🔗 Share this article

Ordinarily, the NFL's Coach of the Year honor adheres to a straightforward formula. It often functions as a kind of mea culpa. Sorry we got wrong your squad in our pre-campaign predictions.

Theoretically, it's a clear-cut path: the skipper who orchestrated the most dramatic resurgence receives the prize. In reality, it fuels an yearly debate about expectations and whether we're actually honoring excellent coaching or merely the most shocking shock.

But the current race is fundamentally different. The group of contenders is exceptionally deep. It has been the year of resurgences. The NFL has been chaotic, with reigning conference winners declining and longtime strugglers rising in unison. In an ordinary year, Sean Payton guiding the his team to the top of the AFC would make him the stone-cold favorite. But in this chaotic and fun year, he's competing with multiple other exceptional candidates.

Here is how the hypothetical ballot should shake out.

5) Ben Johnson, Chicago Bears, 11-5

Voters for Coach of the Year voters are fascinated by quarterbacks. This is a tradition. A certain coach in 2017. Another in 2020. A third in 2022. When you fix a quarterback, you're halfway to winning the award.

Ben Johnson didn't merely corrected his young quarterback; he's freed him. Within an ideal ecosystem, Williams has been given the opportunity to demonstrate his otherworldly talent. Since Week 9, the Chicago offense sit at number four in offensive EPA per play. That's not a brief surge – it's consistent excellence. With his guidance, Williams has become more decisive, less careless, and has eagerly surrendered to the system instead of improvising. It is an offense constructed solely in Johnson's vision: a bully-ball run game, a heavy dose of play-action passes and a innovative aerial game that frees wide-open targets all over the field. The QB has taken advantage. And when openings weren't there, he's been able to create magic out of broken plays.

Johnson arrived to the Bears with a clear offensive blueprint. Almost every bet – overhauling the trenches, utilizing the pass-catchers, transforming Williams into a timing-based passer – has paid off. This is uncommon for a rookie skipper. And it's even more uncommon yet for a coach who entered the building with the immense hype he did. For two straight offseasons, he was the top name on the head coaching market. But when it comes to selecting a head coach, there are zero sure things. Somehow, Johnson has met expectations – and even surpassed them. He's proven not just to be a offensive genius but the kind of culture builder that can inject new life into an franchise.

In a ordinary season, he would be the clear-cut favorite. But the current is not a normal campaign!

Where his case runs a bit into trouble is on the defensive side. The Chicago defense presently rank 25th in defensive efficiency. They are living on takeaways, and takeaways are notoriously unreliable. Defensive minds can stress creating turnovers, but nobody can guarantee it. He is on the list because the offensive production is real. He's not higher because variance is doing too much of the defensive heavy lifting. If not for a few bounces of the ball, the team would be several victories worse off. It's been an exceptional turnaround, and the core is in place for sustained winning. However he comes up short in this ranking.

4) The Jacksonville Jaguars Coach, Jacksonville Jaguars, Their Record

Coen is in a comparable situation to Johnson. He's a fellow first-time head coach who has orchestrated a rapid turnaround. During the stretch run of the year, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the best all-around football of his professional life. And he's also spearheaded the remaking of a defense that now sits at number five in the NFL in EPA per play.

What's more impressively, he has excelled at the off-field stuff, which was not a given after his initial public appearances and some of his preseason moves.

Coen took over the Jaguars with an uncommonly raw staff. In contrast to other coaches, who packed their staff with the perfect staff blend of youth and experience, he bet on newbies. Starting with the head coach on down to assistants to assistant coaches, the Jaguars are filled with rookies. That type of approach is exciting in theory, but often collapses in practice – with other teams are a cautionary tale – because everybody is figuring out a new job in real-time. But he has pulled the entire group and all elements into sync.

Following an early hot beginning, there was a risk that the season would veer off the track. A midseason setback had the Jags wobbling again. That's typically when leaders overcorrect. He didn't. Instead, he simplified things. The offense stopped chasing home-run plays and started seeking sustainable ones. The coach refocused the offense around key players and the ground attack, and asked Lawrence to use his legs more often.

The results are clear. The Jags have won multiple games in a row and will be the AFC's number three seed. Coen gets the slightest deduction in the rankings because he inherited a talented team, but he has proven he can maximize that talent.

3) Mike Macdonald, Seattle Seahawks, Their Record

Each Strong of the Year narrative has a hinge decision. For Mike Macdonald, it was his quarterback move.

Parting ways from a incumbent, signing a new quarterback and partnering him with an innovative offensive coordinator might have derailed the campaign in October. Rather, it shaped it. Through the mid point of the season, the acquisition was an MVP candidate. He has fallen away since that time, slipping to 23rd in efficiency per pass attempt over the latter part of the season, putting him just one spot ahead of other QBs.

Still