🔗 Share this article

Typically, the NFL's Coach of the Year trophy follows a simple script. It frequently serves as a form of apology. Our apologies we underestimated your team in our preseason predictions.

On paper, it's a clear-cut path: the skipper who engineered the largest turnaround receives the award. In practice, it creates an annual debate about preseason outlooks and whether we're actually honoring excellent coaching or merely the biggest upset.

However this year's competition is fundamentally different. The pool of contenders is remarkably talented. It has been the season of comebacks. The league has been chaotic, with reigning division champions falling away and longtime strugglers ascending collectively. Under an ordinary season, Sean Payton guiding the Denver Broncos to the summit of the conference would make him the stone-cold favorite. But in such a turbulent and fun season, he's facing several other elite coaches.

Below is how the ideal ballot ought to be structured.

5) The Chicago Bears Coach, His Team, Their Record

Voters for Coach of the Year voters are fascinated by QBs. This is a tradition. Sean McVay in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. A third in 2022. Should you solve a franchise QB, you're halfway to winning the award.

The Bears' head coach not only corrected Caleb Williams; he's freed him. In the right ecosystem, the QB has been afforded the opportunity to display his special talent. Since Week 9, the Chicago offense sit at number four in offensive EPA per play. This isn't a hot streak – it's prolonged dominance. With Johnson, the quarterback has become increasingly decisive, far less careless, and has eagerly surrendered to the gameplan rather than going rogue. It is an attack designed entirely in the coach's vision: a bully-ball ground attack, a steady dose of play-action and a creative passing attack that springs wide-open receivers everywhere. The QB has taken advantage. And when easy reads haven't been there, he's been capable to spin big plays out of nothing.

Johnson arrived to the Bears with a defined offensive philosophy. Almost every decision – rebuilding the trenches, featuring the tight ends, turning Williams into a timing-based thrower – has paid off. That's rare for a rookie skipper. And it's even more uncommon still for a leader who walked into the building with the immense hype he did. For consecutive straight offseasons, he was the hottest candidate on the coaching market. However when it comes to selecting a leader, there are zero sure things. Somehow, he has met the hype – and even surpassed them. He's proven not just to be a scheme wizard but the kind of culture builder that can inject new life into an franchise.

During a ordinary season, he would be the overwhelming choice. Yet the current isn't a normal campaign!

The area where his case comes a bit unstuck is on the defensive side. The Bears presently rank in the bottom third in defensive efficiency. They are relying on turnovers, and turnovers are famously fickle. Coaches can focus on ball disruption, but nobody can guarantee it. He is on the ballot because the offensive production is sustainable. He's not higher because variance is doing too much of the defensive heavy lifting. With a few bounces of the ball, the Bears would be several wins behind. It's been an remarkable turnaround, and the core is in place for long-term winning. However Johnson comes up just short in this ranking.

4) Liam Coen, His Team, Their Record

The Jaguars' coach is in a comparable situation to his counterpart. He's another rookie leader who has masterminded a rapid resurgence. During the crucial final weeks of the year, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the best all-around ball of his career. And he's also spearheaded the remaking of a defense that now sits at number five in the NFL in EPA per play.

Even more impressively, Coen has mastered the intangibles stuff, which wasn't a guarantee following his early press conference introduction and some of his offseason decisions.

The coach took over Jacksonville with an uncommonly raw coaching staff. Unlike other coaches, who packed themselves with the perfect coaching mix of youth and experience, he bet on first-timers. From the head coach himself to assistants to assistant coaches, the Jags are filled with first-timers. That kind of approach is intriguing in theory, but frequently fails in reality – with other teams are a cautionary tale – because everyone is learning a new job in real-time. Yet he has pulled everyone and everything into sync.

Following an early hot start, there was a risk that the season would go off the track. A mid-year setback caused the team wobbling again. That's usually when leaders overcorrect. He didn't. Rather, he simplified things. Jacksonville stopped pursuing explosive plays and started seeking reliable ones. Coen refocused the attack around key players and the running game, and encouraged Lawrence to use his mobility more.

The results are clear. The Jags have won multiple games in a row and will be the AFC's No 3 playoff seed. He receives the tiniest knock in the standings because he inherited a skilled roster, but he has demonstrated he can get the most out of that talent.

3) The Seattle Seahawks Coach, His Team, Their Record

Each Coach of the Year narrative has a hinge moment. For the Seahawks coach, it was his QB decision.

Parting ways from a veteran, bringing in a new quarterback and partnering him with an new offensive coordinator could have derailed the campaign in the early weeks. Rather, it made it. Through the mid point of the year, the new QB was an Most Valuable Player contender. He has regressed since that time, dropping to 23rd in efficiency per dropback over the second half of the season, placing him just a single place ahead of other QBs.

Still