How The Unusual Campaign Broke the Conventional Coach of the Year Mold.
Usually, the NFL's Coach of the Year trophy adheres to a simple pattern. It often acts as a type of apology. We regret we got wrong your franchise in our pre-campaign predictions.
Theoretically, it's a clear-cut trajectory: the skipper who engineered the biggest improvement is handed the award. In reality, it fuels an yearly argument about expectations and whether we're truly honoring excellent leadership or just the most shocking shock.
But this year's competition is distinctly different. The list of contenders is unusually deep. It has been the season of comebacks. The NFL has been messy, with reigning division champions declining and recent strugglers rising together. During an typical season, Sean Payton leading the Denver Broncos to the summit of the conference would make him the clear front-runner. But in such a wild and thrilling year, he's competing with several other exceptional candidates.
Here is how the projected vote should shake out.
5) Ben Johnson, His Team, 11-5
Coach of the Year voters love quarterbacks. History shows this. Sean McVay in 2017. Another in 2020. A third in 2022. Should you fix 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 display his special ability. From Week 9, the Bears sit at fourth in offensive Expected Points Added per play. That's not a brief surge – it's prolonged dominance. With Johnson, the quarterback has become increasingly decisive, far less reckless, and has willingly surrendered to the gameplan rather than improvising. It is an attack designed solely in the coach's image: a bully-ball ground attack, a consistent helping of play-action and a imaginative passing attack that creates wide-open targets everywhere. The QB has taken advantage. And when openings weren't available, he's been capable to conjure magic from broken plays.
Johnson came to Chicago with a specific offensive philosophy. Virtually every bet – overhauling the trenches, utilizing the pass-catchers, transforming the QB into a rhythm thrower – has succeeded. 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 he did. For consecutive straight offseasons, he was the top candidate on the head coaching market. However when it comes to selecting a leader, there are no guarantees. Remarkably, he has met expectations – and even surpassed them. He's proven not only to be a scheme wizard but the kind of culture builder that can breathe new life into an organization.
In a normal season, he would be the clear-cut favorite. Yet the current isn't a typical season!
The area where his candidacy runs a bit unstuck is on defense. The Bears currently sit 25th in defensive efficiency. They are relying on turnovers, and takeaways are notoriously fickle. Coaches can focus on creating turnovers, but nobody can guarantee it. Johnson is on the list because the offense is legitimate. He's not higher because variance is doing too much of the defensive work. With a couple breaks of the ball, the team would be several wins behind. It's been an remarkable turnaround, and the core is in place for long-term winning. However he comes up just short here.
4) Liam Coen, His Team, Their Record
The Jaguars' coach is in a similar situation to Johnson. He's a fellow first-time leader who has masterminded a dramatic resurgence. Over the crucial final weeks of the year, he has his franchise quarterback playing the finest all-around football of his professional life. And he's also overseen the overhaul of a defensive unit that now sits at number five in the NFL in EPA per play.
Even more notably, he has excelled at the intangibles aspects, which was not a certainty following his initial public appearances and some of his preseason decisions.
The coach walked into the Jaguars with an uncommonly raw coaching staff. Unlike other coaches, who surrounded their staff with the ideal coaching cocktail of youth and experience, Coen hired first-timers. From the head coach on down to assistants to position coaches, the Jags are filled with first-timers. That kind of setup is exciting in theory, but frequently fails in practice – as past failures are a warning – because everybody is figuring out a their job on the fly. But he has managed to bring everyone and all elements together.
Following an early hot start, there was a chance that the season would veer off the track. A mid-year collapse had the team wobbling once more. That's usually when leaders panic and change too much. He didn't. Rather, he streamlined things. Jacksonville stopped chasing explosive plays and started seeking consistent ones. Coen recentered the attack around his playmakers and the running game, and asked his QB to use his legs more often.
The results are obvious. The Jaguars have won multiple games consecutively and will be the conference's number three seed. Coen receives the tiniest knock in the standings because he took over a skilled roster, but he has proven he can maximize that talent.
3) The Seattle Seahawks Coach, Seattle Seahawks, 13-3
Each Coach of the Year argument has a hinge moment. For the Seahawks coach, it was his quarterback choice.
Parting ways from a incumbent, bringing in a different signal-caller and pairing him with an new offensive coordinator could have ended the campaign in October. Rather, it defined it. By the mid point of the year, the new QB was an MVP candidate. He has regressed since that hot streak, slipping to a lower rank in EPA per dropback over the second half of the season, putting him just a single spot ahead of peers.
Still