🔗 Share this article

Typically, the NFL's Coach of the Year trophy adheres to a simple script. It commonly acts as a type of apology. We regret we misjudged your squad in our pre-campaign projections.

In theory, it's a direct line: the skipper who orchestrated the largest improvement wins the award. However, it fuels an annual discussion about expectations and whether we're actually honoring superior coaching or merely the greatest upset.

However the current race is fundamentally unique. The pool of contenders is exceptionally deep. It has been the campaign of turnarounds. The league has been unpredictable, with recent conference champions falling away and recent strugglers improving together. In an ordinary season, Sean Payton guiding the Denver Broncos to the top of the conference would make him the clear favorite. But in such a chaotic and entertaining year, he's up against multiple other elite candidates.

Here is how the projected ballot should shake out.

5) Ben Johnson, Chicago Bears, 11-5

Voters for Coach of the Year voters love quarterbacks. History shows this. 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 home.

Ben Johnson hasn't just fixed Caleb Williams; he's unlocked him. Given a proper environment, the QB has been afforded the opportunity to demonstrate his otherworldly talent. From midseason onward, the Bears rank number four in offensive EPA per play. This isn't a lucky run – it's prolonged performance. With his guidance, Williams has become increasingly confident, far less careless, and has willingly surrendered to the gameplan rather than freelancing. It is an offense built entirely in the coach's vision: a physical run game, a consistent helping of play-action passes and a imaginative passing attack that creates wide-open receivers all over the field. Williams has taken advantage. And when clear throws haven't been available, he's been able to create magic from nothing.

The coach arrived to Chicago with a defined offensive blueprint. Virtually each gamble – overhauling the offensive line, highlighting the tight ends, transforming the QB into a timing-based passer – has paid off. That's rare for a first-year head coach. And it's even more uncommon still for a coach who walked into the building with the level of pressure Johnson did. For consecutive straight cycles, he was the hottest candidate on the coaching carousel. However when it comes to hiring a head coach, there are zero sure things. Somehow, Johnson has met the hype – and even surpassed them. He's demonstrated not only to be a scheme genius but the type of leader that can inject new life into an organization.

In a typical season, he would be the clear-cut choice. Yet this isn't a normal year!

The area where Johnson's case comes a bit unstuck is on the defensive side. The Bears presently rank 25th in defensive efficiency. They are living on turnovers, and turnovers are famously unreliable. Coaches can focus on creating turnovers, but no one can ensure it. He is on the list because the offense is real. He's not higher because variance is doing an outsized share of the defense's work. With a couple bounces of the ball, the Bears would be several victories behind. It's been an remarkable turnaround, and the core is in place for sustained winning. However Johnson comes up just short here.

4) Liam Coen, Jacksonville Jaguars, 12-4

The Jaguars' coach is in a similar spot to Johnson. He's another rookie head coach who has engineered a rapid turnaround. Over the crucial final weeks of the year, he has his franchise quarterback playing the most complete overall 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.

Even more impressively, Coen has mastered the intangibles aspects, which was not a given following his early press conference appearances and some of his offseason decisions.

The coach walked into Jacksonville with an exceptionally inexperienced staff. In contrast to Johnson, who surrounded their staff with the ideal coaching blend of new ideas and experience, Coen trusted newbies. Starting with the head coach himself to assistants to assistant coaches, the Jaguars are stocked with rookies. That kind of setup is intriguing in theory, but often collapses in practice – with other teams are a warning – because everyone is learning a their job on the fly. Yet Coen has pulled everyone and everything into sync.

After an early hot start, there was a chance that the campaign would veer off the track. A mid-year collapse had the team stumbling once more. That's typically when leaders panic and change too much. Coen didn't. Instead, he streamlined the approach. Jacksonville stopped chasing home-run plays and started hunting reliable ones. Coen refocused the attack around his playmakers and the ground attack, and asked Lawrence to use his legs more.

The outcomes are obvious. The Jags have won seven games consecutively and will be the conference's No 3 seed. He receives the tiniest deduction in the rankings because he inherited a talented 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 choice.

Parting ways from a incumbent, signing a different signal-caller and partnering him with an new play-caller might have ended the season in October. Rather, it shaped it. Through the mid point of the year, the new QB was an Most Valuable Player candidate. He has regressed since that hot streak, dropping to 23rd in efficiency per dropback over the latter part of the schedule, placing him only a single spot ahead of other QBs.

Still