How The Unusual Season Broke the Typical Coach of the Year Formula.
Ordinarily, the NFL's Head Coach of the Year trophy follows a straightforward formula. It commonly acts as a form of mea culpa. We regret we underestimated your squad in our pre-campaign projections.
On paper, it's a clear-cut line: the coach who oversaw the most dramatic improvement receives the prize. However, it creates an annual argument about expectations and whether we're actually honoring excellent coaching or simply the most shocking upset.
However this year's competition is fundamentally unique. The group of candidates is exceptionally talented. It has been the year of comebacks. The league has been messy, with recent conference winners declining and longtime strugglers ascending together. During an ordinary season, a coach leading the Denver Broncos to the top of the conference would make him the overwhelming front-runner. But in such a wild and entertaining year, he's facing several other exceptional candidates.
Here is how the hypothetical ballot should shake out.
5) Ben Johnson, His Team, 11-5
Voters for Coach of the Year selectors adore quarterbacks. This is a tradition. A certain coach in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. If you solve a franchise QB, you're well on your way to winning the award.
The Bears' head coach not only corrected Caleb Williams; he's freed him. In the right system, Williams has been afforded the chance to demonstrate his special talent. Since midseason onward, the Chicago offense sit at number four in offensive EPA per play. That's not a lucky run – it's sustained dominance. With his guidance, the quarterback has become increasingly confident, less reckless, and has eagerly submitted to the system rather than going rogue. It is an attack built entirely in the coach's image: a bully-ball ground attack, a heavy helping of play-action and a creative aerial game that frees wide-open targets all over the field. The QB has capitalized. And when clear throws haven't been available, he's been able to spin magic from broken plays.
The coach came to Chicago with a specific offensive blueprint. Virtually every gamble – overhauling the trenches, utilizing the pass-catchers, turning the QB into a rhythm thrower – has worked. This is uncommon for a rookie skipper. And it's even more uncommon yet for a leader who walked into the organization with the kind of pressure Johnson did. For two straight cycles, he was the hottest name on the head coaching market. But when it comes to selecting a leader, there are no sure things. Somehow, he has lived up to expectations – and even surpassed them. He's demonstrated not just to be a scheme wizard but the kind of leader that can breathe fresh energy into an franchise.
In a typical year, Johnson would be the overwhelming favorite. Yet this is not a typical year!
The area where his candidacy 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 fickle. Coaches can focus on ball disruption, but nobody can guarantee it. He is on the ballot 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 breaks of the ball, the Bears would be two wins worse off. It's been an remarkable turnaround, and the core is in place for sustained success. But Johnson comes up short here.
4) The Jacksonville Jaguars Coach, His Team, Their Record
Coen is in a similar situation to Johnson. He's another rookie leader who has masterminded a dramatic turnaround. Over the crucial final weeks of the season, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the most complete all-around football of his career. And he's also overseen the remaking of a defense that now ranks fifth in the league in EPA per play.
Even more impressively, Coen has mastered the intangibles aspects, which wasn't a guarantee after his initial press conference appearances and some of his offseason moves.
The coach took over the Jaguars with an uncommonly raw staff. Unlike other coaches, who surrounded their staff with the perfect coaching blend of new ideas and veteran savvy, Coen trusted first-timers. From the leader on down to assistants to assistant coaches, the Jaguars are stocked with rookies. That type of setup is intriguing in theory, but often collapses in practice – as past failures are a cautionary tale – because everyone is learning a their job on the fly. Yet he has managed to bring the entire group and all elements into sync.
Following an early hot start, there was a chance that the season would go off the track. A midseason collapse had the team wobbling again. That's usually when coaches panic and change too much. He didn't. Rather, he streamlined the approach. Jacksonville stopped chasing home-run answers and started hunting reliable ones. The coach recentered the attack around key players and the ground attack, and encouraged his QB to use his legs more.
The outcomes are evident. The Jaguars have won multiple games in a row and will be the conference's number three seed. Coen receives the tiniest knock in the standings 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
Every Coach of the Year case has a hinge decision. For the Seahawks coach, it was his quarterback choice.
Parting ways from a incumbent, bringing in a new signal-caller and pairing him with an innovative offensive coordinator could have derailed the campaign in the early weeks. Rather, it made it. Through the mid point of the year, the acquisition was an MVP contender. He has regressed after that hot streak, slipping to 23rd in efficiency per dropback over the second half of the schedule, placing him just a single spot ahead of other QBs.
Still
