🔗 Share this article

Usually, the NFL's Coach of the Year honor adheres to a straightforward script. It commonly acts as a kind of mea culpa. Sorry we got wrong your squad in our pre-campaign forecasts.

In theory, it's a clear-cut path: the coach who oversaw the largest improvement receives the prize. In reality, it sparks an annual argument about preseason outlooks and whether we're actually honoring excellent coaching or just the greatest surprise.

However the current field is profoundly different. The pool of contenders is remarkably talented. It has been the campaign of resurgences. The NFL has been unpredictable, with reigning conference winners fading and recent underperformers ascending together. Under an typical year, Sean Payton guiding the Denver Broncos to the summit of the AFC would make him the clear front-runner. But in this turbulent and thrilling season, he's up against several other outstanding coaches.

Here is how the ideal ballot should shake out.

5) The Chicago Bears Coach, Chicago Bears, Their Record

Coach of the Year voters are fascinated by QBs. This is a tradition. Sean McVay in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. When you fix a quarterback, you're halfway home.

Ben Johnson not only corrected his young quarterback; he's unleashed him. Within an ideal system, Williams has been afforded the opportunity to showcase his rare talent. Since Week 9, the Bears rank number four in offensive Expected Points Added per play. That's not a hot streak – it's consistent performance. Under his guidance, the quarterback has become increasingly confident, less careless, and has willingly submitted to the gameplan instead of going rogue. It is an offense designed solely in Johnson's image: a physical ground attack, a steady dose of play-action passes and a innovative passing attack that springs wide receiver targets all over the field. The QB has taken advantage. And when openings haven't been available, he's been capable to conjure magic out of broken plays.

The coach arrived to the Bears with a specific offensive philosophy. Virtually each gamble – rebuilding the offensive line, featuring the pass-catchers, transforming Williams into a rhythm thrower – has worked. This is rare for a first-year skipper. And it's even more uncommon still for a leader who entered the building with the level of pressure he did. For consecutive straight cycles, he was the top candidate on the head coaching carousel. However when it comes to selecting a head coach, there are zero guarantees. Remarkably, he has met expectations – and even surpassed them. He's demonstrated not only to be a scheme wizard but the kind of leader that can inject fresh energy into an organization.

During a ordinary year, Johnson would be the overwhelming favorite. Yet this is not a normal year!

The area where Johnson's case runs a bit unstuck is on the defensive side. The Chicago defense currently sit in the bottom third in defensive success rate. They are surviving on takeaways, and takeaways are famously unreliable. Defensive minds can emphasise creating turnovers, but nobody can ensure it. Johnson is on the ballot because the offense is legitimate. He's not higher because variance is doing too much of the defense's work. With a couple bounces of the ball, the Bears would be several wins behind. It's been an exceptional turnaround, and the foundation is in place for sustained winning. But Johnson comes up short here.

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

Coen is in a comparable position to his counterpart. He's a fellow first-time head coach who has orchestrated a swift resurgence. During the crucial final weeks of the year, he has his franchise quarterback playing the best overall football of his professional life. And he's also spearheaded the overhaul of a defensive unit that now sits at fifth in the NFL in EPA per play.

What's more impressively, he has mastered the off-field stuff, which wasn't a guarantee following his early press conference introduction and some of his preseason moves.

The coach walked into Jacksonville with an exceptionally raw coaching staff. Unlike other coaches, who surrounded their staff with the perfect staff mix of youth and veteran savvy, Coen trusted first-timers. From the leader on down to coordinators to assistant coaches, the Jags are filled with rookies. That type of setup is intriguing in theory, but frequently fails in practice – as past failures are a cautionary tale – because everybody is figuring out a their job in real-time. Yet Coen has managed to bring everyone and everything together.

After an early strong beginning, there was a chance that the campaign would veer off the rails. A midseason collapse had the Jags stumbling once more. That's usually when leaders panic and change too much. He didn't. Rather, he simplified the approach. Jacksonville stopped pursuing explosive plays and started seeking sustainable ones. Coen refocused the offense around his playmakers and the ground attack, and asked his QB to use his legs more.

The outcomes are evident. The Jags have won multiple games consecutively and will be the conference's No 3 playoff seed. Coen receives the tiniest deduction in the standings because he inherited a talented roster, but he has demonstrated he can maximize that roster.

3) The Seattle Seahawks Coach, Seattle Seahawks, Their Record

Every Coach of the Year argument has a hinge decision. For the Seahawks coach, it was his QB decision.

Moving on from a incumbent, bringing in a different signal-caller and pairing him with an innovative offensive coordinator might have ended the campaign in the early weeks. Instead, it defined it. Through the middle point of the season, the new QB was an Most Valuable Player contender. He has fallen away after that hot streak, dropping to a lower rank in efficiency per pass attempt over the latter part of the season, placing him only one spot ahead of peers.

Still