🔗 Share this article

Typically, the National Football League's Coach of the Year trophy follows a simple pattern. It commonly functions as a form of mea culpa. Sorry we underestimated your team in our preseason forecasts.

Theoretically, it's a direct path: the coach who orchestrated the biggest turnaround receives the prize. In reality, it creates an annual debate about preseason outlooks and whether we're genuinely rewarding excellent leadership or simply the most shocking upset.

But the latest race is fundamentally different. The list of nominees is unusually strong. It has been the year of turnarounds. The NFL has been chaotic, with reigning conference champions declining and recent strugglers ascending collectively. In an normal year, Sean Payton leading the Denver Broncos to the summit of the conference would make him the clear front-runner. But in such a turbulent and thrilling year, he's competing with multiple other outstanding candidates.

Here is how the hypothetical ballot should look.

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

Voters for Coach of the Year voters love QBs. They always have. Sean McVay in 2017. Another in 2020. A third in 2022. When you solve a quarterback, you're halfway home.

Ben Johnson didn't merely fixed his young quarterback; he's freed him. Given a proper ecosystem, the QB has been afforded the opportunity to demonstrate his special talent. From Week 9, the Bears sit at fourth in offensive EPA per play. That's not a lucky run – it's sustained excellence. Under his guidance, the quarterback has become increasingly decisive, less reckless, and has willingly submitted to the scheme instead of going rogue. It is an offense constructed entirely in Johnson's vision: a bully-ball ground attack, a steady dose of play-action passes and a innovative aerial game that creates wide-open targets consistently. The QB has thrived. And when clear throws haven't been there, he's been capable to conjure magic out of broken plays.

The coach arrived to Chicago with a clear offensive philosophy. Virtually every bet – rebuilding the offensive line, featuring the tight ends, transforming the QB into a timing-based passer – has succeeded. That's rare for a rookie skipper. And it's rarer still for a coach who entered the building with the kind of hype Johnson did. For consecutive straight cycles, he was the most sought-after name on the coaching market. But when it comes to selecting a head coach, there are zero guarantees. Remarkably, he has met the hype – and even exceeded them. He's proven not just to be a scheme dork but the kind of culture builder that can inject new life into an franchise.

During a ordinary year, he would be the runaway choice. But the current is not a typical campaign!

The area where his candidacy runs a bit unstuck is on defense. The Chicago defense currently sit 25th in defensive success rate. They are living on takeaways, and turnovers are famously fickle. Coaches can emphasise creating turnovers, but nobody can ensure it. Johnson is on the list because the offense is sustainable. He's not higher because luck is doing too much of the defensive work. If not for a few breaks of the ball, the Bears would be two wins worse off. It's been an remarkable turnaround, and the foundation is in place for long-term winning. However he comes up just short here.

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

Coen is in a comparable situation to his counterpart. He's a fellow first-time leader who has orchestrated a rapid resurgence. Over the stretch run of the year, he has his franchise quarterback playing the best all-around football of his professional life. And he's also spearheaded the transformation of a defensive unit that now sits at number five in the league in Expected Points Added per play.

Even more impressively, Coen has excelled at the off-field aspects, which was not a certainty following his early press conference appearances and some of his preseason decisions.

Coen walked into the Jaguars with an uncommonly raw staff. Unlike other coaches, who surrounded their staff with the ideal coaching blend of youth and experience, Coen trusted newbies. From the leader himself to coordinators to position coaches, the Jaguars are filled with first-timers. That kind of approach is intriguing in theory, but often collapses in practice – as past failures are a warning – because everyone is learning a their job on the fly. But Coen has managed to bring the entire group and everything into sync.

After an early strong beginning, there was a chance that the season would veer off the rails. A midseason setback had the team stumbling again. That's typically when leaders panic and change too much. He didn't. Rather, he streamlined things. Jacksonville stopped pursuing home-run answers and started seeking reliable ones. Coen recentered the attack around key players and the ground attack, and encouraged his QB to use his legs more.

The results are evident. The Jaguars have won multiple games in a row and will be the AFC's number three seed. Coen gets the slightest deduction in the rankings because he took over a talented team, but he has demonstrated he can maximize that talent.

3) Mike Macdonald, His Team, 13-3

Each Strong of the Year argument has a pivotal moment. For Mike Macdonald, it was his quarterback choice.

Parting ways from a incumbent, bringing in a different quarterback and pairing him with an new offensive coordinator could have derailed the season in October. Rather, it defined it. By the mid point of the season, the acquisition was an MVP front-runner. He has fallen away after that hot streak, dropping to a lower rank in efficiency per pass attempt over the latter part of the schedule, placing him only a single spot ahead of other QBs.

Still