How This Bizarre Campaign Shattered the Conventional Coach of the Year Mould.
Typically, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year award follows a straightforward formula. It often serves as a type of mea culpa. We regret we underestimated your team in our preseason predictions.
On paper, it's a direct path: the coach who oversaw the most dramatic resurgence is handed the award. In practice, it fuels an yearly argument about expectations and whether we're genuinely rewarding excellent leadership or simply the greatest shock.
However the latest competition is profoundly unique. The list of contenders is remarkably deep. It has been the season of resurgences. The league has been unpredictable, with recent division winners falling away and longtime also-rans ascending collectively. In an ordinary year, a coach leading the his team to the top of the AFC would make him the overwhelming favorite. But in this wild and fun season, he's up against multiple other exceptional candidates.
Here is how the ideal vote should be structured.
5) Ben Johnson, Chicago Bears, Their Record
Voters for Coach of the Year voters adore QBs. History shows this. A certain coach in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. When you solve a quarterback, you're well on your way home.
The Bears' head coach not only corrected Caleb Williams; he's freed him. In the right ecosystem, the QB has been given the chance to showcase his otherworldly talent. Since Week 9, the Chicago offense sit at fourth in offensive Expected Points Added per play. This isn't a hot streak – it's prolonged performance. With his guidance, the quarterback has become more confident, less careless, and has willingly surrendered to the scheme rather than going rogue. It is an offense designed entirely in the coach's vision: a bully-ball run game, a heavy dose of play-action and a innovative passing attack that creates wide-open targets consistently. The QB has taken advantage. And when easy reads weren't available, he's been capable to create magic out of broken plays.
Johnson arrived to the Bears with a specific offensive vision. Virtually every gamble – rebuilding the trenches, featuring the tight ends, transforming the QB into a rhythm passer – has paid off. That's rare for a first-year skipper. And it's rarer yet for a coach who walked into the building with the level of hype he did. For consecutive straight offseasons, he was the most sought-after name on the coaching carousel. But when it comes to selecting a head coach, there are no guarantees. Somehow, Johnson has met the hype – and even surpassed them. He's demonstrated not only to be a offensive wizard but the type of leader that can breathe fresh energy into an franchise.
During a normal season, he would be the runaway favorite. Yet this is not a normal campaign!
Where Johnson's case comes a bit unstuck is on defense. The Bears currently rank 25th in defensive efficiency. They are surviving on takeaways, and takeaways are notoriously unreliable. Coaches can stress ball disruption, but nobody can guarantee it. Johnson is on the ballot because the offense is sustainable. He's ranked lower because variance is doing an outsized share of the defensive heavy lifting. If not for a few bounces of the ball, the team would be several wins worse off. It's been an exceptional transformation, and the foundation is in place for sustained success. But Johnson falls short here.
4) Liam Coen, His Team, 12-4
Coen is in a similar spot to Johnson. He's a fellow rookie leader who has masterminded a dramatic turnaround. Over the stretch run of the year, he has his franchise quarterback playing the finest overall ball of his career. And he's also spearheaded the overhaul of a defensive unit that now ranks number five in the NFL in Expected Points Added per play.
Even more notably, he has mastered the intangibles stuff, which was not a certainty after his early public appearances and some of his offseason moves.
The coach walked into the Jaguars with an uncommonly inexperienced staff. Unlike Johnson, who surrounded themselves with the perfect coaching mix of new ideas and experience, Coen trusted newbies. Starting with the head coach on down to coordinators to assistant coaches, the Jags are stocked with rookies. That kind of setup is intriguing on paper, but often collapses in reality – as past failures are a warning – because everyone is learning a their job in real-time. Yet Coen has pulled the entire group and all elements into sync.
Following an early hot start, there was a risk that the season would go off the rails. A mid-year collapse had the team wobbling once more. That's usually when coaches panic and change too much. Coen did not. Rather, he streamlined things. Jacksonville stopped pursuing explosive answers and started seeking reliable ones. The coach recentered the offense around his playmakers and the ground attack, and asked his QB to use his mobility more often.
The outcomes are obvious. The Jaguars have won seven games consecutively and will be the AFC's No 3 seed. He gets the slightest deduction in the rankings because he took over a talented roster, but he has proven he can get the most out of that roster.
3) Mike Macdonald, Seattle Seahawks, 13-3
Every Coach of the Year case has a pivotal moment. For Mike Macdonald, it was his quarterback decision.
Parting ways from a incumbent, signing a new signal-caller and pairing him with an new play-caller might have ended the campaign in the early weeks. Rather, it defined it. Through the middle point of the year, the acquisition was an MVP candidate. He has cooled off since that hot streak, dropping to 23rd in EPA per dropback over the latter part of the schedule, putting him just a single spot ahead of peers.
Still
