How This Unusual Season Shattered the Conventional NFL Coach of the Year Blueprint.

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

Theoretically, it's a clear-cut line: the skipper who orchestrated the biggest turnaround receives the prize. In reality, it fuels an annual debate about expectations and whether we're truly honoring excellent coaching or merely the biggest shock.

Yet this year's competition is fundamentally different. The group of nominees is unusually strong. It has been the campaign of resurgences. The NFL has been chaotic, with recent division champions declining and longtime underperformers ascending collectively. During an normal year, Sean Payton guiding the Denver Broncos to the top of the conference would make him the stone-cold favorite. But in this wild and fun season, he's competing with several other exceptional coaches.

Below is how the hypothetical ballot should shake out.

5) Ben Johnson, His Team, Their Record

Voters for Coach of the Year voters are fascinated by signal-callers. This is a tradition. Sean McVay in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. When you fix a franchise QB, you're well on your way to winning the award.

Ben Johnson didn't merely fixed his young quarterback; he's unlocked him. Within an ideal system, the QB has been given the opportunity to demonstrate his rare ability. From midseason onward, the Chicago offense rank fourth in offensive Expected Points Added per play. That's not a lucky run – it's sustained performance. Under Johnson, the quarterback has become more decisive, less careless, and has willingly submitted to the gameplan rather than going rogue. It is an offense designed solely in Johnson's vision: a bully-ball run game, a heavy helping of play-action passes and a imaginative aerial game that frees wide-open receivers all over the field. Williams has taken advantage. And when easy reads haven't been there, he's been able to spin big plays from nothing.

Johnson arrived to Chicago with a defined offensive vision. Almost every bet – overhauling the trenches, utilizing the pass-catchers, turning Williams into a timing-based passer – has worked. This is uncommon for a rookie head coach. And it's rarer still for a leader who entered the organization with the level of hype he did. For consecutive straight cycles, he was the hottest candidate on the coaching market. However when it comes to hiring a leader, there are zero sure things. Somehow, Johnson has met expectations – and even exceeded them. He's demonstrated not only to be a offensive genius but the type of leader that can inject fresh energy into an franchise.

During a normal year, Johnson would be the overwhelming favorite. But the current is not a normal campaign!

The area where Johnson's case comes a bit into trouble is on the defensive side. The Bears presently rank 25th in defensive success rate. They are relying on takeaways, and takeaways are famously inconsistent. Coaches can stress creating turnovers, but nobody can guarantee it. He is on the list because the offensive production is real. He's ranked lower because variance is doing an outsized share of the defensive heavy lifting. If not for a few bounces of the ball, the team would be two victories worse off. It's been an exceptional transformation, and the foundation is established for sustained success. However he falls just short here.

4) Liam Coen, His Team, Their Record

The Jaguars' coach is in a comparable spot to Johnson. He's a fellow rookie head coach who has masterminded a swift turnaround. Over the stretch run of the season, he has his franchise quarterback playing the most complete all-around football of his professional life. And he's also spearheaded the overhaul of a defensive unit that now sits at number five in the league in Expected Points Added per play.

What's more notably, he has mastered the leadership aspects, which was not a given after his initial press conference introduction and some of his offseason moves.

Coen walked into Jacksonville with an exceptionally inexperienced coaching staff. In contrast to other coaches, who packed themselves with the perfect coaching cocktail of youth and veteran savvy, he trusted newbies. Starting with the leader on down to assistants to position coaches, the Jags are filled with rookies. That kind of setup is exciting in theory, but often collapses in practice – as past failures are a warning – because everybody is learning a their job on the fly. But he has managed to bring the entire group and all elements together.

Following an early strong start, there was a chance that the season would go off the rails. A mid-year setback caused the Jags wobbling once more. That's usually when leaders panic and change too much. He didn't. Instead, he simplified the approach. Jacksonville stopped chasing home-run answers and started seeking reliable ones. Coen refocused the offense around key players and the running game, and encouraged his QB to use his mobility more often.

The results are evident. The Jags have won seven games consecutively and will be the conference's number three playoff seed. Coen gets the tiniest knock in the rankings because he took over a talented roster, but he has demonstrated he can maximize that talent.

3) Mike Macdonald, His Team, Their Record

Each Strong of the Year case has a defining moment. For the Seahawks coach, it was his quarterback decision.

Moving on from a incumbent, signing a new quarterback and partnering him with an innovative play-caller might have derailed the season in October. Rather, it shaped it. Through the middle point of the season, the new QB was an MVP front-runner. He has fallen away since that hot streak, dropping to 23rd in EPA per dropback over the second half of the schedule, putting him just a single place ahead of peers.

Still