🔗 Share this article

Typically, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year trophy adheres to a straightforward pattern. It commonly serves as a form of mea culpa. Our apologies we misjudged your team in our pre-campaign predictions.

Theoretically, it's a clear-cut trajectory: the skipper who engineered the most dramatic improvement wins the prize. In reality, it sparks an yearly argument about expectations and whether we're genuinely rewarding excellent leadership or simply the greatest upset.

But the current competition is distinctly unique. The list of nominees is exceptionally strong. It has been the year of resurgences. The league has been unpredictable, with reigning division winners declining and longtime strugglers improving collectively. Under an ordinary season, a coach leading the his team to the top of the conference would make him the clear front-runner. Yet in such a chaotic and thrilling year, he's competing with multiple other elite candidates.

This is how the projected vote could be structured.

5) The Chicago Bears Coach, His Team, 11-5

Voters for Coach of the Year voters are fascinated by signal-callers. This is a tradition. Sean McVay in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. A third in 2022. If you fix a franchise QB, you're well on your way home.

The Bears' head coach didn't merely corrected Caleb Williams; he's unleashed him. In the right system, Williams has been afforded the opportunity to showcase his special ability. From midseason onward, the Chicago offense sit at number four in offensive Expected Points Added per play. That's not a lucky run – it's consistent dominance. With his guidance, Williams has become more decisive, less reckless, and has willingly surrendered to the system instead of freelancing. It is an offense designed solely in the coach's image: a bully-ball ground attack, a heavy dose of play-action and a creative passing attack that creates wide-open targets consistently. The QB has thrived. And when openings haven't been there, he's been able to conjure big plays out of nothing.

Johnson arrived to Chicago with a defined offensive blueprint. Almost each bet – rebuilding the trenches, highlighting the pass-catchers, transforming the QB into a timing-based thrower – has paid off. That's rare for a rookie head coach. And it's even more uncommon yet for a leader who entered the organization with the immense pressure Johnson did. For two straight offseasons, he was the top name on the head coaching market. But when it comes to selecting a leader, there are no sure things. Somehow, Johnson has lived up to the hype – and even surpassed them. He's proven not only to be a scheme dork but the type of leader that can inject fresh energy into an franchise.

In a ordinary season, he would be the runaway choice. But the current isn't a normal year!

The area where Johnson's candidacy comes slightly unstuck is on defense. The Bears presently sit 25th in defensive success rate. They are living on takeaways, and takeaways are notoriously fickle. Coaches can focus on ball disruption, but no one can guarantee it. Johnson is on the ballot because the offensive production is real. He's ranked lower because variance is doing an outsized share of the defensive heavy lifting. With a couple bounces of the ball, the Bears would be two victories worse off. It's been an exceptional turnaround, and the foundation is established for long-term winning. However he comes up short in this ranking.

4) The Jacksonville Jaguars Coach, His Team, 12-4

The Jaguars' coach is in a similar spot to his counterpart. He's a fellow first-time head coach who has orchestrated a rapid turnaround. Over the crucial final weeks of the year, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the most complete 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 Expected Points Added per play.

What's more impressively, he has excelled at the intangibles stuff, which was not a given after his initial press conference introduction and some of his offseason decisions.

The coach walked into the Jaguars with an exceptionally inexperienced staff. In contrast to other coaches, who packed themselves with the ideal staff blend of youth and experience, he bet on first-timers. From the leader himself to assistants to assistant coaches, the Jags are stocked with rookies. That type of approach is exciting in theory, but often fails in reality – as past failures are a warning – because everybody is figuring out a their job in real-time. But he has managed to bring everyone and all elements together.

Following an initial strong beginning, there was a risk that the campaign would go off the track. A midseason setback caused the Jags wobbling again. That's typically when leaders panic and change too much. Coen didn't. Rather, he simplified the approach. Jacksonville stopped chasing home-run plays and started seeking consistent ones. Coen refocused the offense around key players and the running game, and encouraged Lawrence to use his legs more often.

The results are obvious. The Jaguars have won multiple games in a row and will be the AFC's No 3 seed. Coen gets the slightest deduction in the standings because he inherited a talented roster, but he has demonstrated he can get the most out of that roster.

3) Mike Macdonald, His Team, 13-3

Each Strong of the Year case has a hinge decision. For Mike Macdonald, it was his QB decision.

Moving on from a incumbent, signing a different signal-caller and partnering him with an innovative offensive coordinator could have derailed the campaign in the early weeks. Rather, it shaped it. By the middle point of the year, the new QB was an MVP candidate. He has fallen away after that hot streak, dropping to 23rd in EPA per dropback over the latter part of the schedule, placing him only a single place ahead of other QBs.

Still