🔗 Share this article

Usually, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year trophy follows a simple formula. It commonly serves as a type of apology. Our apologies we underestimated your franchise in our preseason projections.

In theory, it's a clear-cut path: the coach who oversaw the most dramatic resurgence wins the prize. In reality, it fuels an yearly argument about expectations and whether we're truly honoring excellent leadership or just the greatest shock.

However the current field is fundamentally unique. The list of nominees is unusually deep. It has been the campaign of comebacks. The NFL has been messy, with recent division champions falling away and longtime strugglers improving collectively. During an normal year, Sean Payton leading the his team to the summit of the AFC would make him the stone-cold favorite. But in this turbulent and fun season, he's up against multiple other exceptional candidates.

Here is how the projected ballot ought to look.

5) Ben Johnson, His Team, Their Record

Voters for Coach of the Year voters love quarterbacks. This is a tradition. A certain coach in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. A third in 2022. Should you transform a quarterback, you're halfway home.

Ben Johnson hasn't just fixed Caleb Williams; he's unleashed him. In the right environment, the QB has been afforded the chance to showcase his special ability. Since Week 9, the Bears sit at fourth in offensive Expected Points Added per play. That's not a brief surge – it's consistent performance. With Johnson, Williams has become increasingly confident, less reckless, and has eagerly submitted to the system instead of improvising. It is an offense designed solely in Johnson's image: a physical ground attack, a heavy helping of play-action passes and a innovative aerial game that springs wide-open receivers everywhere. The QB has thrived. And when easy reads haven't been there, he's been capable to conjure big plays out of nothing.

Johnson arrived to Chicago with a clear offensive blueprint. Almost every decision – overhauling the offensive line, utilizing the pass-catchers, turning Williams into a rhythm thrower – has paid off. That's rare for a rookie skipper. And it's rarer still for a leader who walked into the organization with the immense pressure Johnson did. For consecutive straight cycles, he was the most sought-after candidate on the coaching carousel. However when it comes to hiring a leader, there are zero guarantees. Remarkably, he has lived up to expectations – and even exceeded them. He's proven not only to be a scheme genius but the kind of leader that can inject new life into an franchise.

In a normal season, he would be the runaway choice. Yet this is not a normal season!

Where Johnson's candidacy comes slightly unstuck is on defense. The Chicago defense currently rank 25th in defensive efficiency. They are surviving on takeaways, and turnovers are famously unreliable. Coaches can focus on ball disruption, but nobody can ensure it. He is on the list because the offensive production is sustainable. He's not higher because variance is doing too much of the defensive work. With a few breaks of the ball, the Bears would be several victories behind. It's been an remarkable turnaround, and the core is in place for sustained winning. But Johnson falls short here.

4) Liam Coen, His Team, Their Record

The Jaguars' coach is in a similar spot to his counterpart. He's another rookie head coach who has masterminded a swift resurgence. During the crucial final weeks of the season, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the most complete all-around ball of his career. And he's also spearheaded the transformation of a defensive unit that now ranks fifth in the league in EPA per play.

Even more impressively, he has nailed the off-field aspects, which was not a guarantee following his initial public appearances and some of his preseason decisions.

The coach took over Jacksonville with an uncommonly raw staff. In contrast to Johnson, who packed their staff with the perfect staff mix of new ideas and experience, he bet on first-timers. Starting with the head coach himself to assistants to assistant coaches, the Jags are filled with first-timers. That type of approach is exciting on paper, but often fails in practice – with other teams are a warning – because everybody is learning a new job in real-time. But Coen has pulled everyone and all elements into sync.

Following an early strong start, there was a chance that the campaign would veer off the track. A mid-year setback had the Jags wobbling again. That's usually when coaches panic and change too much. Coen did not. Instead, he streamlined the approach. The offense stopped chasing explosive plays and started hunting reliable ones. Coen recentered the offense around his playmakers and the running game, and encouraged Lawrence to use his legs more.

The outcomes are evident. The Jags have won seven games consecutively and will be the AFC's No 3 playoff seed. Coen gets the slightest knock in the rankings because he inherited a talented team, but he has demonstrated he can get the most out of that roster.

3) The Seattle Seahawks Coach, His Team, 13-3

Each Strong of the Year case has a hinge moment. For the Seahawks coach, it was his quarterback decision.

Moving on from a veteran, bringing in a different quarterback and partnering him with an new play-caller could have ended the season in October. Instead, it defined it. Through the mid point of the season, the acquisition was an Most Valuable Player candidate. He has regressed after that time, slipping to 23rd in efficiency per dropback over the latter part of the season, putting him just a single place ahead of peers.

Still