How The Strange Season Broke the Conventional Coach of the Year Mould.

Ordinarily, the NFL's Head Coach of the Year trophy follows a simple script. It often functions as a kind of apology. We regret we misjudged your team in our preseason predictions.

On paper, it's a direct line: the coach who engineered the largest improvement is handed the prize. In reality, it fuels an yearly argument about preseason outlooks and whether we're truly honoring superior coaching or merely the biggest shock.

But the latest field is distinctly different. The pool of nominees is exceptionally talented. It has been the campaign of resurgences. The NFL has been chaotic, with recent conference winners falling away and recent underperformers improving collectively. Under an ordinary year, a coach leading the his team to the summit of the conference would make him the overwhelming front-runner. Yet in such a turbulent and thrilling year, he's up against multiple other outstanding candidates.

Below is how the projected vote should be structured.

5) Ben Johnson, Chicago Bears, 11-5

Voters for Coach of the Year voters love quarterbacks. This is a tradition. A certain coach in 2017. Another in 2020. A third in 2022. When you fix a quarterback, you're well on your way home.

The Bears' head coach didn't merely corrected Caleb Williams; he's freed him. In the right environment, the QB has been afforded the chance to demonstrate his special ability. Since midseason onward, the Chicago offense rank number four in offensive EPA per play. This isn't a lucky run – it's prolonged performance. With his guidance, the quarterback has become more confident, less careless, and has willingly surrendered to the scheme rather than going rogue. It is an attack designed entirely in Johnson's vision: a physical run game, a heavy helping of play-action passes and a imaginative passing attack that frees wide-open receivers everywhere. Williams has thrived. And when clear throws haven't been there, he's been able to create big plays from broken plays.

The coach came to the Bears with a clear offensive blueprint. Almost each decision – rebuilding the trenches, featuring the tight ends, transforming the QB into a timing-based thrower – has succeeded. That's rare for a first-year head coach. And it's rarer still for a leader who walked into the organization with the kind of hype Johnson did. For consecutive straight offseasons, he was the most sought-after candidate on the head coaching market. But when it comes to selecting a head coach, there are zero sure things. Remarkably, he has lived up to the hype – and even surpassed them. He's demonstrated not just to be a offensive wizard but the type of culture builder that can inject fresh energy into an organization.

In a typical year, Johnson would be the clear-cut choice. Yet the current is not a typical campaign!

Where his candidacy comes slightly into trouble is on defense. The Chicago defense currently sit in the bottom third in defensive efficiency. They are surviving on takeaways, and turnovers are notoriously inconsistent. Defensive minds can focus on ball disruption, but nobody can ensure it. Johnson is on the list because the offense is sustainable. He's not higher because luck is doing an outsized share of the defense's work. If not for a few bounces of the ball, the Bears would be several victories worse off. It's been an remarkable transformation, and the core is in place for sustained winning. But he falls just short here.

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

Coen is in a similar situation to Johnson. He's another rookie head coach who has engineered a rapid turnaround. Over the crucial final weeks of the year, he has his franchise quarterback playing the best overall ball of his career. And he's also spearheaded the transformation of a defensive unit that now sits at fifth in the NFL in EPA per play.

Even more notably, he has excelled at the leadership stuff, which was not a guarantee following his initial press conference introduction and some of his preseason moves.

The coach walked into the Jaguars with an uncommonly inexperienced coaching staff. Unlike Johnson, who packed their staff with the perfect coaching blend of new ideas and experience, he hired newbies. Starting with the leader himself to assistants to position coaches, the Jags are filled with rookies. That kind of approach is intriguing on paper, but often fails in reality – as past failures are a cautionary tale – because everyone is figuring out a new job in real-time. Yet Coen has managed to bring everyone and everything together.

Following an early hot start, there was a chance that the season would go off the rails. A mid-year collapse had the Jags stumbling once more. That's typically when leaders overcorrect. He didn't. Instead, he simplified things. The offense stopped chasing home-run plays and started hunting sustainable ones. Coen recentered the offense around key players and the running game, and asked his QB to use his legs more often.

The results are obvious. The Jaguars have won seven games consecutively and will be the AFC's number three seed. He receives the tiniest knock in the standings because he took over a talented team, but he has demonstrated he can get the most out of that roster.

3) Mike Macdonald, His Team, 13-3

Every Coach of the Year case has a hinge moment. For Mike Macdonald, it was his QB decision.

Parting ways from a incumbent, bringing in a different signal-caller and pairing him with an new offensive coordinator could have ended the campaign in October. Instead, it defined it. By the middle point of the year, the new QB was an Most Valuable Player candidate. He has fallen away since that time, dropping to a lower rank in EPA per pass attempt over the latter part of the schedule, putting him just one spot ahead of other QBs.

Still