🔗 Share this article

Ordinarily, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year award follows a straightforward formula. It frequently acts as a type of apology. Our apologies we misjudged your squad in our pre-campaign forecasts.

Theoretically, it's a clear-cut path: the skipper who oversaw the biggest turnaround is handed the award. In practice, it fuels an yearly debate about preseason outlooks and whether we're truly rewarding excellent leadership or simply the greatest upset.

But this year's competition is profoundly different. The pool of nominees is remarkably talented. It has been the campaign of comebacks. The NFL has been chaotic, with reigning division winners declining and recent also-rans improving in unison. During an typical season, a coach guiding the his team to the top of the AFC would make him the overwhelming front-runner. But in this chaotic and fun season, he's facing five other outstanding candidates.

Below is how the ideal ballot ought to be structured.

5) Ben Johnson, His Team, Their Record

Voters for Coach of the Year voters adore signal-callers. They always have. A certain coach in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. When you solve a quarterback, you're halfway to winning the award.

The Bears' head coach not only corrected his young quarterback; he's freed him. Given a proper environment, Williams has been afforded the chance to display his rare talent. From midseason onward, the Chicago offense rank fourth in offensive EPA per play. That's not a lucky run – it's consistent excellence. Under his guidance, Williams has become increasingly confident, less reckless, and has eagerly surrendered to the gameplan instead of going rogue. It is an attack constructed solely in Johnson's vision: a bully-ball run game, a heavy helping of play-action and a imaginative aerial game that creates wide receiver targets all over the field. The QB has thrived. And when clear throws haven't been there, he's been able to conjure magic from broken plays.

Johnson arrived to Chicago with a defined offensive blueprint. Almost every gamble – rebuilding the offensive line, highlighting the tight ends, transforming the QB into a timing-based passer – has succeeded. 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 hype Johnson did. For two straight offseasons, he was the top candidate on the coaching market. However when it comes to selecting a head coach, there are zero guarantees. Remarkably, he has lived up to the hype – and even exceeded them. He's proven not just to be a scheme dork but the kind of leader that can breathe fresh energy into an franchise.

During a normal year, he would be the clear-cut choice. Yet the current isn't a typical season!

Where his case comes slightly unstuck is on the defensive side. The Bears currently rank 25th in defensive success rate. They are relying on turnovers, and takeaways are notoriously fickle. Defensive minds can stress creating turnovers, but nobody can guarantee it. Johnson is on the ballot because the offense is sustainable. He's ranked lower because variance is doing too much of the defense's work. With a couple bounces of the ball, the team would be several wins worse off. It's been an remarkable turnaround, and the core is in place for sustained success. But Johnson falls just short here.

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

The Jaguars' coach is in a comparable situation to his counterpart. He's another rookie head coach who has orchestrated a rapid turnaround. During the stretch run of the season, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the finest all-around football of his career. And he's also overseen the overhaul of a defensive unit that now sits at number five in the NFL in Expected Points Added per play.

What's more notably, he has excelled at the leadership aspects, which was not a given after his early public appearances and some of his offseason moves.

The coach walked into the Jaguars with an exceptionally raw staff. Unlike Johnson, who surrounded their staff with the perfect staff blend of youth and veteran savvy, Coen hired first-timers. From the leader on down to assistants to assistant coaches, the Jags are filled with rookies. That kind of approach is exciting on paper, but often fails in practice – as past failures are a warning – because everyone is figuring out a their job in real-time. Yet Coen has managed to bring everyone and everything into sync.

Following an initial strong start, there was a chance that the campaign would veer off the track. A mid-year collapse had the Jags stumbling again. That's usually when leaders overcorrect. He didn't. Instead, he simplified things. Jacksonville stopped pursuing explosive answers and started hunting reliable ones. The coach refocused the attack around key players and the ground attack, and asked his QB to use his legs more.

The outcomes are evident. The Jags have won seven games consecutively and will be the AFC's number three playoff seed. He gets the slightest deduction in the standings because he took over a talented roster, but he has proven he can maximize that roster.

3) Mike Macdonald, Seattle Seahawks, 13-3

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

Parting ways from a incumbent, bringing in a different signal-caller and partnering him with an new play-caller could have derailed the campaign in the early weeks. Rather, it defined it. By the middle point of the season, the new QB was an MVP contender. He has regressed after that hot streak, slipping to 23rd in efficiency per dropback over the second half of the season, putting him only a single spot ahead of peers.

Still