach is intriguing on paper, but often collapses in reality – with other teams are a cautionary tale – because everybody is figuring out a new job on the fly. But he has pulled everyone and all elements into sync.

After an initial hot start, there was a possibility that the season would veer off the rails. A mid-year collapse had the Jags wobbling once more. That's typically when coaches overcorrect. Coen did not. Instead, he simplified the approach. Jacksonville stopped chasing home-run plays and started seeking sustainable ones. The coach refocused the attack around key players and the running game, and asked his QB to use his legs more.

The outcomes are obvious. The Jags have won seven games in a row and will be the AFC's number three seed. He gets the tiniest knock in the standings because he took over a skilled roster, but he has proven he can maximize that roster.

3) The Seattle Seahawks Coach, His Team, Their Record

Each Coach of the Year case has a hinge decision. For the Seahawks coach, it was his QB move.

Moving on from a veteran, signing a new quarterback and partnering him with an new offensive coordinator might have ended the campaign in the early weeks. Instead, it defined it. By the mid point of the year, the new QB was an MVP contender. He has fallen away since that hot streak, dropping to a lower rank in EPA per dropback over the second half of the season, putting him only a single place ahead of other QBs.

Still