How This Strange Campaign Shattered the Typical Coach of the Year Mould.

Typically, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year honor adheres to a straightforward formula. It commonly functions as a form of apology. Sorry we underestimated your squad in our preseason predictions.

On paper, it's a clear-cut trajectory: the skipper who engineered the biggest improvement receives the award. In practice, it sparks an yearly debate about expectations and whether we're actually rewarding excellent coaching or simply the biggest surprise.

Yet the latest competition is profoundly unique. The group of candidates is remarkably talented. It has been the year of comebacks. The NFL has been unpredictable, with reigning division winners falling away and longtime strugglers ascending together. During an ordinary year, Sean Payton leading the his team to the summit of the conference would make him the stone-cold front-runner. Yet in this wild and entertaining year, he's up against multiple other exceptional candidates.

This is how the projected vote ought to shake out.

5) The Chicago Bears Coach, His Team, 11-5

Voters for Coach of the Year selectors adore signal-callers. This is a tradition. Sean McVay in 2017. Another in 2020. A third in 2022. When you fix a franchise QB, you're well on your way to winning the award.

Ben Johnson not only corrected his young quarterback; he's freed him. Within an ideal system, the QB has been afforded the chance to display his special talent. From Week 9, the Chicago offense rank fourth in offensive EPA per play. That's not a hot streak – it's prolonged excellence. Under Johnson, the quarterback has become increasingly decisive, less careless, and has willingly surrendered to the gameplan instead of improvising. It is an offense constructed solely in the coach's vision: a bully-ball ground attack, a heavy helping of play-action passes and a imaginative passing attack that springs wide receiver receivers consistently. Williams has thrived. And when openings haven't been available, he's been able to conjure big plays from nothing.

Johnson came to Chicago with a specific offensive vision. Almost each bet – overhauling the offensive line, highlighting the pass-catchers, turning the QB into a rhythm thrower – has succeeded. This is rare for a first-year head coach. And it's rarer yet for a coach who entered the building with the kind of hype Johnson did. For consecutive straight offseasons, he was the hottest name on the coaching carousel. But when it comes to hiring a leader, there are zero guarantees. Remarkably, Johnson has lived up to the hype – and even exceeded them. He's proven not only to be a scheme wizard but the kind of leader that can inject new life into an organization.

During a ordinary year, he would be the runaway choice. But this is not a typical season!

The area where his candidacy runs a bit into trouble is on the defensive side. The Bears currently sit 25th in defensive efficiency. They are living on takeaways, and takeaways are notoriously inconsistent. Defensive minds can stress creating turnovers, but no one can ensure it. He is on the list because the offensive production is real. He's not higher because variance is doing too much of the defense's work. If not for a couple bounces of the ball, the team would be two victories worse off. It's been an exceptional turnaround, and the core is established for sustained winning. But he falls just short here.

4) The Jacksonville Jaguars Coach, Jacksonville Jaguars, 12-4

The Jaguars' coach is in a similar position to Johnson. He's another rookie head coach who has masterminded a swift turnaround. During the crucial final weeks of the season, he has his franchise quarterback playing the most complete all-around ball of his career. And he's also overseen the overhaul of a defensive unit that now ranks fifth in the league in EPA per play.

Even more notably, he has nailed the leadership stuff, which was not a certainty following his early press conference introduction and some of his preseason decisions.

The coach walked into Jacksonville with an exceptionally raw staff. In contrast to other coaches, who packed their staff with the ideal coaching cocktail of new ideas and experience, Coen bet on newbies. From the leader himself to assistants to position coaches, the Jaguars are filled with rookies. That kind of approach is exciting in theory, but often collapses in practice – as past failures are a warning – because everyone is learning a new job on the fly. But he has pulled everyone and everything together.

After an initial strong start, there was a chance that the campaign would go off the rails. A mid-year setback caused the Jags wobbling again. That's typically when leaders panic and change too much. Coen did not. Instead, he simplified the approach. The offense stopped pursuing explosive plays and started seeking reliable ones. Coen refocused the offense around key players and the running game, and asked Lawrence to use his legs more often.

The outcomes are evident. The Jaguars have won multiple games in a row and will be the conference's No 3 seed. Coen receives the slightest deduction in the standings because he took over a skilled roster, but he has demonstrated he can maximize that talent.

3) Mike Macdonald, His Team, 13-3

Each Strong of the Year narrative has a pivotal decision. For the Seahawks coach, it was his quarterback move.

Parting ways from a veteran, bringing in a new quarterback and partnering him with an new offensive coordinator might have ended the campaign in the early weeks. Instead, it shaped it. Through the mid point of the year, the new QB was an MVP candidate. He has fallen away after that hot streak, slipping to 23rd in efficiency per dropback over the latter part of the schedule, putting him just a single place ahead of peers.

Still