The Way This Unusual Campaign Broke the Traditional NFL Coach of the Year Mold.

Typically, the National Football League's Coach of the Year honor follows a straightforward pattern. It frequently serves as a type of mea culpa. Sorry we misjudged your squad in our preseason predictions.

Theoretically, it's a direct path: the skipper who oversaw the largest turnaround wins the award. However, it fuels an yearly discussion about preseason outlooks and whether we're truly rewarding superior coaching or simply the biggest surprise.

Yet the current field is profoundly unique. The group of nominees is unusually deep. It has been the campaign of comebacks. The league has been chaotic, with recent division winners falling away and recent strugglers ascending in unison. In an normal season, a coach guiding the Denver Broncos to the top of the conference would make him the clear favorite. Yet in this chaotic and thrilling year, he's up against five other outstanding coaches.

Here is how the projected vote ought to look.

5) Ben Johnson, Chicago Bears, 11-5

Voters for Coach of the Year selectors adore QBs. They always have. A certain coach in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. A third in 2022. Should you fix a quarterback, you're well on your way home.

Ben Johnson hasn't just fixed Caleb Williams; he's unleashed him. In the right environment, Williams has been given the opportunity to demonstrate his otherworldly ability. Since midseason onward, the Chicago offense sit at number four in offensive EPA per play. That's not a hot streak – it's consistent dominance. Under Johnson, the quarterback has become increasingly decisive, far less reckless, and has eagerly surrendered to the system instead of freelancing. It is an attack built entirely in Johnson's vision: a physical run game, a heavy helping of play-action and a imaginative aerial game that creates wide-open targets all over the field. The QB has capitalized. And when easy reads weren't available, he's been able to spin magic out of nothing.

The coach came to Chicago with a clear offensive philosophy. Virtually every bet – rebuilding the offensive line, featuring the tight ends, turning Williams into a rhythm thrower – has worked. This is rare for a first-year skipper. And it's even more uncommon still for a leader who walked into the organization with the immense expectations he did. For two straight offseasons, he was the top name on the coaching carousel. However when it comes to selecting a leader, there are zero guarantees. Remarkably, he has met the hype – and even exceeded them. He's demonstrated not only to be a scheme dork but the kind of culture builder that can breathe new life into an franchise.

During a typical year, he would be the runaway favorite. But the current is not a typical season!

The area where his candidacy comes a bit into trouble is on the defensive side. The Chicago defense currently sit in the bottom third in defensive success rate. They are living on turnovers, and turnovers are notoriously fickle. Coaches can stress ball disruption, but nobody can ensure it. He is on the ballot because the offensive production is legitimate. He's ranked lower because luck is doing too much of the defensive work. If not for a few bounces of the ball, the team would be two wins worse off. It's been an remarkable transformation, and the core is established for sustained winning. However Johnson falls just short here.

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

The Jaguars' coach is in a similar situation to his counterpart. He's another rookie head coach who has masterminded a dramatic resurgence. Over the stretch run of the year, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the most complete overall ball of his career. And he's also overseen the remaking of a defensive unit that now sits at number five in the league in Expected Points Added per play.

What's more impressively, Coen has nailed the leadership stuff, which wasn't a guarantee after his initial public introduction and some of his offseason moves.

Coen took over Jacksonville with an exceptionally inexperienced staff. In contrast to other coaches, who packed their staff with the perfect coaching mix of youth and experience, he hired first-timers. From the head coach himself to coordinators to position coaches, the Jags are filled with rookies. That type of approach is exciting in theory, but frequently fails in practice – with other teams are a warning – because everyone is figuring out a new job in real-time. Yet Coen has managed to bring the entire group and everything together.

Following an early hot beginning, there was a risk that the season would veer off the track. A mid-year setback had the team wobbling once more. That's usually when leaders overcorrect. Coen did not. Rather, he streamlined things. Jacksonville stopped chasing home-run plays and started hunting consistent ones. The coach recentered the attack around key players and the ground attack, and encouraged his QB to use his legs more often.

The outcomes are clear. The Jags have won multiple games consecutively and will be the conference's number three seed. Coen receives the tiniest deduction in the rankings because he took over a talented team, but he has proven he can get the most out of that roster.

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

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

Parting ways from a veteran, bringing in a different quarterback and pairing him with an new play-caller might have derailed the campaign in the early weeks. Rather, it made it. By the middle point of the year, the acquisition was an Most Valuable Player candidate. He has regressed since that time, dropping to 23rd in efficiency per dropback over the second half of the schedule, putting him just one spot ahead of peers.

Still