🔗 Share this article

Usually, the NFL's Head Coach of the Year honor adheres to a simple pattern. It frequently functions as a type of mea culpa. We regret we got wrong your squad in our pre-campaign predictions.

In theory, it's a direct trajectory: the coach who engineered the largest turnaround is handed the award. However, it fuels an yearly discussion about preseason outlooks and whether we're truly honoring superior coaching or simply the most shocking surprise.

Yet the latest competition is distinctly unique. The group of nominees is unusually strong. It has been the campaign of resurgences. The league has been unpredictable, with reigning division winners declining and longtime underperformers ascending collectively. Under an typical season, a coach guiding the his team to the summit of the AFC would make him the overwhelming front-runner. But in this wild and entertaining season, he's facing five other exceptional coaches.

This is how the projected vote could be structured.

5) Ben Johnson, Chicago Bears, 11-5

Coach of the Year voters adore signal-callers. History shows this. A certain coach in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. A third in 2022. When you solve a quarterback, you're halfway to winning the award.

The Bears' head coach not only corrected Caleb Williams; he's unleashed him. In the right system, Williams has been given the chance to showcase his special talent. From Week 9, the Bears sit at number four in offensive EPA per play. That's not a brief surge – it's sustained excellence. Under his guidance, Williams has become increasingly decisive, far less reckless, and has willingly surrendered to the system rather than freelancing. It is an offense constructed solely in Johnson's image: a physical ground attack, a consistent helping of play-action passes and a imaginative passing attack that frees wide-open targets consistently. Williams has thrived. And when clear throws weren't there, he's been able to spin big plays out of nothing.

Johnson arrived to Chicago with a defined offensive philosophy. Almost each bet – overhauling the offensive line, highlighting the pass-catchers, turning the QB into a rhythm thrower – has succeeded. That's rare for a first-year head coach. And it's rarer yet for a coach who walked into the building with the immense pressure Johnson did. For consecutive straight cycles, he was the hottest name on the coaching market. However when it comes to hiring a head coach, there are no sure things. Somehow, he has lived up to the hype – and even surpassed them. He's demonstrated not just to be a offensive dork but the type of culture builder that can breathe fresh energy into an franchise.

In a normal year, Johnson would be the overwhelming choice. But this isn't a typical campaign!

The area where Johnson's case runs slightly into trouble is on the defensive side. The Bears currently rank in the bottom third in defensive efficiency. They are relying on takeaways, and takeaways are famously fickle. Coaches can focus on creating turnovers, but nobody can ensure it. He is on the ballot because the offensive production is legitimate. He's ranked lower because luck is doing too much of the defensive work. With a couple bounces of the ball, the team would be several wins worse off. It's been an exceptional turnaround, and the foundation is established for long-term winning. However Johnson comes up short in this ranking.

4) Liam Coen, Jacksonville Jaguars, Their Record

The Jaguars' coach is in a similar spot to his counterpart. He's another first-time head coach who has masterminded a dramatic resurgence. Over the crucial final weeks of the year, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the best all-around ball of his professional life. And he's also overseen the transformation of a defense that now ranks number five in the NFL in EPA per play.

Even more impressively, Coen has mastered the off-field stuff, which was not a given following his early press conference appearances and some of his preseason decisions.

Coen took over Jacksonville with an uncommonly raw coaching staff. In contrast to other coaches, who surrounded themselves with the perfect coaching mix of new ideas and veteran savvy, Coen trusted newbies. Starting with the leader on down to assistants to assistant coaches, the Jaguars are stocked with first-timers. That kind of setup is exciting on paper, but often collapses in practice – with other teams are a cautionary tale – because everybody is figuring out a new job on the fly. Yet Coen has pulled everyone and all elements together.

After an initial hot beginning, there was a possibility that the campaign would go off the track. A mid-year collapse caused the team wobbling once more. That's typically when leaders overcorrect. Coen didn't. Rather, he streamlined things. The offense stopped chasing home-run answers and started hunting consistent ones. Coen recentered the attack around his playmakers and the running game, and asked Lawrence to use his mobility more.

The results are clear. The Jags have won multiple games consecutively and will be the AFC's number three seed. He receives the tiniest knock in the rankings because he inherited a skilled team, but he has proven he can get the most out of that talent.

3) The Seattle Seahawks Coach, Seattle Seahawks, Their Record

Every Strong of the Year narrative has a pivotal moment. For the Seahawks coach, it was his QB choice.

Parting ways from a incumbent, signing a different quarterback and pairing him with an new offensive coordinator might have ended the season in the early weeks. Instead, it made it. Through the mid point of the year, the acquisition was an MVP contender. He has fallen away after that time, dropping to a lower rank in EPA per dropback over the latter part of the season, placing him just a single spot ahead of other QBs.

Still