🔗 Share this article

Ordinarily, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year trophy follows a straightforward script. It frequently serves as a kind of mea culpa. We regret we got wrong your team in our preseason predictions.

Theoretically, it's a direct path: the coach who oversaw the largest improvement is handed the award. In practice, it creates an annual debate about expectations and whether we're actually honoring excellent leadership or merely the most shocking shock.

Yet the current race is profoundly unique. The list of contenders is exceptionally strong. It has been the season of comebacks. The NFL has been chaotic, with recent conference winners declining and longtime underperformers ascending collectively. During an normal year, a coach leading the Denver Broncos to the top of the conference would make him the overwhelming front-runner. Yet in such a wild and fun season, he's up against multiple other outstanding coaches.

Here is how the projected ballot should look.

5) Ben Johnson, His Team, Their Record

Voters for Coach of the Year voters adore QBs. They always have. Sean McVay in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. When you solve a quarterback, you're well on your way home.

Ben Johnson didn't merely corrected his young quarterback; he's unleashed him. Within an ideal environment, the QB has been afforded the opportunity to showcase his special ability. Since Week 9, the Bears rank number four in offensive Expected Points Added per play. This isn't a lucky run – it's prolonged excellence. With his guidance, the quarterback has become increasingly decisive, less careless, and has eagerly submitted to the scheme rather than going rogue. It is an attack designed solely in the coach's image: a physical run game, a consistent helping of play-action passes and a innovative aerial game that frees wide receiver receivers everywhere. The QB has taken advantage. And when easy reads haven't been available, he's been able to spin magic from nothing.

The coach came to the Bears with a defined offensive vision. Almost each decision – rebuilding the trenches, utilizing the pass-catchers, turning the QB into a rhythm passer – has paid off. This is rare for a first-year head coach. And it's even more uncommon yet for a leader who entered the organization with the immense expectations Johnson did. For consecutive straight cycles, he was the top candidate on the head coaching market. However when it comes to selecting a leader, there are zero guarantees. Somehow, Johnson has lived up to expectations – and even surpassed them. He's demonstrated not just to be a scheme genius but the type of culture builder that can inject new life into an organization.

During a normal season, Johnson would be the runaway favorite. Yet the current is not a typical season!

The area where Johnson's candidacy comes a bit unstuck is on defense. The Chicago defense currently rank in the bottom third in defensive success rate. They are relying on takeaways, and takeaways are famously fickle. Defensive minds can emphasise ball disruption, but nobody can ensure it. Johnson is on the list because the offense is real. He's not higher because luck is doing too much of the defensive heavy lifting. With a few bounces of the ball, the Bears would be two victories worse off. It's been an exceptional transformation, and the core is established for sustained success. However Johnson falls short in this ranking.

4) The Jacksonville Jaguars Coach, His Team, 12-4

The Jaguars' coach is in a comparable position to Johnson. He's a fellow rookie head coach who has engineered a swift turnaround. Over the crucial final weeks of the year, he has his franchise quarterback playing the best all-around football of his professional life. And he's also spearheaded the transformation of a defense that now sits at number five in the NFL in EPA per play.

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

Coen walked into the Jaguars with an uncommonly inexperienced coaching staff. In contrast to Johnson, who surrounded themselves with the ideal coaching cocktail of youth and experience, Coen bet on newbies. Starting with the leader on down to coordinators to assistant coaches, the Jaguars are filled with first-timers. That type of setup is exciting on paper, but frequently fails in reality – with other teams are a cautionary tale – because everybody is learning a new job on the fly. But he has managed to bring everyone and all elements together.

After an initial hot beginning, there was a chance that the campaign 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. Instead, he simplified things. Jacksonville stopped pursuing explosive answers and started seeking consistent ones. Coen refocused the offense around key players and the ground attack, and asked Lawrence to use his legs more often.

The results are obvious. The Jags have won seven games in a row and will be the conference's No 3 playoff seed. Coen receives the slightest deduction in the rankings because he took over a skilled roster, but he has demonstrated he can maximize that talent.

3) Mike Macdonald, His Team, 13-3

Every Strong of the Year case has a pivotal decision. For the Seahawks coach, it was his quarterback choice.

Parting ways from a veteran, signing a new quarterback and pairing him with an innovative play-caller might have ended the season in the early weeks. Rather, it made it. By the mid point of the year, the new QB was an Most Valuable Player front-runner. He has cooled off since that time, slipping to 23rd in EPA per pass attempt over the second half of the schedule, putting him just one place ahead of other QBs.

Still