How The Strange Campaign Shattered the Typical NFL Coach of the Year Blueprint.

Usually, the NFL's Head Coach of the Year award follows a straightforward pattern. It commonly functions as a type of apology. Our apologies we underestimated your franchise in our preseason predictions.

In theory, it's a clear-cut trajectory: the skipper who engineered the largest turnaround receives the award. In practice, it sparks an annual argument about preseason outlooks and whether we're truly rewarding superior coaching or merely the most shocking upset.

However this year's competition is distinctly different. The pool of contenders is unusually deep. It has been the season of comebacks. The league has been unpredictable, with reigning division champions fading and longtime underperformers improving in unison. During an typical year, a coach guiding the Denver Broncos to the summit of the conference would make him the stone-cold front-runner. But in this wild and thrilling year, he's up against several other elite candidates.

Below is how the projected ballot should shake out.

5) Ben Johnson, His Team, Their Record

Coach of the Year voters adore quarterbacks. They always have. Sean McVay in 2017. Another in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. When you fix a quarterback, you're well on your way to winning the award.

Ben Johnson not only fixed Caleb Williams; he's freed him. Given a proper ecosystem, Williams has been given the opportunity to display his otherworldly ability. Since Week 9, the Bears rank fourth in offensive EPA per play. That's not a hot streak – it's prolonged dominance. Under his guidance, the quarterback has become more confident, far less careless, and has willingly submitted to the system rather than going rogue. It is an offense built solely in the coach's image: a physical ground attack, a steady helping of play-action and a innovative aerial game that creates wide-open receivers consistently. The QB has taken advantage. And when easy reads haven't been there, he's been capable to spin magic out of nothing.

Johnson arrived to the Bears with a clear offensive philosophy. Almost every gamble – overhauling the offensive line, utilizing the pass-catchers, transforming the QB into a rhythm thrower – has paid off. That's uncommon for a rookie head coach. And it's even more uncommon yet for a leader who entered the organization with the kind of hype Johnson did. For two straight offseasons, he was the hottest name on the coaching carousel. But when it comes to hiring a leader, there are no sure things. Somehow, Johnson has met expectations – and even surpassed them. He's proven not just to be a scheme genius but the kind of culture builder that can breathe new life into an franchise.

During a typical season, Johnson would be the overwhelming choice. Yet this is not a typical year!

Where Johnson's candidacy runs a bit into trouble is on the defensive side. The Bears presently rank 25th in defensive efficiency. They are relying on takeaways, and takeaways are notoriously fickle. Coaches can stress creating turnovers, but no one can guarantee it. He is on the ballot because the offensive production is real. He's ranked lower because variance is doing an outsized share of the defensive heavy lifting. With a couple bounces of the ball, the team would be two wins behind. It's been an remarkable transformation, and the core is established for long-term success. However Johnson falls short in this ranking.

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

The Jaguars' coach is in a comparable spot to Johnson. He's another rookie leader who has orchestrated a dramatic resurgence. During the stretch run of the season, he has his franchise quarterback playing the best overall ball of his professional life. And he's also spearheaded the remaking of a defense that now sits at fifth in the NFL in Expected Points Added per play.

What's more notably, Coen has excelled at the intangibles stuff, which was not a given following his initial press conference appearances and some of his offseason decisions.

The coach walked into Jacksonville with an uncommonly inexperienced coaching staff. Unlike Johnson, who packed themselves with the ideal staff mix of new ideas and experience, he trusted newbies. Starting with the leader on down to assistants to assistant coaches, the Jags are stocked with rookies. That type of approach is exciting on paper, but frequently fails in practice – with other teams are a cautionary tale – because everybody is figuring out a new job on the fly. But Coen has pulled everyone and everything together.

Following an early strong beginning, there was a possibility that the season would veer off the rails. A mid-year collapse caused the Jags wobbling once more. That's typically when leaders panic and change too much. Coen didn't. Instead, he simplified things. Jacksonville stopped pursuing home-run plays and started hunting sustainable ones. The coach recentered the offense around key players and the running game, and asked Lawrence to use his mobility more.

The results are obvious. The Jags have won multiple games consecutively and will be the AFC's number three seed. Coen gets the tiniest deduction in the standings because he took over a skilled roster, but he has demonstrated he can get the most out of that roster.

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

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

Parting ways from a incumbent, bringing in a different signal-caller and partnering him with an innovative play-caller might have derailed the season in the early weeks. Instead, it made it. By the middle point of the season, the new QB was an MVP candidate. He has regressed since that hot streak, slipping to a lower rank in EPA per pass attempt over the second half of the schedule, putting him only a single place ahead of peers.

Still