How This Bizarre Season Broke the Conventional Coach of the Year Mould.

Typically, the National Football League's Coach of the Year trophy follows a straightforward pattern. It commonly serves as a type of apology. We regret we underestimated your franchise in our pre-campaign predictions.

Theoretically, it's a direct line: the skipper who orchestrated the most dramatic improvement is handed the award. However, it fuels an yearly debate about preseason outlooks and whether we're genuinely honoring excellent coaching or just the greatest surprise.

However the current competition is profoundly different. The list of nominees is exceptionally talented. It has been the season of resurgences. The league has been messy, with reigning conference winners fading and longtime also-rans rising in unison. Under an normal season, Sean Payton guiding the Denver Broncos to the summit of the AFC would make him the overwhelming front-runner. But in such a turbulent and thrilling year, he's facing multiple other elite coaches.

Below is how the hypothetical ballot should be structured.

5) The Chicago Bears Coach, His Team, Their Record

Coach of the Year selectors adore QBs. This is a tradition. A certain coach in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. A third in 2022. When you solve a franchise QB, you're well on your way to winning the award.

Ben Johnson didn't merely corrected Caleb Williams; he's unleashed him. In the right ecosystem, the QB has been afforded the opportunity to demonstrate his special ability. From midseason onward, the Bears sit at number four in offensive Expected Points Added per play. This isn't a lucky run – it's sustained performance. With Johnson, the quarterback has become more decisive, far less careless, and has willingly surrendered to the system rather than going rogue. It is an attack built entirely in the coach's vision: a bully-ball run game, a steady dose of play-action and a imaginative passing attack that creates wide-open receivers all over the field. The QB has thrived. And when clear throws haven't been there, he's been able to conjure big plays out of nothing.

Johnson came to Chicago with a specific offensive vision. Virtually each bet – rebuilding the trenches, featuring the pass-catchers, transforming Williams into a rhythm thrower – has succeeded. This is rare for a first-year skipper. And it's even more uncommon still for a coach who walked into the building with the immense expectations he did. For consecutive straight offseasons, he was the top name on the coaching carousel. But when it comes to selecting a leader, there are no sure things. Remarkably, Johnson has lived up to the hype – and even surpassed them. He's proven not just to be a scheme wizard but the kind of culture builder that can breathe fresh energy into an franchise.

In a ordinary season, Johnson would be the clear-cut choice. Yet the current isn't a typical year!

Where Johnson's case runs a bit into trouble is on the defensive side. The Bears currently rank in the bottom third in defensive efficiency. They are surviving on turnovers, and takeaways are notoriously inconsistent. Coaches can focus on creating turnovers, but no one 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 defense's heavy lifting. If not for a couple bounces of the ball, the Bears would be two wins worse off. It's been an remarkable transformation, and the core is in place for long-term success. However Johnson comes up just short here.

4) Liam Coen, Jacksonville Jaguars, Their Record

The Jaguars' coach is in a comparable position to Johnson. He's a fellow first-time head coach who has masterminded a rapid resurgence. Over the stretch run of the year, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the most complete overall football of his career. And he's also overseen the transformation of a defensive unit that now ranks fifth in the league in Expected Points Added per play.

What's more notably, Coen has excelled at the off-field stuff, which was not a given following his initial press conference introduction and some of his offseason moves.

Coen walked into Jacksonville with an uncommonly inexperienced staff. Unlike Johnson, who packed their staff with the perfect staff mix of youth and experience, he trusted first-timers. Starting with the leader on down to assistants to assistant coaches, the Jaguars are stocked with rookies. That kind of approach is exciting in theory, but often fails in reality – with other teams are a warning – because everybody is learning a new job on the fly. But Coen has managed to bring the entire group and everything into sync.

After an initial strong start, there was a risk that the campaign would veer off the track. A mid-year setback had the Jags wobbling again. That's typically when leaders overcorrect. Coen didn't. Rather, he streamlined things. The offense stopped chasing explosive plays and started hunting consistent ones. Coen recentered the attack around his playmakers and the ground attack, and encouraged Lawrence to use his mobility more.

The outcomes are evident. The Jags have won multiple games in a row and will be the AFC's number three seed. Coen receives the tiniest deduction in the standings because he took over a skilled team, but he has proven he can maximize that roster.

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

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

Moving on from a incumbent, signing a new quarterback and partnering him with an new play-caller could have ended the season in October. Instead, it shaped it. Through the middle point of the season, the acquisition was an Most Valuable Player contender. He has fallen away after that hot streak, slipping to a lower rank in EPA per pass attempt over the latter part of the season, placing him only a single spot ahead of other QBs.

Still