🔗 Share this article

Ordinarily, the NFL's Coach of the Year trophy follows a straightforward script. It frequently functions as a kind of mea culpa. We regret we misjudged your franchise in our preseason predictions.

On paper, it's a direct line: the skipper who engineered the most dramatic resurgence wins the award. In practice, it sparks an yearly debate about preseason outlooks and whether we're truly rewarding superior leadership or simply the most shocking upset.

However the latest competition is distinctly unique. The list of nominees is remarkably strong. It has been the season of resurgences. The league has been chaotic, with reigning division champions declining and longtime also-rans ascending collectively. Under an ordinary season, Sean Payton leading the Denver Broncos to the summit of the AFC would make him the overwhelming front-runner. Yet in this wild and fun year, he's competing with several other outstanding candidates.

This is how the projected vote should be structured.

5) Ben Johnson, Chicago Bears, Their Record

Coach of the Year voters love quarterbacks. History shows this. A certain coach in 2017. Another in 2020. A third in 2022. If you fix a franchise QB, you're halfway to winning the award.

Ben Johnson not only corrected Caleb Williams; he's unlocked him. Within an ideal ecosystem, Williams has been given the opportunity to display his rare ability. Since midseason onward, the Chicago offense sit at number four in offensive EPA per play. This isn't a lucky run – it's sustained dominance. With his guidance, Williams has become more decisive, less careless, and has willingly submitted to the system rather than improvising. It is an attack designed entirely in Johnson's vision: a bully-ball ground attack, a heavy helping of play-action passes and a innovative passing attack that frees wide-open targets consistently. The QB has thrived. And when clear throws weren't there, he's been able to conjure big plays out of broken plays.

The coach came to Chicago with a specific offensive vision. Almost every decision – rebuilding the offensive line, featuring the pass-catchers, transforming the QB into a timing-based thrower – has succeeded. That's uncommon for a first-year head coach. And it's rarer yet for a coach who entered the building with the kind of pressure he did. For two straight offseasons, he was the top name on the coaching carousel. But when it comes to hiring a head coach, there are zero sure things. Remarkably, he has met the hype – and even surpassed them. He's proven not only to be a scheme wizard but the type of culture builder that can inject new life into an franchise.

During a typical year, Johnson would be the overwhelming choice. Yet this is not a typical season!

The area where his candidacy comes a bit into trouble is on the defensive side. The Bears currently sit in the bottom third in defensive success rate. They are surviving on takeaways, and turnovers are notoriously fickle. Coaches can stress ball disruption, but no one can guarantee it. Johnson is on the list because the offense is legitimate. He's not higher because luck is doing an outsized share of the defensive heavy lifting. With a couple bounces of the ball, the team would be several wins behind. It's been an exceptional transformation, and the core is in place for long-term success. However Johnson falls short here.

4) Liam Coen, His Team, 12-4

Coen is in a comparable position to his counterpart. He's a fellow first-time leader who has engineered a dramatic turnaround. During the stretch run of the season, he has his franchise quarterback playing the best overall football of his professional life. And he's also overseen the remaking of a defense that now sits at fifth in the league in Expected Points Added per play.

Even more notably, he has excelled at the off-field aspects, which wasn't a guarantee following his initial press conference introduction and some of his preseason moves.

The coach walked into Jacksonville with an exceptionally raw coaching staff. In contrast to other coaches, who packed their staff with the ideal coaching blend of youth and veteran savvy, Coen hired first-timers. From the leader himself to coordinators to assistant coaches, the Jaguars are stocked with rookies. That kind of approach is exciting in theory, but frequently fails in practice – as past failures are a warning – because everyone is learning a their job on the fly. Yet he has pulled everyone and all elements into sync.

Following an early strong beginning, there was a risk that the season would veer off the track. A midseason collapse had the team stumbling once more. That's usually when coaches overcorrect. Coen did not. Instead, he streamlined things. The offense stopped pursuing explosive answers and started hunting reliable ones. Coen refocused the attack around his playmakers and the running game, and encouraged his QB to use his mobility more.

The results are obvious. The Jaguars have won multiple games in a row and will be the conference's number three seed. He gets the tiniest deduction in the rankings because he took over a skilled roster, but he has demonstrated he can maximize that talent.

3) Mike Macdonald, Seattle Seahawks, 13-3

Every Coach of the Year argument has a hinge moment. For the Seahawks coach, it was his quarterback move.

Moving on from a incumbent, signing a new signal-caller and partnering him with an new offensive coordinator could have derailed the campaign in the early weeks. Rather, it defined it. Through the middle point of the year, the acquisition was an Most Valuable Player candidate. He has regressed since that hot streak, dropping to a lower rank in EPA per pass attempt over the latter part of the schedule, putting him just a single spot ahead of other QBs.

Still