How The Unusual Season Broke the Traditional Coach of the Year Mold.
Typically, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year trophy adheres to a simple pattern. It frequently functions as a form of apology. Our apologies we got wrong your franchise in our preseason forecasts.
In theory, it's a clear-cut line: the coach who orchestrated the biggest resurgence is handed the award. However, it fuels an annual debate about expectations and whether we're actually rewarding excellent leadership or merely the biggest shock.
Yet this year's field is distinctly different. The group of candidates is exceptionally strong. It has been the campaign of resurgences. The NFL has been chaotic, with recent division winners falling away and recent strugglers rising in unison. Under an normal year, a coach guiding the his team to the summit of the AFC would make him the clear favorite. But in this turbulent and entertaining year, he's facing five other exceptional candidates.
This is how the ideal vote ought to be structured.
5) Ben Johnson, Chicago Bears, Their Record
Voters for Coach of the Year selectors adore signal-callers. This is a tradition. A certain coach in 2017. Another in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. If you fix a franchise QB, you're halfway home.
Ben Johnson not only fixed Caleb Williams; he's unlocked him. In the right system, the QB has been given the chance to showcase his rare ability. Since Week 9, the Chicago offense rank fourth in offensive EPA per play. This isn't a brief surge – it's sustained dominance. Under his guidance, Williams has become more decisive, far less reckless, and has eagerly submitted to the system instead of going rogue. It is an offense constructed entirely in Johnson's image: a bully-ball run game, a consistent helping of play-action and a innovative aerial game that springs wide receiver receivers all over the field. Williams has taken advantage. And when clear throws weren't there, he's been able to spin magic from nothing.
The coach arrived to the Bears with a defined offensive blueprint. Virtually every gamble – overhauling the trenches, utilizing the pass-catchers, turning Williams into a rhythm thrower – has paid off. This is uncommon for a rookie skipper. And it's even more uncommon still for a leader who entered the organization with the level of pressure he did. For consecutive straight cycles, he was the top name on the head coaching carousel. But when it comes to hiring a head coach, there are zero sure things. Remarkably, Johnson has met expectations – and even exceeded them. He's proven not just to be a offensive dork but the kind of leader that can breathe fresh energy into an organization.
During a typical year, Johnson would be the runaway choice. But this isn't a normal season!
The area where his candidacy comes slightly into trouble is on the defensive side. The Bears presently rank in the bottom third in defensive success rate. They are surviving on turnovers, and turnovers are notoriously fickle. Defensive minds can stress creating turnovers, but nobody can ensure it. He is on the ballot because the offensive production is real. He's not higher because variance is doing too much of the defensive work. If not for a few breaks of the ball, the Bears would be several wins worse off. It's been an remarkable transformation, and the foundation is in place for long-term winning. But he comes up just short here.
4) Liam Coen, Jacksonville Jaguars, 12-4
Coen is in a similar spot to his counterpart. He's a fellow rookie head coach who has masterminded a dramatic turnaround. Over the crucial final weeks of the year, he has his franchise quarterback playing the best overall football of his professional life. And he's also overseen the transformation of a defensive unit that now sits at fifth in the league in Expected Points Added per play.
Even more notably, he has mastered the off-field stuff, which wasn't a certainty following his early public introduction and some of his offseason moves.
The coach took over the Jaguars with an exceptionally inexperienced staff. In contrast to Johnson, who packed their staff with the ideal staff cocktail of youth and veteran savvy, Coen hired first-timers. Starting with the leader himself to coordinators to assistant coaches, the Jaguars are stocked with rookies. That kind of approach is exciting in theory, but often collapses in practice – with other teams are a cautionary tale – because everyone is learning a their job on the fly. But he has pulled the entire group and everything together.
Following an initial strong start, there was a possibility that the season would veer off the track. A mid-year setback had the Jags stumbling once more. That's typically when coaches panic and change too much. Coen didn't. Rather, he streamlined things. Jacksonville stopped pursuing home-run answers and started seeking reliable ones. Coen recentered the attack around his playmakers and the running game, and asked his QB to use his legs more often.
The outcomes are clear. The Jags have won multiple games consecutively and will be the conference's number three seed. Coen gets the slightest deduction in the rankings because he inherited a talented roster, but he has demonstrated he can maximize that talent.
3) Mike Macdonald, Seattle Seahawks, Their Record
Every Coach of the Year narrative has a hinge decision. For the Seahawks coach, it was his QB move.
Moving on from a incumbent, bringing in a new quarterback and partnering him with an new play-caller could have derailed the campaign in October. Instead, it made it. Through the mid point of the year, the acquisition was an MVP front-runner. He has fallen away since that hot streak, dropping to 23rd in EPA per dropback over the latter part of the schedule, placing him just one place ahead of other QBs.
Still