🔗 Share this article

Ordinarily, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year honor adheres to a straightforward pattern. It commonly serves as a type of apology. We regret we got wrong your team in our pre-campaign predictions.

In theory, it's a clear-cut line: the coach who orchestrated the largest turnaround wins the prize. In practice, it fuels an yearly discussion about preseason outlooks and whether we're genuinely honoring excellent coaching or simply the most shocking surprise.

But the latest competition is profoundly unique. The list of contenders is exceptionally strong. It has been the season of turnarounds. The league has been chaotic, with reigning division winners falling away and longtime underperformers improving in unison. In an typical season, Sean Payton guiding the his team to the top of the conference would make him the overwhelming front-runner. Yet in such a turbulent and thrilling year, he's up against multiple other outstanding coaches.

This is how the hypothetical ballot should shake out.

5) The Chicago Bears Coach, His Team, 11-5

Voters for Coach of the Year selectors are fascinated by quarterbacks. They always have. A certain coach in 2017. Another in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. When you fix a franchise QB, you're halfway to winning the award.

The Bears' head coach hasn't just corrected Caleb Williams; he's unleashed him. Given a proper environment, the QB has been given the opportunity to demonstrate his special ability. From Week 9, the Bears sit at fourth in offensive EPA per play. This isn't a brief surge – it's sustained dominance. Under Johnson, Williams has become increasingly confident, less reckless, and has willingly surrendered to the system instead of going rogue. It is an offense constructed solely in the coach's vision: a physical run game, a consistent dose of play-action and a innovative passing attack that springs wide-open targets all over the field. Williams has capitalized. And when easy reads haven't been available, he's been able to spin magic from broken plays.

Johnson came to Chicago with a defined offensive philosophy. Almost every decision – overhauling the offensive line, featuring the tight ends, turning Williams into a rhythm thrower – has paid off. That's rare for a first-year skipper. And it's rarer yet for a leader who walked into the organization with the level of pressure Johnson did. For consecutive straight offseasons, he was the hottest name on the head coaching market. However when it comes to hiring a head coach, there are no guarantees. Somehow, he has lived up to the hype – and even exceeded them. He's proven not only to be a offensive dork but the kind of culture builder that can inject fresh energy into an franchise.

In a ordinary year, Johnson would be the overwhelming choice. But the current isn't a normal campaign!

Where Johnson's candidacy comes a bit into trouble is on defense. The Bears currently rank in the bottom third in defensive efficiency. They are relying on turnovers, and takeaways are notoriously unreliable. Coaches can focus on ball disruption, but no one can ensure it. Johnson is on the ballot because the offense is sustainable. He's not higher because variance is doing an outsized share of the defense's work. If not for a few bounces of the ball, the Bears would be two victories worse off. It's been an remarkable turnaround, and the foundation is in place for sustained winning. But Johnson falls just short here.

4) The Jacksonville Jaguars Coach, His Team, Their Record

Coen is in a comparable situation to his counterpart. He's another rookie head coach who has orchestrated a swift resurgence. During the crucial final weeks of the season, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the finest all-around football of his career. And he's also overseen the overhaul of a defense that now ranks number five in the league in Expected Points Added per play.

Even more impressively, he has excelled at the intangibles stuff, which was not a certainty following his initial press conference appearances and some of his preseason moves.

The coach took over the Jaguars with an uncommonly raw coaching staff. In contrast to Johnson, who surrounded themselves with the perfect staff blend of youth and experience, he trusted first-timers. From the leader himself to coordinators to assistant coaches, the Jaguars are stocked with first-timers. That kind of approach is intriguing on paper, but frequently collapses in reality – as past failures are a warning – because everyone is learning a their job on the fly. Yet Coen has managed to bring the entire group and all elements into sync.

After an early hot beginning, there was a chance that the season would go off the rails. A mid-year collapse had the team stumbling once more. That's typically when leaders panic and change too much. He did not. Rather, he streamlined things. Jacksonville stopped chasing home-run answers and started seeking reliable ones. The coach recentered the attack around key players and the running game, and encouraged Lawrence to use his mobility more.

The outcomes are evident. The Jaguars have won multiple games consecutively and will be the conference's number three playoff seed. He receives the slightest knock in the standings because he took over a skilled roster, but he has demonstrated he can get the most out of that roster.

3) The Seattle Seahawks Coach, Seattle Seahawks, 13-3

Every Coach of the Year narrative has a hinge decision. For Mike Macdonald, it was his quarterback decision.

Moving on from a veteran, bringing in a different quarterback and pairing him with an innovative play-caller might have ended the campaign in October. Instead, it made it. By the middle point of the season, the new QB was an Most Valuable Player candidate. He has cooled off after that hot streak, slipping to a lower rank in efficiency per dropback over the latter part of the season, placing him only a single spot ahead of other QBs.

Still