🔗 Share this article

Usually, the National Football League's Coach of the Year honor follows a simple pattern. It commonly functions as a kind of mea culpa. Sorry we misjudged your franchise in our pre-campaign forecasts.

Theoretically, it's a clear-cut path: the coach who engineered the biggest turnaround receives the prize. In practice, it creates an annual discussion about preseason outlooks and whether we're genuinely rewarding superior leadership or simply the most shocking upset.

But the latest race is fundamentally different. The group of nominees is remarkably talented. It has been the campaign of turnarounds. The NFL has been messy, with reigning conference champions falling away and recent underperformers ascending collectively. During an normal season, Sean Payton leading the his team to the summit of the AFC would make him the stone-cold front-runner. Yet in such a chaotic and fun season, he's facing five other exceptional coaches.

This is how the projected vote ought to be structured.

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

Voters for Coach of the Year voters love QBs. History shows this. A certain coach in 2017. Another in 2020. A third in 2022. Should you solve a quarterback, you're halfway home.

The Bears' head coach didn't merely corrected his young quarterback; he's unlocked him. Given a proper ecosystem, the QB has been afforded the chance to display his special talent. Since midseason onward, the Chicago offense sit at number four in offensive EPA per play. That's not a hot streak – it's consistent performance. With Johnson, Williams has become increasingly confident, less careless, and has willingly surrendered to the system rather than going rogue. It is an attack designed entirely in the coach's vision: a physical run game, a heavy dose of play-action passes and a creative aerial game that frees wide receiver receivers all over the field. The QB has taken advantage. And when openings haven't been available, he's been capable to conjure magic out of nothing.

The coach arrived to Chicago with a defined offensive vision. Virtually each bet – overhauling the offensive line, highlighting the pass-catchers, transforming Williams into a timing-based thrower – has worked. This is uncommon for a rookie head coach. And it's rarer still for a leader who entered the organization with the kind of hype Johnson did. For consecutive straight cycles, he was the most sought-after name on the coaching market. However when it comes to selecting a leader, there are no sure things. Remarkably, Johnson has met the hype – and even surpassed them. He's demonstrated not only to be a offensive wizard but the kind of leader that can breathe fresh energy into an franchise.

During a ordinary year, Johnson would be the clear-cut favorite. Yet this is not a normal season!

The area where Johnson's case runs a bit unstuck is on defense. The Chicago defense presently rank 25th in defensive success rate. They are surviving on takeaways, and takeaways are famously inconsistent. Coaches can emphasise creating turnovers, but nobody can ensure it. Johnson is on the list because the offense is legitimate. He's ranked lower because luck is doing too much of the defense's heavy lifting. With a few breaks of the ball, the team would be two wins worse off. It's been an exceptional transformation, and the core is established for sustained winning. However he falls just short here.

4) Liam Coen, His Team, 12-4

Coen is in a comparable position to Johnson. He's a fellow first-time head coach who has engineered a dramatic resurgence. During the crucial final weeks of the year, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the finest overall football of his professional life. And he's also overseen the remaking of a defense that now sits at number five in the NFL in EPA per play.

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

The coach took over the Jaguars with an uncommonly inexperienced coaching staff. In contrast to other coaches, who packed themselves with the ideal staff mix of youth and veteran savvy, Coen trusted newbies. From the head coach on down to coordinators to position coaches, the Jags are filled with rookies. That type of approach is intriguing on paper, but often fails in practice – as past failures are a cautionary tale – because everyone is figuring out a new job in real-time. Yet Coen has managed to bring everyone and all elements together.

After an initial hot beginning, there was a risk that the campaign would go off the rails. A midseason collapse caused the team stumbling once more. That's usually when leaders panic and change too much. Coen didn't. Rather, he simplified the approach. The offense stopped pursuing explosive answers and started seeking consistent ones. The coach refocused the offense around key players and the running game, and encouraged his QB to use his legs more.

The results are clear. The Jaguars have won multiple games in a row and will be the conference's No 3 playoff seed. Coen receives the tiniest knock in the standings because he inherited a skilled roster, but he has demonstrated he can maximize that talent.

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

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

Moving on from a veteran, bringing in a different quarterback and partnering him with an new play-caller might have ended the campaign in the early weeks. Rather, it made it. Through the middle point of the year, the new QB was an MVP contender. He has cooled off since that hot streak, dropping to a lower rank in EPA per pass attempt over the second half of the schedule, placing him only a single place ahead of other QBs.

Still