🔗 Share this article

Typically, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year award adheres to a straightforward script. It often serves as a kind of mea culpa. Our apologies we misjudged your squad in our preseason forecasts.

In theory, it's a clear-cut path: the skipper who oversaw the largest resurgence receives the award. In practice, it fuels an yearly discussion about preseason outlooks and whether we're genuinely rewarding superior leadership or simply the most shocking surprise.

But the latest race is profoundly unique. The list of candidates is exceptionally talented. It has been the campaign of turnarounds. The league has been chaotic, with reigning conference champions falling away and recent underperformers improving together. In an ordinary season, a coach leading the his team to the top of the AFC would make him the clear favorite. But in such a turbulent and entertaining season, he's competing with multiple other exceptional coaches.

Here is how the hypothetical vote could look.

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

Voters for Coach of the Year selectors love QBs. History shows this. Sean McVay in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. A third in 2022. Should you solve a quarterback, you're well on your way to winning the award.

The Bears' head coach not only fixed Caleb Williams; he's unleashed him. Within an ideal system, Williams has been afforded the chance to display his special ability. Since Week 9, the Chicago offense rank number four in offensive EPA per play. That's not a brief surge – it's prolonged excellence. Under Johnson, Williams has become increasingly decisive, far less reckless, and has willingly surrendered to the system instead of improvising. It is an attack constructed entirely in Johnson's image: a physical run game, a heavy helping of play-action passes and a innovative aerial game that frees wide receiver targets everywhere. Williams has capitalized. And when openings weren't there, he's been capable to create magic out of nothing.

The coach came to Chicago with a specific offensive blueprint. Almost every bet – rebuilding the trenches, highlighting the pass-catchers, transforming Williams into a timing-based passer – has worked. This is rare for a first-year head coach. And it's rarer still for a leader who walked into the building with the kind of expectations Johnson did. For consecutive straight offseasons, he was the most sought-after candidate on the head coaching market. But when it comes to hiring a leader, there are zero sure things. Somehow, he has lived up to the hype – and even surpassed them. He's demonstrated not only to be a offensive wizard but the kind of culture builder that can breathe new life into an franchise.

In a typical year, Johnson would be the runaway choice. Yet this isn't a typical campaign!

The area where Johnson's case comes slightly into trouble is on the defensive side. The Chicago defense presently sit in the bottom third in defensive efficiency. They are living on takeaways, and turnovers are notoriously inconsistent. Defensive minds can focus on creating turnovers, but nobody can ensure it. He is on the ballot because the offensive production is real. He's ranked lower because luck is doing an outsized share of the defense's heavy lifting. If not for a couple bounces of the ball, the team would be two victories worse off. It's been an exceptional turnaround, and the foundation is established for sustained success. However he comes up short in this ranking.

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

Coen is in a comparable spot to his counterpart. He's another first-time leader who has masterminded a dramatic resurgence. Over the crucial final weeks of the season, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the most complete all-around football of his professional life. And he's also overseen the transformation of a defense that now sits at number five in the league in Expected Points Added per play.

What's more impressively, Coen has mastered the leadership aspects, which wasn't a guarantee after his early public introduction and some of his preseason moves.

Coen took over Jacksonville with an exceptionally inexperienced staff. In contrast to Johnson, who packed their staff with the ideal coaching blend of new ideas and veteran savvy, Coen bet on newbies. Starting with the leader himself to assistants to position coaches, the Jags are filled with first-timers. That type of setup is exciting in theory, but frequently collapses in reality – with other teams are a warning – because everyone is figuring out a new job on the fly. But Coen has pulled the entire group and all elements together.

After an initial hot start, there was a possibility that the campaign would go off the rails. A mid-year setback had the Jags wobbling again. That's usually when leaders panic and change too much. Coen didn't. Instead, he streamlined the approach. Jacksonville stopped chasing explosive answers and started hunting reliable ones. Coen refocused the attack around key players and the ground attack, and asked Lawrence to use his mobility more.

The results are evident. The Jags have won seven games consecutively and will be the conference's No 3 seed. Coen gets the slightest knock in the standings because he inherited a talented roster, but he has proven he can get the most out of that roster.

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

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

Moving on from a veteran, signing a new signal-caller and pairing him with an innovative offensive coordinator could have ended the season in October. Instead, it made it. By the mid point of the season, the new QB was an Most Valuable Player contender. He has regressed after that time, slipping to a lower rank in efficiency per dropback over the latter part of the season, putting him just a single place ahead of other QBs.

Still