The Way This Strange Campaign Shattered the Conventional Coach of the Year Blueprint.
Typically, the National Football League's Coach of the Year award adheres to a simple pattern. It often acts as a kind of apology. Sorry we underestimated your team in our pre-campaign projections.
In theory, it's a clear-cut trajectory: the skipper who engineered the biggest resurgence is handed the award. However, it creates an annual argument about preseason outlooks and whether we're actually rewarding superior coaching or simply the biggest shock.
But this year's field is fundamentally different. The list of contenders is exceptionally deep. It has been the year of comebacks. The NFL has been unpredictable, with recent division winners fading and recent also-rans improving in unison. Under an normal season, a coach leading the his team to the top of the AFC would make him the clear favorite. Yet in this turbulent and entertaining year, he's up against multiple other elite candidates.
Below is how the hypothetical ballot could shake out.
5) The Chicago Bears Coach, Chicago Bears, Their Record
Voters for Coach of the Year selectors adore QBs. This is a tradition. A certain coach in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. A third in 2022. When you fix a quarterback, you're halfway home.
The Bears' head coach didn't merely fixed his young quarterback; he's unlocked him. Given a proper system, the QB has been given the chance to display his rare talent. Since midseason onward, the Bears rank number four in offensive EPA per play. This isn't a lucky run – it's prolonged excellence. With his guidance, Williams has become more decisive, less careless, and has eagerly surrendered to the gameplan instead of freelancing. It is an offense built entirely in the coach's vision: a bully-ball run game, a consistent helping of play-action and a innovative aerial game that springs wide receiver receivers everywhere. Williams has capitalized. And when clear throws haven't been available, he's been capable to spin big plays out of broken plays.
The coach arrived to the Bears with a clear offensive vision. Virtually each bet – rebuilding the trenches, featuring the pass-catchers, transforming the QB into a rhythm passer – has paid off. That's uncommon for a first-year skipper. And it's even more uncommon yet for a leader who walked into the building with the kind of pressure Johnson did. For two straight cycles, he was the hottest name on the coaching carousel. However when it comes to hiring a leader, there are zero sure things. Somehow, Johnson has met expectations – and even exceeded them. He's proven not just to be a scheme wizard but the type of leader that can breathe fresh energy into an franchise.
During a ordinary year, Johnson would be the overwhelming favorite. Yet the current is not a typical year!
Where Johnson's case comes a bit into trouble is on defense. The Chicago defense currently sit 25th in defensive success rate. They are surviving on turnovers, and takeaways are famously inconsistent. Defensive minds can focus on ball disruption, but nobody can guarantee it. He is on the list because the offense is real. He's not higher because luck is doing an outsized share of the defense's heavy lifting. If not for a couple breaks of the ball, the Bears would be several victories worse off. It's been an exceptional turnaround, and the foundation is in place for sustained success. But Johnson falls just short here.
4) Liam Coen, Jacksonville Jaguars, Their Record
The Jaguars' coach is in a similar spot to Johnson. He's another first-time head coach who has masterminded a dramatic turnaround. Over the stretch run of the season, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the most complete all-around football of his professional life. And he's also spearheaded the overhaul of a defense that now sits at fifth in the NFL in EPA per play.
What's more impressively, Coen has excelled at the off-field aspects, which was not a guarantee following his initial press conference introduction and some of his offseason moves.
Coen walked into the Jaguars with an uncommonly raw coaching staff. In contrast to other coaches, who surrounded their staff with the perfect coaching mix of youth and veteran savvy, he hired first-timers. From the head coach himself to coordinators to assistant coaches, the Jaguars are stocked with first-timers. That type of setup is intriguing in theory, but frequently collapses in practice – as past failures are a warning – because everybody is learning a their job on the fly. But Coen has pulled the entire group and everything together.
After an initial hot start, there was a chance that the season would go off the track. A mid-year collapse had the Jags wobbling once more. That's usually when leaders overcorrect. Coen didn't. Rather, he streamlined things. Jacksonville stopped pursuing explosive answers and started hunting sustainable ones. Coen refocused the attack around his playmakers and the ground attack, and encouraged his QB to use his mobility more.
The results are evident. The Jags have won seven games in a row and will be the conference's No 3 playoff seed. Coen gets the tiniest deduction in the standings because he took over a skilled team, but he has demonstrated he can get the most out of that roster.
3) Mike Macdonald, His Team, 13-3
Each Coach of the Year narrative has a hinge moment. For Mike Macdonald, it was his quarterback move.
Moving on from a veteran, bringing in a new signal-caller and pairing him with an new offensive coordinator might have derailed the season in the early weeks. Instead, it defined it. By the middle point of the year, the new QB was an MVP candidate. He has fallen away after that time, slipping to 23rd in efficiency per pass attempt over the latter part of the season, placing him only one spot ahead of peers.
Still
