How This Bizarre Campaign Redefined the Traditional NFL Coach of the Year Formula.
Typically, the NFL's Coach of the Year honor follows a simple pattern. It commonly functions as a form of apology. Sorry we misjudged your franchise in our pre-campaign predictions.
Theoretically, it's a clear-cut line: the coach who engineered the most dramatic turnaround wins the prize. In reality, it fuels an annual discussion about preseason outlooks and whether we're truly honoring superior coaching or just the greatest shock.
However the latest field is distinctly different. The list of contenders is unusually deep. It has been the year of resurgences. The league has been messy, with reigning division champions declining and recent underperformers ascending collectively. During an typical season, a coach guiding the Denver Broncos to the summit of the AFC would make him the clear favorite. But in this wild and thrilling season, he's facing five other outstanding coaches.
Here is how the ideal ballot should look.
5) The Chicago Bears Coach, Chicago Bears, 11-5
Coach of the Year selectors love QBs. They always have. A certain coach in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. A third in 2022. If you solve a quarterback, you're halfway to winning the award.
Ben Johnson hasn't just corrected Caleb Williams; he's freed him. Given a proper system, the QB has been afforded the chance to demonstrate his rare talent. From midseason onward, the Chicago offense rank fourth in offensive EPA per play. This isn't a lucky run – it's prolonged dominance. With Johnson, Williams has become more decisive, less reckless, and has eagerly surrendered to the scheme rather than improvising. It is an attack constructed solely in the coach's image: a physical run game, a heavy helping of play-action and a innovative aerial game that springs wide receiver targets consistently. The QB has thrived. And when openings weren't available, he's been able to create big plays out of nothing.
The coach arrived to Chicago with a defined offensive vision. Virtually every gamble – rebuilding the trenches, highlighting the pass-catchers, turning Williams into a timing-based thrower – has paid off. That's rare for a rookie head coach. And it's even more uncommon yet for a coach who entered the building with the immense expectations he did. For consecutive straight offseasons, he was the most sought-after name on the head coaching carousel. However when it comes to hiring a head coach, there are no sure things. Somehow, Johnson has met the hype – and even exceeded them. He's demonstrated not only to be a scheme genius but the type of culture builder that can breathe new life into an organization.
During a typical season, he would be the clear-cut choice. But the current is not a normal year!
The area where Johnson's case comes slightly unstuck is on the defensive side. The Chicago defense currently sit 25th in defensive success rate. They are surviving on turnovers, and takeaways are notoriously unreliable. Coaches can emphasise ball disruption, but nobody can ensure it. He is on the ballot because the offense is real. He's ranked lower because variance is doing too much of the defense's heavy lifting. If not for a couple breaks of the ball, the team would be two victories behind. It's been an exceptional turnaround, and the foundation is established for sustained winning. However he comes up short here.
4) Liam Coen, His Team, 12-4
Coen is in a similar position to Johnson. He's another rookie head coach who has engineered a dramatic resurgence. Over the stretch run of the year, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the best overall ball of his professional life. And he's also overseen the remaking of a defense that now sits at number five in the league in EPA per play.
What's more notably, Coen has mastered the off-field aspects, which was not a given after his early public appearances and some of his offseason moves.
Coen walked into Jacksonville with an uncommonly raw coaching staff. Unlike Johnson, who packed their staff with the ideal coaching cocktail of youth and experience, he hired newbies. Starting with the head coach on down to assistants to assistant coaches, the Jaguars are filled with first-timers. That type of setup is exciting in theory, but frequently collapses in reality – as past failures are a cautionary tale – because everyone is figuring out a new job on the fly. Yet he has pulled everyone and everything together.
After an early strong start, there was a risk that the season would veer off the track. A midseason setback had the team stumbling again. That's usually when leaders panic and change too much. He didn't. Rather, he streamlined the approach. The offense stopped chasing explosive plays and started seeking reliable ones. The coach recentered the attack around key players and the running game, and asked Lawrence to use his legs more often.
The outcomes are obvious. The Jags have won multiple games in a row and will be the conference's No 3 playoff seed. Coen gets the tiniest knock in the rankings because he took over a talented roster, but he has demonstrated he can get the most out of that talent.
3) Mike Macdonald, His Team, Their Record
Each Coach of the Year narrative has a defining decision. For Mike Macdonald, it was his quarterback decision.
Moving on from a incumbent, signing a different signal-caller and partnering him with an new play-caller could have derailed the campaign in October. Instead, it made it. By the middle point of the year, the new QB was an MVP candidate. He has cooled off after that hot streak, slipping to a lower rank in EPA per pass attempt over the second half of the season, placing him only a single spot ahead of other QBs.
Still
