🔗 Share this article

Typically, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year award follows a simple formula. It often functions as a kind of mea culpa. Our apologies we got wrong your franchise in our pre-campaign forecasts.

Theoretically, it's a direct path: the skipper who engineered the most dramatic turnaround wins the award. In practice, it fuels an annual argument about expectations and whether we're truly honoring superior coaching or merely the biggest shock.

Yet the latest race is distinctly unique. The list of contenders is exceptionally strong. It has been the season of comebacks. The NFL has been chaotic, with reigning division champions declining and longtime strugglers ascending together. Under an normal season, a coach leading the Denver Broncos to the top of the AFC would make him the stone-cold favorite. But in this chaotic and fun year, he's up against multiple other elite candidates.

Below is how the hypothetical vote should be structured.

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. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. A third in 2022. Should you fix a franchise QB, you're well on your way to winning the award.

The Bears' head coach hasn't just fixed his young quarterback; he's freed him. In the right system, Williams has been given the chance to showcase his otherworldly talent. Since Week 9, the Chicago offense sit at fourth in offensive EPA per play. That's not a lucky run – it's sustained excellence. Under his guidance, the quarterback has become increasingly decisive, far less reckless, and has willingly surrendered to the system rather than freelancing. It is an offense designed entirely in the coach's image: a physical ground attack, a steady helping of play-action passes and a innovative aerial game that creates wide receiver receivers consistently. Williams has capitalized. And when clear throws weren't there, he's been capable to spin magic out of nothing.

Johnson came to the Bears with a clear offensive philosophy. Virtually each gamble – overhauling the offensive line, utilizing the pass-catchers, transforming the QB into a rhythm passer – has paid off. This is rare for a rookie head coach. And it's even more uncommon yet for a leader who walked into the organization with the immense expectations Johnson did. For consecutive straight cycles, he was the top name on the coaching market. But when it comes to selecting a leader, there are no guarantees. Remarkably, he has lived up to the hype – and even exceeded them. He's demonstrated not only to be a offensive dork but the type of leader that can breathe new life into an organization.

In a typical year, Johnson would be the clear-cut choice. But this is not a typical campaign!

The area where his candidacy runs a bit into trouble is on defense. The Bears currently rank 25th in defensive efficiency. They are relying on turnovers, and turnovers are notoriously inconsistent. Coaches can focus on creating turnovers, but nobody can ensure it. Johnson is on the list because the offensive production is legitimate. He's not higher because luck is doing an outsized share of the defense's heavy lifting. With a few breaks of the ball, the Bears would be several wins behind. It's been an remarkable turnaround, and the core is in place for sustained winning. However Johnson falls short in this ranking.

4) Liam Coen, Jacksonville Jaguars, Their Record

Coen is in a comparable spot to his counterpart. He's another first-time leader who has orchestrated a rapid resurgence. During the crucial final weeks of the year, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the most complete all-around ball of his professional life. And he's also spearheaded the transformation of a defense that now ranks number five in the NFL in Expected Points Added per play.

Even more notably, he has mastered the leadership stuff, which was not a certainty after his initial public appearances and some of his preseason moves.

The coach walked into the Jaguars with an exceptionally inexperienced staff. In contrast to Johnson, who surrounded their staff with the ideal coaching cocktail of youth and veteran savvy, he bet on first-timers. From the leader on down to coordinators to position coaches, the Jaguars are filled with rookies. That type of setup is exciting in theory, but often collapses in reality – as past failures are a warning – because everyone is learning a their job on the fly. Yet Coen has pulled everyone and everything into sync.

Following an early hot beginning, there was a possibility that the season would go off the rails. A mid-year collapse had the team wobbling once more. That's typically when coaches panic and change too much. Coen did not. Rather, he streamlined the approach. The offense stopped chasing home-run plays and started hunting reliable ones. Coen refocused the offense around key players and the running game, and asked his QB to use his legs more.

The outcomes are obvious. The Jags have won seven games in a row and will be the conference's number three seed. Coen gets the tiniest knock in the rankings because he took over a skilled roster, but he has proven he can get the most out of that roster.

3) Mike Macdonald, His Team, Their Record

Each Strong 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 different quarterback and partnering him with an innovative offensive coordinator could have ended the campaign in October. Instead, it defined it. By the middle point of the year, the acquisition was an Most Valuable Player contender. He has regressed after that hot streak, slipping to a lower rank in efficiency per pass attempt over the second half of the season, putting him just one place ahead of other QBs.

Still