🔗 Share this article

Typically, the NFL's Coach of the Year trophy follows a simple formula. It frequently serves as a form of apology. Sorry we underestimated your team in our pre-campaign predictions.

In theory, it's a direct line: the skipper who orchestrated the most dramatic resurgence is handed the award. In practice, it sparks an annual debate about preseason outlooks and whether we're actually honoring superior leadership or merely the greatest shock.

But this year's field is distinctly different. The group of contenders is unusually talented. It has been the year of turnarounds. The NFL has been unpredictable, with reigning division winners fading and recent strugglers rising in unison. Under an normal year, Sean Payton guiding the his team to the summit of the AFC would make him the clear favorite. Yet in such a turbulent and thrilling year, he's facing multiple other exceptional coaches.

Here is how the hypothetical ballot could shake out.

5) Ben Johnson, His Team, Their Record

Voters for Coach of the Year voters love QBs. History shows this. A certain coach in 2017. Another in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. When you transform a quarterback, you're halfway to winning the award.

The Bears' head coach didn't merely corrected Caleb Williams; he's freed him. Within an ideal system, the QB has been given the chance to showcase his rare ability. Since midseason onward, the Bears rank fourth in offensive EPA per play. This isn't a brief surge – it's sustained excellence. With Johnson, Williams has become more decisive, less careless, and has eagerly submitted to the scheme rather than improvising. It is an offense built entirely in Johnson's vision: a bully-ball run game, a heavy dose of play-action and a creative aerial game that frees wide-open targets consistently. The QB has thrived. And when openings haven't been there, he's been able to conjure big plays from broken plays.

Johnson arrived to the Bears with a specific offensive vision. Virtually every bet – rebuilding the trenches, utilizing the pass-catchers, turning Williams into a timing-based passer – has paid off. This is rare for a rookie head coach. And it's even more uncommon still for a leader who entered the building with the level of expectations Johnson did. For two straight cycles, he was the most sought-after candidate on the coaching market. But when it comes to selecting a head coach, there are no sure things. Remarkably, Johnson has lived up to the hype – and even exceeded them. He's demonstrated not just to be a scheme wizard but the type of culture builder that can inject fresh energy into an organization.

In a normal season, he would be the overwhelming favorite. Yet this is not a typical campaign!

The area where his candidacy runs a bit into trouble is on defense. The Chicago defense presently rank 25th in defensive success rate. They are relying on turnovers, and turnovers are notoriously fickle. Coaches can emphasise creating turnovers, but no one can guarantee it. Johnson is on the list because the offense is legitimate. He's ranked lower because variance is doing an outsized share of the defense's heavy lifting. With a couple breaks of the ball, the team would be two victories behind. It's been an remarkable turnaround, and the core is in place for long-term winning. But he comes up short in this ranking.

4) Liam Coen, His Team, Their Record

The Jaguars' coach is in a comparable position to his counterpart. He's another rookie head coach who has engineered a swift turnaround. Over the stretch run of the season, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the best all-around football of his professional life. And he's also overseen the overhaul of a defense that now sits at fifth in the NFL in Expected Points Added per play.

Even more notably, Coen has mastered the intangibles stuff, which was not a given after his initial public appearances and some of his preseason moves.

Coen walked into the Jaguars with an uncommonly raw staff. Unlike other coaches, who packed their staff with the ideal staff cocktail of youth and veteran savvy, Coen trusted newbies. Starting with the leader on down to assistants to assistant coaches, the Jaguars are stocked with first-timers. That kind of setup is intriguing on paper, but frequently collapses in practice – with other teams are a cautionary tale – because everybody is figuring out a new job on the fly. But he has managed to bring everyone and everything into sync.

Following an early strong start, there was a risk that the season would go off the rails. A mid-year collapse had the team stumbling once more. That's usually when leaders overcorrect. He did not. Instead, he streamlined the approach. The offense stopped chasing explosive answers and started hunting sustainable ones. The coach refocused the offense around his playmakers and the running game, and encouraged Lawrence to use his legs more often.

The results are clear. The Jags have won multiple games consecutively and will be the AFC's number three seed. He gets the tiniest deduction in the standings because he inherited a skilled roster, but he has demonstrated he can maximize that talent.

3) Mike Macdonald, His Team, 13-3

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

Moving on from a incumbent, signing a different signal-caller and pairing him with an new offensive coordinator could have ended the campaign in October. 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, slipping to 23rd in EPA per dropback over the latter part of the schedule, placing him just one spot ahead of other QBs.

Still