How This Unusual Campaign Shattered the Typical Coach of the Year Blueprint.
Ordinarily, the National Football League's Coach of the Year trophy adheres to a simple script. It frequently acts as a type of apology. Sorry we got wrong your squad in our pre-campaign projections.
On paper, it's a clear-cut path: the skipper who orchestrated the most dramatic turnaround receives the award. However, it fuels an yearly debate about expectations and whether we're truly honoring superior coaching or simply the greatest surprise.
Yet the latest field is distinctly different. The list of contenders is unusually strong. It has been the year of turnarounds. The league has been messy, with recent conference champions declining and recent also-rans ascending in unison. During an typical year, a coach leading the his team to the top of the conference would make him the clear favorite. Yet in this wild and fun year, he's competing with several other exceptional coaches.
This is how the projected ballot ought to shake out.
5) The Chicago Bears Coach, Chicago Bears, 11-5
Voters for Coach of the Year selectors are fascinated by signal-callers. They always have. A certain coach in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. When you solve a quarterback, you're halfway to winning the award.
The Bears' head coach not only fixed his young quarterback; he's unlocked him. In the right environment, Williams has been afforded the opportunity to display his special ability. From Week 9, the Chicago offense rank number four in offensive EPA per play. This isn't a hot streak – it's consistent performance. With Johnson, Williams has become increasingly confident, far less careless, and has willingly surrendered to the gameplan rather than going rogue. It is an offense designed solely in Johnson's vision: a bully-ball ground attack, a consistent helping of play-action passes and a imaginative aerial game that creates wide receiver receivers consistently. Williams has taken advantage. And when clear throws weren't available, he's been capable to conjure big plays from nothing.
Johnson came to the Bears with a defined offensive philosophy. Almost every gamble – overhauling the trenches, highlighting the pass-catchers, turning the QB into a timing-based passer – has paid off. This is uncommon for a rookie head coach. And it's even more uncommon still for a leader who entered the building with the immense expectations Johnson did. For consecutive straight cycles, he was the most sought-after candidate on the coaching carousel. However when it comes to selecting a leader, there are no guarantees. Somehow, he has met the hype – and even exceeded them. He's proven not only to be a scheme wizard but the kind of leader that can breathe fresh energy into an franchise.
In a typical season, he would be the overwhelming favorite. But the current isn't a normal year!
The area where Johnson's candidacy comes slightly into trouble is on defense. The Bears currently rank 25th in defensive success rate. They are living on takeaways, and takeaways are notoriously fickle. Defensive minds can stress creating turnovers, but no one can ensure it. He is on the list because the offense is sustainable. He's not higher because luck is doing an outsized share of the defense's heavy lifting. If not for a couple bounces of the ball, the Bears would be two victories worse off. It's been an exceptional turnaround, and the foundation is in place for sustained winning. But he falls short here.
4) Liam Coen, Jacksonville Jaguars, 12-4
The Jaguars' coach is in a similar position to Johnson. He's a fellow rookie leader who has engineered a swift turnaround. Over the crucial final weeks of the year, he has his franchise quarterback playing the most complete overall ball of his career. And he's also spearheaded the overhaul of a defensive unit that now ranks fifth in the league in Expected Points Added per play.
What's more impressively, Coen has excelled at the intangibles aspects, which wasn't a certainty after his early press conference appearances and some of his offseason decisions.
Coen walked into Jacksonville with an exceptionally raw staff. In contrast to Johnson, who surrounded themselves with the ideal coaching mix of new ideas and veteran savvy, he hired first-timers. Starting with the leader on down to assistants to position coaches, the Jags are filled with rookies. That type of approach is exciting on paper, but frequently collapses in reality – as past failures are a cautionary tale – because everybody is learning a new job in real-time. But he has pulled everyone and everything together.
Following an early hot beginning, there was a chance that the campaign would go off the rails. A midseason collapse had the team wobbling once more. That's usually when leaders panic and change too much. Coen did not. Rather, he streamlined things. The offense stopped pursuing explosive answers and started hunting sustainable ones. The coach recentered the attack around his playmakers and the ground attack, and asked his QB to use his mobility more often.
The results are clear. The Jaguars have won seven games in a row and will be the AFC's No 3 seed. Coen gets the tiniest deduction in the rankings because he inherited a talented team, but he has proven he can get the most out of that talent.
3) Mike Macdonald, Seattle Seahawks, 13-3
Each Coach of the Year narrative has a defining decision. For Mike Macdonald, it was his quarterback move.
Moving on from a incumbent, bringing in a new signal-caller and partnering him with an new offensive coordinator could have ended the season in October. Rather, it made it. By the mid point of the year, the acquisition was an MVP contender. He has cooled off since that time, dropping to 23rd in EPA per dropback over the latter part of the season, putting him only a single place ahead of other QBs.
Still
