The Way This Unusual Season Redefined the Conventional Coach of the Year Formula.
Ordinarily, the National Football League's Coach of the Year award adheres to a straightforward formula. It often functions as a kind of mea culpa. Sorry we misjudged your squad in our pre-campaign forecasts.
On paper, it's a clear-cut line: the skipper who oversaw the biggest turnaround is handed the award. In practice, it creates an annual argument about expectations and whether we're truly honoring superior leadership or simply the greatest upset.
Yet the current field is distinctly unique. The pool of contenders is remarkably strong. It has been the season of turnarounds. The NFL has been chaotic, with recent conference champions falling away and longtime strugglers ascending in unison. Under an typical season, a coach guiding the his team to the summit of the conference would make him the stone-cold front-runner. But in such a wild and thrilling year, he's competing with multiple other exceptional coaches.
This is how the ideal ballot ought to shake out.
5) Ben Johnson, His Team, 11-5
Coach of the Year voters adore signal-callers. This is a tradition. Sean McVay in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. A third in 2022. When you fix a quarterback, you're halfway home.
The Bears' head coach didn't merely fixed Caleb Williams; he's unleashed him. In the right system, Williams has been afforded the opportunity to demonstrate his special talent. From Week 9, the Chicago offense rank fourth in offensive EPA per play. That's not a lucky run – it's prolonged excellence. Under his guidance, Williams has become increasingly confident, less reckless, and has eagerly surrendered to the gameplan rather than going rogue. It is an attack constructed entirely in the coach's vision: a bully-ball ground attack, a consistent helping of play-action passes and a creative passing attack that creates wide receiver targets consistently. The QB has taken advantage. And when openings haven't been there, he's been capable to conjure magic from nothing.
Johnson arrived to the Bears with a specific offensive philosophy. Virtually each bet – overhauling the offensive line, highlighting the pass-catchers, transforming Williams into a rhythm thrower – has succeeded. This is uncommon for a rookie skipper. And it's even more uncommon yet for a coach who walked into the building with the immense pressure Johnson did. For consecutive straight offseasons, he was the most sought-after candidate on the coaching market. However when it comes to selecting a leader, there are zero sure things. Somehow, he has met expectations – and even exceeded them. He's proven not only to be a scheme dork but the kind of culture builder that can inject new life into an organization.
During a normal year, Johnson would be the overwhelming choice. Yet this is not a typical campaign!
Where his case comes a bit unstuck is on the defensive side. The Chicago defense presently rank in the bottom third in defensive success rate. They are relying on turnovers, and turnovers are notoriously inconsistent. Defensive minds can stress creating turnovers, but nobody can ensure it. He is on the list because the offensive production is real. He's not higher because variance is doing an outsized share of the defensive heavy lifting. If not for a few breaks of the ball, the team would be two wins behind. It's been an remarkable turnaround, and the core is in place for long-term winning. But Johnson falls just short here.
4) The Jacksonville Jaguars Coach, His Team, 12-4
Coen is in a comparable situation to Johnson. He's another rookie leader who has orchestrated a swift resurgence. During the crucial final weeks of the year, he has his franchise quarterback playing the best all-around ball of his career. And he's also spearheaded the remaking of a defensive unit that now sits at number five in the NFL in EPA per play.
Even more notably, Coen has mastered the off-field aspects, which was not a guarantee following his early press conference introduction and some of his preseason decisions.
Coen took over the Jaguars with an exceptionally inexperienced staff. Unlike Johnson, who packed their staff with the ideal staff blend of new ideas and veteran savvy, Coen trusted newbies. From the leader himself to coordinators to assistant coaches, the Jags are filled with first-timers. That type of setup is exciting on paper, but frequently collapses in reality – as past failures are a warning – because everyone is figuring out a new job on the fly. Yet he has managed to bring the entire group and everything together.
Following an initial hot beginning, there was a risk that the campaign would go off the track. A mid-year setback caused the Jags stumbling once more. That's typically when coaches panic and change too much. Coen did not. Instead, he simplified things. Jacksonville stopped pursuing home-run answers and started seeking consistent ones. The coach refocused the offense around key players and the running game, and asked his QB to use his legs more often.
The results are obvious. The Jags have won multiple games in a row and will be the AFC's No 3 seed. Coen gets the slightest deduction in the rankings because he took over a talented roster, but he has demonstrated he can get the most out of that talent.
3) Mike Macdonald, His Team, 13-3
Every Coach of the Year narrative has a pivotal decision. For Mike Macdonald, it was his QB decision.
Parting ways from a veteran, signing a new quarterback and pairing him with an innovative play-caller might have ended the campaign in October. Instead, it made it. Through the middle point of the season, the acquisition was an Most Valuable Player contender. He has regressed after that time, slipping to a lower rank in EPA per dropback over the second half of the schedule, placing him just one place ahead of other QBs.
Still