🔗 Share this article

Usually, the NFL's Head Coach of the Year award adheres to a simple pattern. It often functions as a form of apology. Our apologies we underestimated your franchise in our preseason projections.

In theory, it's a direct path: the skipper who orchestrated the largest turnaround receives the award. In reality, it sparks an yearly debate about expectations and whether we're truly honoring superior leadership or merely the most shocking shock.

However this year's race is distinctly unique. The list of candidates is remarkably strong. It has been the season of comebacks. The league has been messy, with reigning conference winners fading and recent strugglers improving collectively. Under an normal season, a coach guiding the Denver Broncos to the summit of the conference would make him the clear favorite. Yet in such a wild and entertaining year, he's facing multiple other exceptional candidates.

Here is how the hypothetical vote ought to be structured.

5) Ben Johnson, His Team, 11-5

Coach of the Year voters adore quarterbacks. This is a tradition. Sean McVay in 2017. Another in 2020. A third in 2022. Should you transform a franchise QB, you're halfway home.

Ben Johnson hasn't just corrected his young quarterback; he's freed him. Within an ideal ecosystem, Williams has been given the opportunity to demonstrate his rare ability. From midseason onward, the Bears sit at fourth in offensive EPA per play. That's not a hot streak – it's sustained dominance. With Johnson, the quarterback has become increasingly confident, less careless, and has eagerly submitted to the gameplan rather than improvising. It is an attack constructed entirely in the coach's image: a bully-ball run game, a heavy helping of play-action passes and a creative aerial game that frees wide receiver targets everywhere. Williams has thrived. And when openings haven't been there, he's been able to spin magic from broken plays.

The coach came to Chicago with a clear offensive philosophy. Almost each bet – rebuilding the trenches, highlighting the pass-catchers, turning the QB into a timing-based thrower – has succeeded. That's uncommon for a first-year head coach. And it's rarer still for a leader who entered the organization with the immense expectations Johnson did. For two straight cycles, he was the most sought-after candidate on the head coaching carousel. But when it comes to selecting a head coach, there are zero guarantees. Remarkably, Johnson has met the hype – and even surpassed them. He's demonstrated not just to be a scheme wizard but the kind of culture builder that can inject new life into an franchise.

In a typical year, Johnson would be the overwhelming favorite. But this is not a normal campaign!

Where his candidacy comes slightly unstuck is on defense. The Chicago defense presently sit in the bottom third in defensive success rate. They are living on turnovers, and takeaways are notoriously fickle. Defensive minds can emphasise creating turnovers, but no one can ensure it. He is on the list because the offense is real. He's ranked lower because variance is doing an outsized share of the defensive work. If not for a couple bounces of the ball, the Bears would be two victories behind. It's been an remarkable turnaround, and the foundation is established for sustained winning. However he falls short here.

4) Liam Coen, Jacksonville Jaguars, 12-4

Coen is in a similar situation to his counterpart. He's a fellow rookie head coach who has orchestrated a swift resurgence. Over the crucial final weeks of the year, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the finest overall ball of his career. And he's also spearheaded the overhaul of a defense that now sits at number five in the NFL in EPA per play.

Even more notably, he has nailed the leadership stuff, which wasn't a given after his initial public appearances and some of his preseason moves.

Coen walked into the Jaguars with an exceptionally inexperienced staff. In contrast to other coaches, who packed their staff with the perfect coaching cocktail of youth and experience, he hired first-timers. From the head coach himself to assistants to position coaches, the Jaguars are filled with first-timers. That type of approach is exciting on paper, but frequently collapses in practice – as past failures are a cautionary tale – because everyone is figuring out a their job in real-time. Yet he has managed to bring the entire group and all elements together.

Following an early hot start, there was a chance that the campaign would go off the rails. A midseason setback had the Jags wobbling again. That's usually when coaches panic and change too much. Coen did not. Rather, he streamlined things. The offense stopped chasing explosive answers and started seeking reliable ones. Coen refocused the attack around his playmakers and the running game, and asked his QB to use his mobility more often.

The outcomes are evident. The Jaguars have won multiple games in a row and will be the conference's No 3 playoff seed. He gets the tiniest deduction in the standings because he inherited a skilled team, but he has proven he can get the most out of that roster.

3) Mike Macdonald, His Team, 13-3

Each Strong of the Year narrative has a pivotal moment. For the Seahawks coach, it was his quarterback move.

Parting ways from a incumbent, bringing in a different signal-caller and pairing him with an innovative play-caller might have derailed the campaign in October. Rather, it shaped it. Through the middle point of the season, the new QB was an MVP front-runner. He has cooled off after that time, dropping to a lower rank in efficiency per pass attempt over the second half of the schedule, placing him only one spot ahead of other QBs.

Still