How This Strange Campaign Broke the Traditional Coach of the Year Mould.

Typically, the NFL's Head Coach of the Year award follows a straightforward formula. It commonly serves as a form of mea culpa. Sorry we underestimated your squad in our preseason forecasts.

In theory, it's a clear-cut line: the skipper who engineered the largest resurgence receives the award. However, it sparks an annual discussion about expectations and whether we're truly honoring excellent leadership or merely the biggest upset.

Yet this year's competition is profoundly different. The group of candidates is unusually deep. It has been the season of comebacks. The NFL has been messy, with reigning conference winners falling away and recent strugglers ascending in unison. Under an typical season, a coach leading the his team to the summit of the conference would make him the stone-cold favorite. But in such a wild and thrilling year, he's competing with five other exceptional candidates.

Below is how the hypothetical ballot should shake out.

5) Ben Johnson, His Team, 11-5

Coach of the Year selectors are fascinated by quarterbacks. They always have. Sean McVay in 2017. Another in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. If you solve a quarterback, you're halfway home.

Ben Johnson not only fixed his young quarterback; he's freed him. Given a proper environment, the QB has been given the chance to display his special talent. Since Week 9, the Bears rank fourth in offensive Expected Points Added per play. That's not a lucky run – it's sustained dominance. Under his guidance, Williams has become increasingly confident, less reckless, and has eagerly submitted to the gameplan instead of freelancing. It is an attack built solely in Johnson's vision: a bully-ball run game, a consistent helping of play-action and a imaginative aerial game that frees wide-open targets everywhere. Williams has capitalized. And when easy reads weren't available, he's been capable to create magic out of broken plays.

The coach came to the Bears with a specific offensive vision. Almost each gamble – rebuilding the trenches, highlighting the pass-catchers, transforming the QB into a rhythm thrower – has worked. That's rare for a first-year head coach. And it's rarer yet for a coach who walked into the organization with the kind of expectations he did. For two straight cycles, he was the hottest candidate on the coaching carousel. However when it comes to selecting a head coach, there are no sure things. Remarkably, Johnson has lived up to the hype – and even surpassed them. He's demonstrated not just to be a scheme genius but the kind of culture builder that can inject fresh energy into an franchise.

During a typical season, he would be the clear-cut choice. Yet the current isn't a typical season!

The area where Johnson's case comes a bit into trouble is on defense. The Chicago defense presently sit 25th in defensive success rate. They are surviving on turnovers, and turnovers are notoriously unreliable. Coaches can stress ball disruption, but no one can ensure it. Johnson is on the ballot because the offensive production is real. He's ranked lower because luck is doing too much of the defense's heavy lifting. With a couple bounces of the ball, the team would be several victories behind. It's been an exceptional turnaround, and the foundation is established for sustained winning. But Johnson falls short here.

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

The Jaguars' coach is in a comparable situation to his counterpart. He's another rookie leader who has masterminded a dramatic turnaround. During the stretch run of the season, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the best all-around ball of his professional life. And he's also overseen the overhaul of a defensive unit that now sits at fifth in the league in Expected Points Added per play.

Even more impressively, Coen has nailed the intangibles aspects, which wasn't a certainty after his early press conference introduction and some of his preseason decisions.

The coach walked into Jacksonville with an exceptionally inexperienced coaching staff. Unlike other coaches, who packed themselves with the perfect coaching cocktail of youth and veteran savvy, he trusted newbies. Starting with the head coach himself to assistants to assistant coaches, the Jags are stocked with rookies. That type of approach is intriguing on paper, but frequently collapses in reality – with other teams are a warning – because everyone is learning a their job in real-time. Yet he has pulled the entire group and everything together.

Following an initial hot start, there was a possibility that the campaign would go off the track. A midseason setback caused the Jags wobbling once more. That's typically when coaches panic and change too much. Coen did not. Rather, he streamlined the approach. The offense stopped chasing explosive plays and started seeking consistent ones. Coen recentered the offense around his playmakers and the running game, and encouraged Lawrence to use his mobility more often.

The outcomes are obvious. The Jaguars have won seven games consecutively and will be the AFC's No 3 seed. He receives the slightest knock in the standings because he took over a talented team, but he has proven he can get the most out of that roster.

3) The Seattle Seahawks Coach, Seattle Seahawks, Their Record

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

Moving on from a veteran, bringing in a different signal-caller and pairing him with an innovative play-caller might have derailed the season in the early weeks. Rather, it made it. By the middle point of the season, the new QB was an MVP contender. He has regressed after that hot streak, dropping to 23rd in EPA per dropback over the latter part of the schedule, placing him just one spot ahead of other QBs.

Still