How The Unusual Campaign Broke the Typical NFL Coach of the Year Mold.
Usually, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year award follows a straightforward script. It often serves as a type of mea culpa. Sorry we got wrong your squad in our pre-campaign forecasts.
In theory, it's a clear-cut path: the coach who engineered the largest turnaround wins the prize. However, it sparks an annual debate about preseason outlooks and whether we're actually honoring superior leadership or merely the biggest surprise.
Yet this year's field is distinctly unique. The list of nominees is exceptionally talented. It has been the season of comebacks. The NFL has been unpredictable, with recent conference champions declining and longtime strugglers ascending collectively. In an ordinary year, a coach leading the his team to the top of the conference would make him the stone-cold front-runner. But in such a turbulent and fun year, he's facing five other outstanding coaches.
Below is how the projected vote ought to look.
5) The Chicago Bears Coach, Chicago Bears, Their Record
Coach of the Year voters adore QBs. History shows this. A certain coach in 2017. Another in 2020. A third in 2022. When you solve a franchise QB, you're halfway home.
The Bears' head coach didn't merely fixed Caleb Williams; he's freed him. In the right ecosystem, the QB has been afforded the chance to demonstrate his otherworldly talent. From Week 9, the Bears rank number four in offensive Expected Points Added per play. That's not a brief surge – it's consistent excellence. Under Johnson, the quarterback has become increasingly confident, far less reckless, and has eagerly surrendered to the system rather than improvising. It is an offense built entirely in Johnson's image: a bully-ball ground attack, a consistent helping of play-action and a innovative passing attack that frees wide receiver targets all over the field. The QB has taken advantage. And when clear throws weren't there, he's been capable to create big plays out of broken plays.
Johnson arrived to the Bears with a defined offensive vision. Virtually each bet – rebuilding the trenches, featuring the pass-catchers, transforming Williams into a timing-based thrower – has paid off. This is rare for a rookie head coach. And it's rarer yet for a coach who entered the building with the immense expectations Johnson did. For two straight offseasons, he was the hottest name on the head coaching carousel. But when it comes to selecting a leader, there are zero guarantees. Somehow, he has met expectations – and even surpassed them. He's demonstrated not just to be a scheme wizard but the type of leader that can breathe fresh energy into an organization.
During a normal season, Johnson would be the runaway favorite. But this is not a normal year!
Where Johnson's candidacy runs a bit into trouble is on defense. The Bears presently rank in the bottom third in defensive efficiency. They are relying on takeaways, and turnovers are famously fickle. Coaches can focus on ball disruption, but no one can ensure it. Johnson is on the ballot because the offense is real. He's not higher because variance is doing an outsized share of the defense's heavy lifting. If not for a few bounces of the ball, the Bears would be two wins behind. It's been an exceptional turnaround, and the core is established for long-term winning. But he falls short in this ranking.
4) Liam Coen, Jacksonville Jaguars, 12-4
The Jaguars' coach is in a comparable situation to his counterpart. He's another first-time leader who has engineered a dramatic turnaround. During the stretch run of the year, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the best overall football of his career. And he's also overseen the transformation of a defense that now ranks fifth in the NFL in EPA per play.
Even more notably, Coen has nailed the intangibles stuff, which wasn't a guarantee following his initial public introduction and some of his offseason moves.
Coen took over Jacksonville with an exceptionally inexperienced coaching staff. In contrast to other coaches, who packed themselves with the ideal coaching blend of new ideas and experience, he bet on first-timers. From the head coach on down to assistants to assistant coaches, the Jaguars are filled with first-timers. That type of setup is intriguing on paper, but often fails in reality – with other teams are a cautionary tale – because everyone is learning a their job on the fly. But Coen has pulled everyone and all elements into sync.
After an initial hot start, there was a chance that the season would go off the track. A midseason collapse caused the team stumbling again. That's typically when leaders overcorrect. He didn't. Rather, he simplified the approach. Jacksonville stopped chasing home-run answers and started hunting sustainable ones. The coach recentered the offense around key players and the ground attack, and asked his QB to use his legs more often.
The results are clear. The Jags have won seven games consecutively and will be the conference's number three seed. He gets the tiniest knock in the rankings because he inherited a talented roster, but he has demonstrated he can maximize that talent.
3) Mike Macdonald, His Team, Their Record
Each Strong of the Year case has a pivotal moment. For the Seahawks coach, it was his quarterback choice.
Moving on from a incumbent, bringing in a different signal-caller and partnering him with an new play-caller might have ended the campaign in the early weeks. Rather, it shaped it. By the mid point of the season, the new QB was an Most Valuable Player contender. He has regressed after that hot streak, dropping to a lower rank in efficiency per dropback over the latter part of the season, putting him just a single place ahead of peers.
Still
