How The Bizarre Season Shattered the Traditional NFL Coach of the Year Formula.

Typically, the NFL's Coach of the Year honor adheres to a straightforward script. It commonly acts as a type of apology. Our apologies we underestimated your squad in our preseason predictions.

In theory, it's a direct line: the coach who oversaw the largest improvement wins the prize. In practice, it fuels an yearly discussion about preseason outlooks and whether we're actually honoring superior leadership or simply the biggest upset.

But the current race is profoundly different. The pool of nominees is unusually strong. It has been the campaign of comebacks. The NFL has been chaotic, with recent division winners declining and recent also-rans improving collectively. Under an typical year, a coach guiding the his team to the summit of the AFC would make him the overwhelming favorite. Yet in such a wild and entertaining year, he's up against several other exceptional candidates.

Below is how the projected vote ought to shake out.

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

Voters for Coach of the Year voters adore signal-callers. History shows this. Sean McVay in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. A third in 2022. If you fix a quarterback, you're halfway home.

The Bears' head coach not only fixed Caleb Williams; he's unleashed him. Given a proper ecosystem, Williams has been given the chance to demonstrate his rare talent. Since Week 9, the Chicago offense sit at number four in offensive EPA per play. This isn't a lucky run – it's consistent performance. Under Johnson, the quarterback has become more decisive, far less careless, and has willingly surrendered to the gameplan instead of freelancing. It is an attack designed 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 targets all over the field. The QB has thrived. And when clear throws weren't there, he's been able to spin big plays from broken plays.

The coach came to Chicago with a clear offensive vision. Almost every decision – overhauling the offensive line, featuring the tight ends, transforming the QB into a rhythm thrower – has worked. That's uncommon for a first-year head coach. And it's even more uncommon yet for a leader who entered the organization with the kind of expectations Johnson did. For consecutive straight cycles, he was the most sought-after candidate on the head coaching market. But when it comes to hiring a leader, there are zero guarantees. Somehow, Johnson has lived up to expectations – and even surpassed them. He's proven not just to be a scheme wizard but the kind of leader that can inject fresh energy into an franchise.

In a typical season, he would be the runaway choice. Yet this is not a normal season!

The area where Johnson's candidacy runs a bit into trouble is on defense. The Bears presently sit in the bottom third in defensive efficiency. They are relying on turnovers, and takeaways are famously unreliable. Coaches can focus on creating turnovers, but no one can guarantee it. Johnson is on the list because the offense is sustainable. He's ranked lower because luck is doing too much of the defense's heavy lifting. If not for a couple bounces of the ball, the Bears would be two victories behind. It's been an remarkable turnaround, and the foundation is established for long-term winning. But he comes up short here.

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

The Jaguars' coach is in a similar situation to Johnson. He's a fellow rookie head coach who has engineered a dramatic turnaround. During the crucial final weeks of the season, he has his franchise quarterback playing the finest overall football 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 notably, Coen has excelled at the intangibles stuff, which was not a certainty following his initial public appearances and some of his preseason decisions.

Coen walked into Jacksonville with an uncommonly inexperienced coaching staff. In contrast to other coaches, who surrounded themselves with the ideal coaching mix of new ideas and experience, Coen trusted newbies. From the leader himself to coordinators to assistant coaches, the Jags are filled with first-timers. That kind of setup is intriguing in theory, but often collapses in reality – with other teams are a cautionary tale – because everyone is learning a their job on the fly. Yet he has managed to bring everyone and all elements together.

Following an initial hot start, there was a chance that the campaign would go off the track. A midseason collapse caused the Jags stumbling again. That's usually when coaches overcorrect. Coen didn't. Rather, he streamlined the approach. Jacksonville stopped pursuing home-run answers and started hunting sustainable ones. Coen refocused the offense around key players and the running game, and encouraged Lawrence to use his legs more.

The outcomes are clear. The Jags have won multiple games consecutively and will be the AFC's number three playoff seed. He gets the slightest deduction in the standings because he took over a talented roster, but he has proven he can maximize that talent.

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

Each Coach of the Year argument has a pivotal decision. For Mike Macdonald, it was his QB move.

Parting ways from a veteran, bringing in a new signal-caller and partnering him with an new offensive coordinator might have ended the campaign in the early weeks. Rather, it defined it. By the middle point of the year, the new QB was an Most Valuable Player contender. He has cooled off after that hot streak, dropping to a lower rank in EPA per pass attempt over the second half of the schedule, placing him only one place ahead of other QBs.

Still