🔗 Share this article

Ordinarily, the NFL's Head Coach of the Year honor follows a simple pattern. It often serves as a kind of mea culpa. Sorry we underestimated your squad in our preseason forecasts.

Theoretically, it's a direct line: the skipper who engineered the most dramatic turnaround receives the prize. However, it fuels an annual debate about preseason outlooks and whether we're actually honoring excellent leadership or just the most shocking upset.

However this year's competition is profoundly different. The group of candidates is exceptionally strong. It has been the year of comebacks. The NFL has been chaotic, with reigning division winners declining and longtime strugglers improving in unison. In an typical season, a coach guiding the Denver Broncos to the top of the AFC would make him the stone-cold favorite. But in such a wild and entertaining year, he's facing five other exceptional candidates.

Below is how the projected vote should be structured.

5) The Chicago Bears Coach, Chicago Bears, 11-5

Coach of the Year voters love QBs. They always have. A certain coach in 2017. Another in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. If you transform a franchise QB, you're well on your way home.

The Bears' head coach not only corrected his young quarterback; he's unlocked him. In the right system, the QB has been given the chance to display his rare ability. Since Week 9, the Chicago offense sit at fourth in offensive Expected Points Added per play. That's not a lucky run – it's sustained performance. With Johnson, Williams has become increasingly decisive, less reckless, and has willingly submitted to the scheme rather than improvising. It is an attack designed entirely in the coach's vision: a physical run game, a steady dose of play-action and a innovative passing attack that springs wide receiver receivers consistently. The QB has thrived. And when easy reads haven't been there, he's been able to conjure magic out of broken plays.

The coach arrived to the Bears with a clear offensive blueprint. Almost each gamble – rebuilding the trenches, featuring the pass-catchers, turning the QB into a rhythm passer – has succeeded. That's uncommon for a rookie head coach. And it's even more uncommon still for a leader who entered the building with the kind of expectations he did. For two straight offseasons, he was the most sought-after candidate on the coaching market. However when it comes to selecting a leader, there are no guarantees. Somehow, he has met the hype – and even exceeded them. He's demonstrated not only to be a offensive genius but the kind of culture builder that can inject fresh energy into an franchise.

During a typical season, he would be the runaway favorite. But the current isn't a typical season!

Where Johnson's case runs slightly into trouble is on defense. The Chicago defense currently sit in the bottom third in defensive efficiency. They are surviving on takeaways, and takeaways are notoriously fickle. Defensive minds can focus on creating turnovers, but no one can guarantee it. He is on the ballot because the offense is legitimate. He's ranked lower because variance is doing too much of the defense's heavy lifting. With a few breaks of the ball, the team would be several victories behind. It's been an exceptional transformation, and the core is established for sustained winning. However he comes up short in this ranking.

4) The Jacksonville Jaguars Coach, Jacksonville Jaguars, 12-4

The Jaguars' coach is in a comparable spot to his counterpart. He's another first-time head coach who has masterminded a rapid turnaround. During the stretch run of the year, he has his franchise quarterback playing the best all-around ball of his professional life. And he's also spearheaded the overhaul of a defense that now ranks fifth in the NFL in EPA per play.

Even more impressively, he has excelled at the leadership stuff, which wasn't a guarantee after his early press conference introduction and some of his offseason moves.

The coach took over the Jaguars with an uncommonly raw coaching staff. In contrast to other coaches, who packed themselves with the ideal staff cocktail of new ideas and experience, he hired newbies. Starting with the leader on down to coordinators to position coaches, the Jaguars are filled with rookies. That type of setup is intriguing in theory, but frequently collapses in practice – as past failures are a warning – because everyone is learning a their job in real-time. But Coen has managed to bring everyone and all elements into sync.

Following an initial hot beginning, there was a risk that the campaign would go off the rails. A mid-year setback caused the Jags stumbling again. That's typically when leaders panic and change too much. He didn't. Instead, he streamlined things. The offense stopped chasing explosive plays and started hunting sustainable ones. Coen recentered the offense around his playmakers and the ground attack, and asked his QB to use his legs more.

The outcomes are clear. The Jaguars have won multiple games consecutively and will be the conference's No 3 seed. He receives the tiniest deduction in the rankings because he inherited a talented team, but he has demonstrated he can maximize that roster.

3) The Seattle Seahawks Coach, His Team, 13-3

Every Strong of the Year narrative has a pivotal decision. For Mike Macdonald, it was his QB move.

Moving on from a veteran, signing a different quarterback and pairing him with an innovative offensive coordinator might have ended the season in October. Instead, it defined it. By the mid point of the year, the new QB was an Most Valuable Player front-runner. He has regressed after that time, slipping to 23rd in EPA per dropback over the second half of the schedule, putting him just one spot ahead of peers.

Still