How This Bizarre Campaign Shattered the Typical NFL Coach of the Year Blueprint.

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

Theoretically, it's a direct path: the skipper who orchestrated the largest improvement is handed the award. However, it creates an yearly discussion about preseason outlooks and whether we're truly honoring excellent leadership or just the biggest shock.

But the current field is fundamentally different. The list of contenders is exceptionally strong. It has been the campaign of comebacks. The NFL has been unpredictable, with recent division champions fading and longtime strugglers rising collectively. In an ordinary season, Sean Payton leading the Denver Broncos to the summit of the conference would make him the stone-cold favorite. Yet in such a turbulent and entertaining year, he's up against multiple other outstanding candidates.

Here is how the hypothetical ballot could look.

5) Ben Johnson, His Team, 11-5

Coach of the Year voters are fascinated by quarterbacks. History shows this. Sean McVay in 2017. Another in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. If you transform a quarterback, you're halfway to winning the award.

The Bears' head coach not only fixed his young quarterback; he's unlocked him. In the right environment, the QB has been given the chance to display his otherworldly ability. Since Week 9, the Bears rank number four in offensive EPA per play. That's not a hot streak – it's prolonged performance. Under Johnson, Williams has become more confident, less reckless, and has eagerly submitted to the system instead of improvising. It is an offense built entirely in the coach's vision: a bully-ball ground attack, a steady helping of play-action and a imaginative aerial game that creates wide receiver targets consistently. Williams has taken advantage. And when openings haven't been available, he's been capable to conjure big plays from broken plays.

Johnson came to the Bears with a defined offensive vision. Virtually each gamble – overhauling the offensive line, featuring the tight ends, transforming the QB into a timing-based thrower – has paid off. That's uncommon for a first-year skipper. And it's rarer yet for a leader who walked into the organization with the kind of pressure Johnson did. For two straight offseasons, he was the most sought-after candidate on the head coaching carousel. However when it comes to selecting a leader, there are no guarantees. Remarkably, he has lived up to the hype – and even exceeded them. He's demonstrated not only to be a offensive genius but the type of leader that can breathe new life into an organization.

During a normal year, he would be the clear-cut favorite. Yet this isn't a normal season!

Where Johnson's case comes a bit into trouble is on defense. The Chicago defense presently rank 25th in defensive efficiency. They are relying on takeaways, and takeaways are famously inconsistent. Defensive minds can focus on creating turnovers, but nobody can guarantee it. He is on the ballot because the offense is sustainable. He's not higher because variance is doing too much of the defensive heavy lifting. With a few breaks of the ball, the team would be several wins behind. It's been an remarkable transformation, and the core is established for long-term winning. But Johnson falls just short here.

4) Liam Coen, Jacksonville Jaguars, Their Record

The Jaguars' coach is in a comparable situation to Johnson. He's a fellow first-time leader who has orchestrated a dramatic resurgence. During the crucial final weeks of the year, he has his franchise quarterback playing the most complete all-around football of his career. And he's also spearheaded the remaking of a defense that now ranks number five in the NFL in Expected Points Added per play.

What's more notably, he has excelled at the leadership stuff, which wasn't a given after his early press conference introduction and some of his preseason moves.

The coach took over Jacksonville with an uncommonly raw staff. In contrast to Johnson, who surrounded their staff with the perfect staff mix of youth and veteran savvy, he trusted newbies. Starting with the head coach on down to assistants to position coaches, the Jaguars are filled with rookies. That kind of approach is intriguing on paper, but often collapses in practice – with other teams are a cautionary tale – because everyone is learning a new job on the fly. Yet Coen has managed to bring everyone and everything into sync.

After an early hot beginning, there was a chance that the season would veer off the track. A mid-year setback caused the team wobbling again. That's usually when coaches overcorrect. He didn't. Instead, he simplified things. Jacksonville stopped chasing home-run plays and started hunting consistent ones. The coach refocused the offense around his playmakers and the running game, and asked his QB to use his mobility more.

The outcomes are evident. The Jags have won seven games in a row and will be the conference's No 3 playoff seed. Coen receives the slightest deduction in the standings because he inherited a skilled team, but he has demonstrated he can maximize that talent.

3) Mike Macdonald, Seattle Seahawks, Their Record

Every Strong of the Year case has a pivotal decision. For the Seahawks coach, it was his quarterback choice.

Parting ways from a veteran, bringing in a new signal-caller and partnering him with an new play-caller might have ended the campaign in the early weeks. Instead, it made it. Through the mid point of the season, the acquisition was an Most Valuable Player contender. He has fallen away since that time, dropping to 23rd in EPA per dropback over the second half of the season, putting him just one place ahead of other QBs.

Still