🔗 Share this article

Usually, the National Football League's Coach of the Year award follows a straightforward formula. It often acts as a kind of mea culpa. Our apologies we misjudged your squad in our preseason forecasts.

Theoretically, it's a direct path: the coach who orchestrated the biggest resurgence wins the award. In practice, it fuels an annual discussion about preseason outlooks and whether we're truly honoring excellent coaching or just the greatest surprise.

However the current field is distinctly unique. The pool of nominees is unusually strong. It has been the season of comebacks. The league has been messy, with reigning division champions declining and recent underperformers rising collectively. Under an ordinary year, a coach leading the his team to the top of the conference would make him the stone-cold front-runner. Yet in such a turbulent and thrilling year, he's up against five other outstanding candidates.

Below is how the projected ballot could be structured.

5) The Chicago Bears Coach, His Team, 11-5

Voters for Coach of the Year selectors love signal-callers. This is a tradition. Sean McVay in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. A third in 2022. If you solve a quarterback, you're halfway to winning the award.

The Bears' head coach hasn't just fixed Caleb Williams; he's freed him. In the right environment, the QB has been afforded the opportunity to showcase his otherworldly ability. Since midseason onward, the Bears sit at fourth in offensive EPA per play. That's not a brief surge – it's sustained dominance. Under Johnson, the quarterback has become increasingly decisive, far less reckless, and has eagerly submitted to the gameplan rather than freelancing. It is an attack constructed entirely in the coach's vision: a bully-ball ground attack, a steady helping of play-action passes and a innovative aerial game that frees wide-open receivers all over the field. The QB has thrived. And when openings haven't been there, he's been capable to conjure big plays out of nothing.

The coach arrived to Chicago with a clear offensive philosophy. Virtually each decision – rebuilding the trenches, utilizing the pass-catchers, transforming Williams into a rhythm passer – has succeeded. That's uncommon for a rookie head coach. And it's rarer still for a coach who walked into the organization with the immense pressure Johnson did. For two straight cycles, he was the most sought-after candidate on the coaching market. However when it comes to selecting a head coach, there are no guarantees. Remarkably, he has met expectations – and even exceeded them. He's proven not only to be a offensive wizard but the type of leader that can inject fresh energy into an franchise.

In a ordinary season, Johnson would be the runaway favorite. Yet the current isn't a typical season!

The area where his candidacy comes a bit unstuck is on defense. The Bears presently rank in the bottom third in defensive efficiency. They are surviving on takeaways, and takeaways are famously unreliable. Coaches can stress creating turnovers, but no one can ensure it. He is on the ballot because the offensive production is sustainable. He's not higher because luck is doing too much of the defensive heavy lifting. If not for a few 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 winning. However he comes up short here.

4) The Jacksonville Jaguars Coach, His Team, 12-4

Coen is in a similar position to his counterpart. He's a fellow first-time leader who has masterminded a swift turnaround. During the crucial final weeks of the season, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the most complete all-around ball of his career. And he's also overseen the transformation of a defense that now ranks fifth in the NFL in EPA per play.

Even more notably, he has excelled at the off-field aspects, which wasn't a given following his initial press conference appearances and some of his offseason moves.

The coach walked into the Jaguars with an exceptionally raw coaching staff. In contrast to other coaches, who surrounded their staff with the ideal staff blend of new ideas and veteran savvy, Coen hired first-timers. Starting with the head coach on down to assistants to assistant coaches, the Jags are filled with rookies. That kind of setup is exciting on paper, but frequently collapses in reality – with other teams are a cautionary tale – because everyone is learning a their job in real-time. But he has managed to bring the entire group and everything together.

After an initial hot beginning, there was a chance that the campaign would go off the track. A midseason collapse caused the team stumbling again. That's typically when leaders panic and change too much. He did not. Rather, he simplified the approach. Jacksonville stopped pursuing explosive plays and started hunting consistent ones. The coach recentered the offense around key players and the running game, and encouraged Lawrence to use his legs more often.

The results are obvious. The Jags have won seven games in a row and will be the AFC's number three playoff seed. Coen receives the tiniest deduction in the rankings because he inherited a skilled roster, but he has demonstrated he can maximize that roster.

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

Each Strong of the Year narrative has a hinge moment. For the Seahawks coach, it was his quarterback decision.

Parting ways from a veteran, bringing in a different quarterback and pairing him with an new offensive coordinator could have derailed the season in October. Instead, it made it. Through the mid point of the season, the acquisition was an Most Valuable Player candidate. He has regressed since that time, dropping to a lower rank in efficiency per dropback over the latter part of the schedule, putting him just one place ahead of peers.

Still