🔗 Share this article

Typically, the NFL's Coach of the Year trophy adheres to a straightforward formula. It frequently acts as a form of mea culpa. We regret we underestimated your franchise in our preseason forecasts.

Theoretically, it's a clear-cut path: the coach who oversaw the largest resurgence receives the prize. In reality, it fuels an annual argument about preseason outlooks and whether we're actually rewarding superior coaching or just the biggest surprise.

But this year's competition is distinctly different. The pool of nominees is unusually deep. It has been the season of comebacks. The league has been unpredictable, with reigning conference champions fading and recent strugglers ascending collectively. During an ordinary year, a coach guiding the Denver Broncos to the summit of the AFC would make him the overwhelming favorite. Yet in this wild and entertaining season, he's competing with several other elite coaches.

Here is how the hypothetical vote could look.

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

Coach of the Year selectors love QBs. They always have. A certain coach in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. A third in 2022. When you solve a franchise QB, you're well on your way to winning the award.

Ben Johnson hasn't just fixed Caleb Williams; he's freed him. In the right ecosystem, Williams has been given the opportunity to showcase his special talent. From midseason onward, the Chicago offense rank fourth in offensive EPA per play. That's not a lucky run – it's prolonged performance. With his guidance, Williams has become more decisive, far less careless, and has eagerly surrendered to the gameplan instead of going rogue. It is an attack constructed solely in the coach's image: a bully-ball run game, a consistent helping of play-action passes and a creative aerial game that frees wide receiver targets consistently. Williams has thrived. And when openings haven't been available, he's been capable to create magic from broken plays.

Johnson arrived to Chicago with a clear offensive philosophy. Almost each decision – rebuilding the offensive line, featuring the tight ends, turning Williams into a rhythm thrower – has worked. This is uncommon for a first-year head coach. And it's rarer still for a leader who entered the building with the level of expectations he did. For two straight cycles, he was the top name on the coaching carousel. But when it comes to hiring a leader, there are zero sure things. Somehow, he has met the hype – and even surpassed them. He's demonstrated not only to be a scheme dork but the kind of leader that can breathe new life into an organization.

During a ordinary season, he would be the runaway favorite. But the current isn't a normal season!

Where Johnson's case runs slightly unstuck is on the defensive side. The Bears presently sit in the bottom third in defensive efficiency. They are surviving on takeaways, and turnovers are notoriously fickle. Defensive minds can stress ball disruption, but nobody can guarantee it. He is on the ballot because the offensive production is sustainable. He's not higher because variance is doing an outsized share of the defense's work. If not for a few breaks of the ball, the Bears would be two victories worse off. It's been an remarkable turnaround, and the foundation is established for long-term winning. But Johnson comes up short here.

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

Coen is in a similar position to his counterpart. He's a fellow first-time leader who has orchestrated a rapid turnaround. Over the crucial final weeks of the year, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the finest overall football of his professional life. And he's also overseen the overhaul of a defensive unit that now sits at number five in the league in EPA per play.

What's more impressively, Coen has mastered the leadership stuff, which wasn't a given after his initial public introduction and some of his preseason decisions.

Coen took over the Jaguars with an uncommonly inexperienced coaching staff. In contrast to Johnson, who surrounded themselves with the perfect coaching cocktail of new ideas and veteran savvy, Coen hired newbies. Starting with the head coach on down to assistants to position coaches, the Jags are stocked with rookies. That type of approach is intriguing on paper, but often collapses in reality – with other teams are a cautionary tale – because everybody is learning a new job on the fly. Yet he has pulled the entire group and everything into sync.

Following an initial strong beginning, there was a possibility that the season would go off the track. A midseason setback had the team stumbling again. That's usually when coaches panic and change too much. Coen did not. Rather, he simplified things. The offense stopped chasing home-run answers and started seeking sustainable ones. The coach refocused the attack around his playmakers and the running game, and encouraged Lawrence to use his legs more often.

The results are evident. The Jaguars have won multiple games in a row and will be the conference's No 3 seed. He receives the tiniest deduction in the rankings because he inherited a skilled roster, but he has proven he can maximize that roster.

3) Mike Macdonald, His Team, Their Record

Each Strong of the Year narrative has a pivotal decision. For Mike Macdonald, it was his QB move.

Moving on from a veteran, signing a different quarterback and partnering him with an innovative play-caller could have ended the season in the early weeks. Rather, it shaped it. By the middle point of the year, the new QB was an Most Valuable Player front-runner. He has cooled off after that hot streak, slipping to a lower rank in efficiency per dropback over the latter part of the season, putting him just one spot ahead of other QBs.

Still