How This Bizarre Campaign Shattered the Traditional NFL Coach of the Year Mould.
Ordinarily, the National Football League's Coach of the Year honor adheres to a straightforward script. It frequently functions as a type of mea culpa. We regret we underestimated your squad in our preseason forecasts.
In theory, it's a clear-cut line: the skipper who engineered the most dramatic improvement wins the award. However, it sparks an yearly argument about expectations and whether we're actually rewarding excellent leadership or just the most shocking shock.
Yet the current competition is distinctly unique. The group of candidates is unusually deep. It has been the season of resurgences. The league has been unpredictable, with recent conference winners fading and longtime underperformers ascending in unison. During an typical year, a coach leading the his team to the top of the AFC would make him the clear favorite. Yet in such a wild and thrilling year, he's competing with multiple other elite candidates.
Below is how the hypothetical vote should shake out.
5) Ben Johnson, Chicago Bears, Their Record
Voters for Coach of the Year selectors love QBs. This is a tradition. Sean McVay in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. Should you fix a franchise QB, you're halfway home.
The Bears' head coach hasn't just fixed his young quarterback; he's freed him. In the right ecosystem, the QB has been afforded the chance to showcase his otherworldly ability. From midseason onward, the Bears sit at fourth in offensive EPA per play. This isn't a hot streak – it's prolonged performance. Under Johnson, the quarterback has become increasingly confident, less careless, and has eagerly surrendered to the system rather than improvising. It is an attack built entirely in Johnson's vision: a bully-ball run game, a steady helping of play-action passes and a imaginative passing attack that springs wide receiver receivers everywhere. The QB has taken advantage. And when easy reads haven't been available, he's been capable to conjure magic from broken plays.
The coach came to the Bears with a specific offensive vision. Almost every gamble – overhauling the trenches, highlighting the pass-catchers, turning the QB into a rhythm passer – has succeeded. This is uncommon for a rookie skipper. And it's even more uncommon still for a coach who walked into the building with the immense expectations he did. For two straight cycles, he was the most sought-after candidate on the head coaching market. However when it comes to hiring a head coach, there are no guarantees. Remarkably, Johnson has met the hype – and even exceeded them. He's demonstrated not just to be a offensive wizard but the kind of culture builder that can inject new life into an franchise.
In a normal season, he would be the runaway choice. Yet the current is not a normal campaign!
The area where his case runs a bit unstuck is on the defensive side. The Chicago defense presently rank 25th in defensive success rate. They are relying on turnovers, and turnovers are famously inconsistent. Coaches can focus on ball disruption, but nobody can ensure it. He is on the ballot because the offense is real. He's ranked lower because luck is doing an outsized share of the defense's heavy lifting. If not for a few breaks of the ball, the team would be several victories worse off. It's been an exceptional turnaround, and the foundation is in place for sustained success. But Johnson falls just short here.
4) The Jacksonville Jaguars Coach, His Team, Their Record
The Jaguars' coach is in a comparable spot to Johnson. He's another rookie leader who has engineered a rapid resurgence. Over the stretch run of the year, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the most complete all-around football of his career. And he's also overseen the overhaul of a defense that now sits at fifth in the league in EPA per play.
Even more impressively, he has mastered the intangibles aspects, which wasn't a certainty following his early press conference introduction and some of his preseason moves.
The coach took over the Jaguars with an exceptionally raw staff. In contrast to other coaches, who packed themselves with the ideal staff mix of new ideas and experience, Coen hired first-timers. From the leader on down to coordinators to position coaches, the Jaguars are filled with first-timers. That type of approach is intriguing in theory, but frequently collapses in reality – as past failures are a warning – because everyone is learning a their job in real-time. But he has pulled the entire group and all elements together.
After an initial hot beginning, there was a possibility that the campaign would veer off the rails. A midseason collapse had the Jags stumbling once more. That's typically when coaches overcorrect. Coen did not. Rather, he simplified the approach. Jacksonville stopped chasing explosive plays and started seeking reliable ones. The coach recentered the offense around key players and the ground attack, and encouraged his QB to use his mobility more.
The results are obvious. The Jaguars have won multiple games consecutively and will be the conference's No 3 playoff seed. Coen gets the slightest deduction in the standings because he inherited a skilled roster, but he has proven he can get the most out of that talent.
3) The Seattle Seahawks Coach, Seattle Seahawks, Their Record
Every Coach of the Year argument has a defining decision. For the Seahawks coach, it was his QB choice.
Moving on from a veteran, signing a different signal-caller and partnering him with an new play-caller could have ended the season in the early weeks. Instead, it shaped it. By the mid point of the year, the new QB was an MVP contender. He has regressed after that time, dropping to 23rd in efficiency per pass attempt over the second half of the schedule, putting him only one place ahead of other QBs.
Still
