How The Strange Season Broke the Typical Coach of the Year Mold.
Ordinarily, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year trophy follows a simple formula. It frequently acts as a type of apology. Sorry we misjudged your team in our preseason projections.
On paper, it's a direct line: the skipper who orchestrated the biggest improvement receives the award. In practice, it creates an annual debate about preseason outlooks and whether we're truly honoring superior leadership or just the biggest upset.
However the latest race is fundamentally different. The pool of contenders is remarkably deep. It has been the year of resurgences. The NFL has been messy, with recent division winners fading and longtime also-rans ascending in unison. During an normal season, a coach guiding the Denver Broncos to the summit of the conference would make him the clear favorite. But in this chaotic and thrilling year, he's up against multiple other elite coaches.
Below is how the projected ballot could be structured.
5) The Chicago Bears Coach, Chicago Bears, 11-5
Coach of the Year voters adore quarterbacks. This is a tradition. A certain coach in 2017. Another in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. If you transform a franchise QB, you're well on your way home.
The Bears' head coach didn't merely fixed his young quarterback; he's freed him. In the right ecosystem, Williams has been given the chance to demonstrate his otherworldly talent. Since midseason onward, the Chicago offense rank fourth in offensive EPA per play. This isn't a brief surge – it's consistent excellence. With his guidance, Williams has become more decisive, far less careless, and has willingly surrendered to the system instead of freelancing. It is an offense designed entirely in Johnson's vision: a physical run game, a steady dose of play-action and a creative aerial game that frees wide-open targets everywhere. The QB has taken advantage. And when openings haven't been available, he's been capable to conjure magic out of nothing.
Johnson came to the Bears with a defined offensive vision. Almost every decision – overhauling the trenches, highlighting the tight ends, transforming the QB into a timing-based passer – has worked. That's uncommon for a rookie skipper. And it's rarer yet for a coach who entered the organization with the kind of hype he did. For two straight cycles, he was the hottest name on the coaching carousel. However when it comes to selecting a head coach, there are zero guarantees. Somehow, Johnson has met expectations – and even surpassed them. He's proven not only to be a scheme dork but the type of leader that can inject new life into an organization.
During a normal season, he would be the runaway choice. But this is not a normal campaign!
Where Johnson's candidacy comes slightly into trouble is on defense. The Chicago defense presently sit 25th in defensive efficiency. They are living on turnovers, and takeaways are notoriously unreliable. Coaches can stress ball disruption, but nobody can ensure it. Johnson is on the list because the offensive production is sustainable. He's ranked lower because variance is doing an outsized share of the defense's work. If not for a few breaks of the ball, the Bears would be several wins worse off. It's been an remarkable turnaround, and the core is in place for sustained success. But he comes up short in this ranking.
4) The Jacksonville Jaguars Coach, His Team, Their Record
Coen is in a similar position to Johnson. He's another rookie head coach who has engineered a swift turnaround. Over the stretch run of the season, he has his franchise quarterback playing the best all-around football of his professional life. And he's also overseen the transformation of a defense that now sits at number five in the league in Expected Points Added per play.
Even more impressively, Coen has nailed the leadership stuff, which was not a certainty after his early public appearances and some of his preseason decisions.
Coen took over Jacksonville with an exceptionally raw coaching staff. In contrast to Johnson, who packed themselves with the perfect coaching mix of new ideas and experience, he bet on first-timers. From the leader himself to coordinators to assistant coaches, the Jaguars are filled with rookies. That type of approach is intriguing in theory, but often fails in practice – as past failures are a warning – because everyone is learning a their job on the fly. Yet he has pulled the entire group and all elements into sync.
After an initial strong start, there was a risk that the season would veer off the rails. A mid-year collapse caused the team stumbling again. That's typically when coaches overcorrect. He did not. Instead, he streamlined the approach. The offense stopped chasing home-run answers and started seeking sustainable ones. Coen recentered the attack around his playmakers and the ground attack, and asked his QB to use his legs more often.
The results are obvious. The Jags have won seven games in a row and will be the AFC's number three seed. He gets the tiniest knock in the rankings because he took over a talented roster, but he has demonstrated he can get the most out of that talent.
3) Mike Macdonald, Seattle Seahawks, Their Record
Each Strong of the Year narrative has a defining decision. For the Seahawks coach, it was his QB decision.
Parting ways from a incumbent, bringing in a new quarterback and partnering him with an innovative offensive coordinator could have derailed the campaign in the early weeks. Rather, it defined it. Through the middle point of the year, the acquisition was an Most Valuable Player candidate. He has cooled off after that hot streak, slipping to a lower rank in EPA per pass attempt over the latter part of the season, putting him just one place ahead of other QBs.
Still
