🔗 Share this article

Usually, the NFL's Coach of the Year honor adheres to a straightforward formula. It frequently acts as a type of apology. We regret we misjudged your team in our preseason projections.

On paper, it's a direct path: the skipper who engineered the largest resurgence receives the award. In practice, it sparks an yearly discussion about preseason outlooks and whether we're truly rewarding superior leadership or just the most shocking upset.

But the latest race is fundamentally different. The group of nominees is remarkably talented. It has been the season of comebacks. The NFL has been chaotic, with reigning division champions declining and longtime underperformers ascending together. In an normal season, a coach guiding the Denver Broncos to the top of the AFC would make him the stone-cold favorite. But in such a wild and fun year, he's up against five other elite candidates.

Below is how the hypothetical ballot should be structured.

5) Ben Johnson, Chicago Bears, Their Record

Voters for Coach of the Year selectors love QBs. This is a tradition. A certain coach in 2017. Another in 2020. A third in 2022. If you fix a franchise QB, you're well on your way home.

Ben Johnson hasn't just fixed his young quarterback; he's unleashed him. Within an ideal system, the QB has been afforded the chance to demonstrate his rare ability. From Week 9, the Chicago offense sit at number four in offensive EPA per play. That's not a lucky run – it's consistent dominance. Under Johnson, the quarterback has become more confident, less reckless, and has willingly surrendered to the gameplan rather than improvising. It is an offense constructed solely in Johnson's image: a physical ground attack, a heavy helping of play-action and a innovative passing attack that frees wide receiver receivers consistently. Williams has taken advantage. And when easy reads haven't been available, he's been capable to conjure big plays out of broken plays.

Johnson came to the Bears with a defined offensive vision. Virtually every gamble – rebuilding the trenches, highlighting the pass-catchers, transforming Williams into a timing-based passer – has worked. That's rare for a rookie head coach. And it's rarer still for a leader who entered the organization with the kind of expectations he did. For consecutive straight offseasons, he was the hottest name on the head coaching carousel. But when it comes to selecting a head coach, there are no sure things. Remarkably, he has lived up to the hype – and even surpassed them. He's proven not just to be a scheme genius but the kind of culture builder that can breathe new life into an organization.

In a normal year, he would be the overwhelming choice. But the current is not a normal year!

Where his case runs slightly unstuck is on defense. The Chicago defense currently rank in the bottom third in defensive efficiency. They are living on takeaways, and turnovers are notoriously unreliable. Defensive minds can stress ball disruption, but no one can guarantee it. Johnson is on the list because the offensive production is sustainable. He's not higher because variance is doing an outsized share of the defense's work. With a couple breaks of the ball, the team would be several victories worse off. It's been an remarkable turnaround, and the core is established for long-term success. However Johnson comes up short here.

4) Liam Coen, His Team, Their Record

The Jaguars' coach is in a comparable position to Johnson. He's a fellow first-time leader who has engineered a dramatic resurgence. During the crucial final weeks of the year, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the finest overall football of his career. And he's also overseen the transformation of a defense that now sits at fifth in the NFL in EPA per play.

What's more notably, Coen has nailed the off-field aspects, which wasn't a given after his initial public introduction and some of his offseason decisions.

Coen took over Jacksonville with an uncommonly raw staff. In contrast to Johnson, who surrounded themselves with the ideal coaching blend of youth and veteran savvy, Coen trusted first-timers. From the leader on down to assistants to position coaches, the Jags are filled with rookies. That type of setup is intriguing in theory, but often collapses in reality – as past failures are a cautionary tale – because everybody is learning a new job in real-time. But he has managed to bring the entire group and everything together.

Following an early strong start, there was a risk that the campaign would go off the track. A mid-year setback caused the team stumbling again. That's typically when coaches overcorrect. He didn't. Rather, he streamlined the approach. Jacksonville stopped chasing home-run answers and started seeking sustainable ones. The coach refocused the attack around key players and the running game, and asked Lawrence to use his legs more.

The results are clear. The Jaguars have won seven games consecutively and will be the conference's number three seed. He gets the slightest 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, His Team, Their Record

Every Coach of the Year narrative has a hinge moment. For the Seahawks coach, it was his quarterback choice.

Parting ways from a veteran, signing a new quarterback and pairing him with an new play-caller might have derailed the campaign in October. Instead, it shaped it. By the mid point of the season, the acquisition was an MVP contender. He has regressed since that hot streak, slipping to a lower rank in efficiency per dropback over the latter part of the schedule, putting him only a single place ahead of other QBs.

Still