🔗 Share this article

Typically, the National Football League's Coach of the Year honor follows a straightforward pattern. It often serves as a kind of apology. Sorry we got wrong your team in our pre-campaign projections.

In theory, it's a clear-cut line: the coach who oversaw the most dramatic turnaround wins the award. In reality, it fuels an yearly discussion about preseason outlooks and whether we're truly rewarding superior leadership or just the biggest upset.

But the latest race is fundamentally different. The group of nominees is unusually talented. It has been the season of resurgences. The league has been chaotic, with recent division winners falling away and longtime underperformers rising together. In an ordinary year, a coach guiding the his team to the summit of the AFC would make him the clear favorite. Yet in such a turbulent and entertaining season, he's competing with multiple other outstanding coaches.

Below is how the hypothetical vote should look.

5) The Chicago Bears Coach, Chicago Bears, Their Record

Coach of the Year voters love signal-callers. History shows this. A certain coach in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. If you fix a franchise QB, you're well on your way to winning the award.

The Bears' head coach not only corrected Caleb Williams; he's unlocked him. In the right environment, Williams has been afforded the opportunity to display his otherworldly ability. From midseason onward, the Bears sit at number four in offensive Expected Points Added per play. That's not a brief surge – it's consistent performance. Under Johnson, the quarterback has become increasingly decisive, less careless, and has eagerly submitted to the gameplan instead of freelancing. It is an attack designed solely in Johnson's image: a physical run game, a consistent helping of play-action passes and a creative passing attack that springs wide-open targets all over the field. Williams has thrived. And when openings haven't been available, he's been able to conjure big plays from broken plays.

Johnson came to Chicago with a clear offensive vision. Virtually every bet – rebuilding the trenches, featuring the tight ends, transforming the QB into a rhythm thrower – has paid off. That's rare for a first-year skipper. And it's even more uncommon yet for a coach who walked into the organization with the immense hype he did. For two straight cycles, he was the hottest candidate on the coaching market. But when it comes to selecting a leader, there are zero sure things. Remarkably, Johnson has lived up to expectations – and even surpassed them. He's demonstrated not just to be a offensive genius but the type of leader that can breathe fresh energy into an organization.

In a typical year, Johnson would be the runaway favorite. Yet this is not a typical year!

Where Johnson's candidacy runs slightly into trouble is on the defensive side. The Chicago defense currently sit 25th in defensive efficiency. They are living on takeaways, and takeaways are notoriously inconsistent. Defensive minds can focus on creating turnovers, but nobody can guarantee it. He is on the list because the offensive production is legitimate. He's ranked lower because variance is doing too much of the defensive work. If not for a couple bounces 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. But Johnson comes up short in this ranking.

4) Liam Coen, Jacksonville Jaguars, 12-4

The Jaguars' coach is in a comparable situation to his counterpart. He's a fellow first-time head coach who has orchestrated a rapid resurgence. During the crucial final weeks of the season, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the finest overall ball of his career. And he's also spearheaded the remaking of a defensive unit that now sits at number five in the league in EPA per play.

What's more notably, Coen has nailed the leadership aspects, which was not a given after his initial public appearances and some of his offseason moves.

The coach took over Jacksonville with an exceptionally inexperienced staff. In contrast to other coaches, who surrounded their staff with the ideal coaching mix of new ideas and experience, he bet on first-timers. From the leader himself to assistants to assistant coaches, the Jags are stocked with first-timers. That kind of approach is exciting on paper, but often collapses in practice – as past failures are a warning – because everybody is learning a their job on the fly. Yet Coen has pulled the entire group and everything into sync.

Following an initial strong start, there was a chance that the campaign would go off the track. A mid-year setback had the team wobbling again. That's typically when leaders panic and change too much. He didn't. Rather, he simplified the approach. The offense stopped pursuing home-run answers and started hunting consistent ones. The coach recentered the offense around key players and the ground attack, and encouraged Lawrence to use his mobility more often.

The results are evident. The Jaguars have won multiple games consecutively and will be the AFC's number three playoff seed. He gets the slightest knock in the standings because he took over a talented 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 pivotal decision. For the Seahawks coach, it was his quarterback move.

Parting ways from a veteran, bringing in a new quarterback and partnering him with an new offensive coordinator could have ended the season in the early weeks. Rather, it shaped it. Through the middle point of the season, the acquisition was an Most Valuable Player front-runner. He has regressed after that hot streak, dropping to 23rd in EPA per dropback over the latter part of the season, putting him only a single spot ahead of peers.

Still