🔗 Share this article

Usually, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year trophy adheres to a simple pattern. It commonly functions as a type of apology. Our apologies we underestimated your team in our pre-campaign projections.

On paper, it's a clear-cut line: the skipper who engineered the biggest improvement receives the prize. In practice, it sparks an yearly argument about preseason outlooks and whether we're genuinely rewarding superior leadership or merely the biggest surprise.

But this year's competition is distinctly unique. The list of nominees is unusually deep. It has been the campaign of resurgences. The league has been chaotic, with reigning conference winners fading and recent also-rans ascending collectively. Under an normal season, Sean Payton leading the his team to the summit of the conference would make him the stone-cold front-runner. But in such a wild and entertaining year, he's competing with five other elite coaches.

This is how the hypothetical vote should shake out.

5) Ben Johnson, His Team, 11-5

Coach of the Year voters adore signal-callers. This is a tradition. A certain coach in 2017. Another in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. If you solve a quarterback, you're well on your way to winning the award.

Ben Johnson not only fixed Caleb Williams; he's unlocked him. Within an ideal environment, Williams has been afforded the chance to display his special ability. From midseason onward, the Chicago offense sit at number four in offensive EPA per play. This isn't a lucky run – it's sustained performance. Under his guidance, the quarterback has become more decisive, far less reckless, and has eagerly submitted to the system rather than freelancing. It is an attack constructed entirely in Johnson's image: a physical ground attack, a heavy helping of play-action and a imaginative passing attack that springs wide receiver receivers all over the field. Williams has thrived. And when easy reads weren't there, he's been able to create magic out of broken plays.

Johnson came to Chicago with a specific offensive blueprint. Virtually each bet – rebuilding the trenches, utilizing the pass-catchers, turning the QB into a timing-based thrower – has paid off. This is uncommon for a rookie head coach. And it's rarer still for a coach who entered the organization with the level of hype Johnson did. For two straight offseasons, he was the most sought-after candidate on the head coaching market. But when it comes to selecting a leader, there are zero 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 kind of leader that can breathe new life into an organization.

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

Where his case runs slightly unstuck is on defense. The Bears currently rank in the bottom third in defensive efficiency. They are living on turnovers, and turnovers are famously inconsistent. Defensive minds can emphasise creating turnovers, but no one can ensure it. He is on the list because the offense is real. He's ranked lower because variance is doing too much of the defense's heavy lifting. With a couple bounces of the ball, the team would be several wins behind. It's been an exceptional turnaround, and the core is in place for long-term success. However Johnson comes up just short in this ranking.

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

The Jaguars' coach is in a similar situation to his counterpart. He's another rookie leader who has engineered a rapid turnaround. Over the crucial final weeks of the year, he has his franchise quarterback playing the most complete all-around ball of his professional life. And he's also overseen the overhaul of a defense that now ranks fifth in the NFL in EPA per play.

Even more notably, Coen has excelled at the leadership stuff, which wasn't a certainty following his initial public appearances and some of his offseason moves.

Coen took over the Jaguars with an exceptionally raw coaching staff. In contrast to Johnson, who surrounded themselves with the ideal staff cocktail of youth and experience, Coen bet on newbies. From the leader himself to coordinators to assistant coaches, the Jags are filled with first-timers. That kind of approach is intriguing in theory, but often collapses in reality – with other teams are a cautionary tale – because everyone is learning a their job in real-time. Yet Coen has managed to bring the entire group and everything together.

After an early strong start, there was a possibility that the season would go off the rails. A midseason setback caused the Jags wobbling again. That's typically when coaches panic and change too much. Coen didn't. Rather, he simplified the approach. The offense stopped pursuing home-run answers and started hunting consistent ones. The coach refocused the attack around key players and the running game, and asked Lawrence to use his legs more often.

The outcomes are evident. The Jaguars have won multiple games consecutively and will be the AFC's No 3 playoff seed. He gets the slightest deduction in the rankings because he took over 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

Each Coach of the Year narrative has a hinge moment. For the Seahawks coach, it was his QB decision.

Parting ways from a veteran, signing a new quarterback and pairing him with an innovative play-caller could have ended the season in the early weeks. Instead, it shaped it. By the mid point of the year, the acquisition was an Most Valuable Player contender. He has cooled off after that time, slipping to a lower rank in efficiency per pass attempt over the second half of the season, putting him just one place ahead of other QBs.

Still