How This Unusual Season Broke the Conventional Coach of the Year Mould.
Typically, the NFL's Head Coach of the Year trophy follows a straightforward pattern. It commonly serves as a form of apology. Our apologies we got wrong your team in our preseason projections.
Theoretically, it's a direct line: the skipper who orchestrated the most dramatic turnaround wins the award. However, it fuels an yearly debate about preseason outlooks and whether we're truly rewarding superior coaching or just the most shocking shock.
But the current field is fundamentally different. The group of nominees is unusually strong. It has been the campaign of turnarounds. The NFL has been unpredictable, with recent conference winners declining and longtime also-rans rising in unison. In an ordinary year, Sean Payton guiding the Denver Broncos to the top of the AFC would make him the clear front-runner. Yet in this chaotic and fun year, he's facing five other elite 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 are fascinated by signal-callers. This is a tradition. Sean McVay in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. A third in 2022. When you solve a quarterback, you're well on your way to winning the award.
The Bears' head coach not only corrected his young quarterback; he's unlocked him. In the right environment, Williams has been afforded the chance to demonstrate his otherworldly ability. Since Week 9, the Bears sit at fourth in offensive Expected Points Added per play. This isn't a brief surge – it's sustained performance. With Johnson, Williams has become more decisive, less reckless, and has willingly submitted to the scheme rather than improvising. It is an attack constructed entirely in Johnson's vision: a physical ground attack, a consistent dose of play-action and a creative aerial game that creates wide-open targets all over the field. Williams has taken advantage. And when clear throws weren't available, he's been capable to conjure magic from broken plays.
Johnson arrived to the Bears with a defined offensive philosophy. Virtually every gamble – rebuilding the offensive line, featuring the pass-catchers, turning Williams into a rhythm passer – has succeeded. That's rare for a first-year head coach. And it's even more uncommon yet for a coach who walked into the organization with the level of hype he did. For consecutive straight offseasons, he was the top name on the head coaching carousel. But when it comes to hiring a head coach, there are zero sure things. Somehow, he has lived up to the hype – and even exceeded them. He's demonstrated not only to be a scheme wizard but the type of leader that can breathe new life into an franchise.
In a ordinary year, he would be the runaway choice. But this is not a normal season!
Where Johnson's case comes slightly unstuck is on defense. The Chicago defense currently rank in the bottom third in defensive efficiency. They are relying on turnovers, and takeaways are notoriously unreliable. Coaches can stress ball disruption, but no one can guarantee it. Johnson is on the ballot because the offense is real. He's ranked lower because luck is doing an outsized share of the defense's work. With a couple breaks of the ball, the team would be two victories behind. It's been an exceptional turnaround, and the core is established for sustained winning. But he comes up just short here.
4) The Jacksonville Jaguars Coach, His Team, Their Record
Coen is in a similar situation to his counterpart. He's another rookie leader who has orchestrated a swift turnaround. Over the stretch run of the year, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the best overall football of his professional life. And he's also spearheaded the overhaul of a defense that now ranks number five in the NFL in EPA per play.
Even more notably, he has mastered the intangibles stuff, which wasn't a given following his initial press conference appearances and some of his preseason decisions.
The coach walked into the Jaguars with an uncommonly inexperienced coaching staff. Unlike other coaches, who packed their staff with the perfect coaching mix of new ideas and veteran savvy, Coen bet on first-timers. From the leader on down to assistants to assistant coaches, the Jaguars are stocked with rookies. That type of approach is intriguing in theory, but frequently collapses in reality – as past failures are a warning – because everybody is figuring out a new job on the fly. Yet Coen has managed to bring the entire group and everything into sync.
Following an initial strong beginning, there was a risk that the season would go off the rails. A mid-year collapse caused the team wobbling again. That's typically when coaches panic and change too much. He did not. Rather, he simplified things. The offense stopped pursuing explosive plays and started hunting reliable ones. The coach refocused the offense around key players and the running game, and encouraged Lawrence to use his legs more.
The outcomes are obvious. The Jags have won seven games consecutively and will be the AFC's No 3 seed. He gets the slightest knock in the standings because he took over a skilled team, but he has demonstrated he can maximize that talent.
3) Mike Macdonald, His Team, 13-3
Every Coach of the Year case has a pivotal moment. For the Seahawks coach, it was his QB move.
Moving on from a veteran, bringing in a different quarterback and pairing him with an new offensive coordinator might have derailed the season in the early weeks. Instead, it shaped it. By the mid point of the season, the new QB was an MVP candidate. He has regressed after that time, dropping to a lower rank in efficiency per pass attempt over the latter part of the schedule, putting him only one spot ahead of other QBs.
Still