The Way This Unusual Season Redefined the Traditional Coach of the Year Formula.
Usually, the NFL's Head Coach of the Year award adheres to a simple pattern. It commonly acts as a form of apology. We regret we underestimated your squad in our preseason forecasts.
On paper, it's a direct path: the coach who oversaw the most dramatic improvement wins the award. In practice, it fuels an annual debate about expectations and whether we're truly honoring excellent leadership or simply the greatest shock.
However the latest field is fundamentally unique. The pool of contenders is exceptionally deep. It has been the season of comebacks. The league has been unpredictable, with reigning conference champions declining and recent strugglers improving together. In an ordinary year, Sean Payton leading the his team to the top of the AFC would make him the overwhelming favorite. Yet in this turbulent and fun year, he's up against five other exceptional candidates.
Below is how the ideal ballot could be structured.
5) Ben Johnson, His Team, 11-5
Coach of the Year selectors adore quarterbacks. History shows this. A certain coach in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. A third in 2022. If you fix a franchise QB, you're halfway to winning the award.
Ben Johnson not only corrected Caleb Williams; he's unleashed him. In the right ecosystem, Williams has been given the chance to display his rare talent. Since midseason onward, the Bears sit at fourth in offensive EPA per play. This isn't a hot streak – it's sustained performance. Under his guidance, the quarterback has become more decisive, less careless, and has willingly submitted to the scheme rather than improvising. It is an attack built solely in the coach's image: a bully-ball run game, a consistent dose of play-action passes and a imaginative passing attack that frees wide-open receivers consistently. The QB has thrived. And when clear throws haven't been available, he's been able to conjure big plays out of nothing.
Johnson came to the Bears with a clear offensive vision. Almost every gamble – rebuilding the trenches, utilizing the pass-catchers, turning the QB into a timing-based passer – has paid off. That's rare for a rookie head coach. And it's rarer still for a leader who entered the building with the kind of expectations Johnson did. For two straight offseasons, he was the most sought-after candidate on the coaching carousel. But when it comes to hiring a leader, there are zero sure things. Somehow, Johnson has met expectations – and even surpassed them. He's proven not just to be a offensive dork but the type of culture builder that can breathe new life into an organization.
During a typical year, he would be the clear-cut choice. Yet the current isn't a normal campaign!
The area where his case comes a bit into trouble is on defense. The Chicago defense presently rank in the bottom third in defensive success rate. They are living on turnovers, and takeaways are famously unreliable. Defensive minds can stress ball disruption, but no one can guarantee it. Johnson is on the ballot because the offensive production is real. He's not higher because variance is doing too much of the defensive heavy lifting. With a few breaks of the ball, the Bears would be two victories behind. It's been an exceptional transformation, and the foundation is in place for long-term winning. But he comes up short in this ranking.
4) Liam Coen, Jacksonville Jaguars, Their Record
Coen is in a comparable spot to his counterpart. He's another rookie leader who has engineered a swift resurgence. During the stretch run of the season, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the most complete overall ball of his career. And he's also overseen the overhaul of a defensive unit that now ranks number five in the league in Expected Points Added per play.
Even more impressively, he has mastered the leadership aspects, which was not a certainty following his early public appearances and some of his offseason decisions.
The coach took over Jacksonville with an exceptionally inexperienced coaching staff. Unlike Johnson, who packed themselves with the perfect staff cocktail of new ideas and veteran savvy, Coen hired first-timers. From the head coach himself to assistants to position coaches, the Jags are filled with rookies. That kind of setup is intriguing on paper, but often collapses in reality – as past failures are a warning – because everybody is figuring out a their job on the fly. But he has pulled everyone and all elements into sync.
After an early strong beginning, there was a risk that the season would veer off the rails. A midseason setback caused the Jags stumbling again. That's typically when leaders panic and change too much. Coen did not. Instead, he streamlined things. The offense stopped pursuing home-run answers and started seeking sustainable ones. The coach refocused the attack around his playmakers and the running game, and asked his QB to use his mobility more often.
The outcomes are obvious. The Jaguars have won multiple games consecutively and will be the AFC's number three playoff seed. He receives the slightest knock in the rankings because he took over a talented roster, but he has proven he can maximize that roster.
3) Mike Macdonald, His Team, 13-3
Every Strong of the Year case has a defining decision. For Mike Macdonald, it was his quarterback move.
Parting ways from a incumbent, signing a new signal-caller and partnering him with an new offensive coordinator could have derailed the campaign in October. Rather, it shaped it. Through the middle point of the season, the acquisition was an MVP candidate. He has fallen away after that hot streak, dropping to 23rd in EPA per pass attempt over the latter part of the season, placing him only one place ahead of peers.
Still