How This Strange Season Shattered the Conventional Coach of the Year Mold.

Ordinarily, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year trophy adheres to a simple formula. It commonly serves as a kind of mea culpa. Sorry we got wrong your franchise in our preseason predictions.

On paper, it's a clear-cut path: the skipper who oversaw the largest turnaround wins the prize. However, it fuels an annual argument about preseason outlooks and whether we're actually honoring excellent coaching or simply the biggest shock.

But the latest field is distinctly different. The list of contenders is unusually talented. It has been the year of resurgences. The NFL has been unpredictable, with recent division champions declining and recent strugglers improving collectively. In an normal season, Sean Payton guiding the Denver Broncos to the top of the AFC would make him the overwhelming favorite. Yet in this chaotic and thrilling year, he's up against several other elite coaches.

This is how the ideal ballot should be structured.

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

Coach of the Year voters are fascinated by QBs. This is a tradition. A certain coach in 2017. Another in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. When you transform a quarterback, you're well on your way home.

The Bears' head coach not only fixed Caleb Williams; he's unleashed him. In the right system, the QB has been given the chance to demonstrate his special talent. From Week 9, the Bears rank number four in offensive EPA per play. This isn't a hot streak – it's consistent dominance. Under his guidance, the quarterback has become increasingly decisive, far less reckless, and has willingly surrendered to the system rather than improvising. It is an offense designed solely in Johnson's vision: a physical ground attack, a heavy dose of play-action passes and a imaginative aerial game that frees wide receiver receivers all over the field. Williams has taken advantage. And when openings weren't available, he's been able to conjure big plays out of broken plays.

The coach came to Chicago with a clear offensive vision. Virtually every bet – overhauling the trenches, highlighting the tight ends, turning the QB into a timing-based thrower – has paid off. This is rare for a rookie skipper. And it's even more uncommon still for a leader who walked into the organization with the kind of pressure he did. For consecutive straight cycles, he was the hottest candidate on the head coaching carousel. However when it comes to hiring a head coach, there are no guarantees. Remarkably, Johnson has met expectations – and even exceeded them. He's proven not just to be a offensive dork but the type of leader that can inject new life into an organization.

In a normal season, he would be the runaway choice. But the current isn't a normal season!

The area where Johnson's case runs slightly into trouble is on defense. The Bears presently rank 25th in defensive success rate. They are living on takeaways, and takeaways are notoriously inconsistent. Coaches can emphasise ball disruption, but no one can guarantee it. Johnson is on the list because the offensive production is legitimate. He's ranked lower because variance is doing too much of the defensive heavy lifting. If not for a couple breaks of the ball, the team would be two victories worse off. It's been an exceptional turnaround, and the core is in place for long-term success. However Johnson falls just short here.

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

Coen is in a similar situation to his counterpart. He's a fellow first-time head coach who has masterminded a dramatic resurgence. During the stretch run of the season, he has his franchise quarterback playing the finest all-around ball of his professional life. And he's also spearheaded the remaking of a defensive unit that now ranks fifth in the NFL in Expected Points Added per play.

Even more impressively, Coen has nailed the off-field aspects, which was not a given after his initial press conference introduction and some of his offseason moves.

The coach took over the Jaguars with an exceptionally raw staff. In contrast to Johnson, who packed their staff with the ideal staff blend of youth and experience, he hired newbies. From the leader on down to coordinators to position coaches, the Jaguars are stocked with first-timers. That kind of approach is exciting in theory, but often fails in reality – with other teams are a warning – because everyone is figuring out a their job on the fly. But he has managed to bring everyone and all elements together.

After an initial strong start, there was a chance that the season would go off the track. A midseason setback had the team stumbling once more. That's typically when leaders panic and change too much. He did not. Instead, he simplified the approach. Jacksonville stopped chasing home-run answers and started hunting reliable ones. The coach refocused the offense around key players and the ground attack, and encouraged his QB to use his legs more often.

The outcomes are obvious. The Jaguars have won seven games in a row and will be the AFC's number three playoff seed. Coen gets the tiniest knock in the rankings because he inherited a talented roster, but he has demonstrated he can get the most out of that roster.

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

Each Coach of the Year case has a hinge moment. For the Seahawks coach, it was his QB decision.

Parting ways from a incumbent, signing a new signal-caller and pairing him with an new offensive coordinator could have derailed the campaign in October. Rather, it shaped it. Through the middle point of the year, the new QB was an MVP front-runner. He has cooled off after that hot streak, slipping to 23rd in efficiency per pass attempt over the second half of the schedule, putting him only one place ahead of peers.

Still