🔗 Share this article

Ordinarily, the NFL's Coach of the Year award follows a simple script. It often serves as a type of apology. Sorry we underestimated your squad in our pre-campaign predictions.

On paper, it's a clear-cut trajectory: the coach who oversaw the largest improvement wins the prize. In practice, it sparks an yearly discussion about expectations and whether we're truly rewarding superior leadership or simply the biggest surprise.

But this year's race is fundamentally different. The pool of nominees is remarkably deep. It has been the year of resurgences. The NFL has been messy, with reigning conference winners declining and longtime also-rans improving collectively. Under an typical season, Sean Payton guiding the his team to the summit of the AFC would make him the stone-cold front-runner. But in such a wild and thrilling year, he's facing several other exceptional coaches.

This is how the projected vote should shake out.

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

Coach of the Year voters adore signal-callers. History shows this. A certain coach in 2017. Another in 2020. A third in 2022. If you fix a franchise QB, you're halfway to winning the award.

Ben Johnson didn't merely fixed Caleb Williams; he's freed him. In the right environment, the QB has been afforded the opportunity to showcase his rare talent. Since midseason onward, the Chicago offense sit at fourth in offensive EPA per play. This isn't a brief surge – it's sustained dominance. With his guidance, Williams has become increasingly confident, far less reckless, and has willingly surrendered to the scheme rather than improvising. It is an attack built entirely in Johnson's vision: a physical run game, a steady helping of play-action passes and a innovative passing attack that springs wide receiver receivers all over the field. The QB has capitalized. And when clear throws haven't been available, he's been able to conjure big plays from broken plays.

Johnson came to the Bears with a clear offensive blueprint. Almost each gamble – overhauling the offensive line, highlighting the tight ends, turning the QB into a rhythm passer – has paid off. That's uncommon for a first-year skipper. And it's rarer still for a coach who walked into the organization with the immense pressure he did. For consecutive straight offseasons, he was the top name on the head coaching carousel. However when it comes to hiring a leader, there are no guarantees. Somehow, Johnson has met expectations – and even exceeded them. He's proven not only to be a offensive dork but the kind of culture builder that can breathe fresh energy into an organization.

In a typical year, he would be the overwhelming favorite. But the current isn't a typical season!

The area where his case runs a bit unstuck is on defense. The Bears currently sit in the bottom third in defensive efficiency. They are living on turnovers, and turnovers are notoriously fickle. Coaches can stress ball disruption, but nobody can ensure it. Johnson is on the list because the offense is legitimate. He's not higher because luck is doing an outsized share of the defensive heavy lifting. If not for a couple bounces of the ball, the Bears would be several victories behind. It's been an exceptional turnaround, and the core is in place for long-term success. However he falls short here.

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

Coen is in a comparable spot to Johnson. He's another rookie leader who has masterminded a swift turnaround. During the crucial final weeks of the season, he has his franchise quarterback playing the most complete all-around ball of his professional life. And he's also overseen the remaking of a defensive unit that now ranks fifth in the NFL in EPA per play.

What's more notably, he has excelled at the leadership aspects, which was not a given following his early public appearances and some of his offseason decisions.

Coen walked into the Jaguars with an uncommonly raw staff. Unlike other coaches, who packed themselves with the perfect staff cocktail of new ideas and experience, he trusted newbies. Starting with the leader himself to coordinators to assistant coaches, the Jaguars are filled with first-timers. That type of approach is intriguing in theory, but frequently fails in reality – as past failures are a warning – because everyone is learning a their job in real-time. Yet Coen has managed to bring the entire group and everything into sync.

Following an initial strong beginning, there was a possibility that the campaign would veer off the track. A midseason collapse had the team wobbling once more. That's typically when leaders overcorrect. He did not. Instead, he streamlined things. Jacksonville stopped pursuing explosive plays and started hunting reliable ones. Coen refocused the attack around key players and the ground attack, and encouraged Lawrence to use his legs more often.

The results are obvious. The Jaguars have won multiple games in a row and will be the conference's number three seed. Coen gets the tiniest deduction in the rankings because he took over a skilled team, but he has demonstrated he can get the most out of that talent.

3) The Seattle Seahawks Coach, Seattle Seahawks, 13-3

Every Coach of the Year narrative has a defining moment. For Mike Macdonald, it was his QB decision.

Moving on from a veteran, bringing in a different signal-caller and pairing him with an new offensive coordinator could have derailed the season in the early weeks. Instead, it made it. Through the middle point of the year, the new QB was an Most Valuable Player candidate. He has regressed since that hot streak, slipping to 23rd in efficiency per pass attempt over the second half of the season, placing him just a single spot ahead of peers.

Still