The Way The Strange Season Broke the Traditional NFL Coach of the Year Mould.

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

On paper, it's a clear-cut trajectory: the coach who orchestrated the biggest improvement receives the award. In practice, it sparks an annual debate about expectations and whether we're actually rewarding excellent coaching or simply the most shocking upset.

Yet this year's race is profoundly different. The group of contenders is remarkably deep. It has been the season of comebacks. The league has been messy, with reigning division champions fading and recent underperformers improving collectively. Under an typical year, a coach guiding the Denver Broncos to the top of the AFC would make him the stone-cold favorite. But in this wild and thrilling year, he's facing several other exceptional candidates.

This is how the hypothetical ballot could shake out.

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

Coach of the Year selectors love signal-callers. This is a tradition. Sean McVay in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. Should you transform a franchise QB, you're well on your way home.

The Bears' head coach not only corrected his young quarterback; he's unlocked him. In the right system, the QB has been afforded the opportunity to demonstrate his special talent. From Week 9, the Chicago offense sit at number four in offensive Expected Points Added per play. This isn't a hot streak – it's prolonged excellence. Under Johnson, Williams has become more decisive, less careless, and has eagerly submitted to the system instead of freelancing. It is an offense constructed entirely in the coach's vision: a physical ground attack, a consistent helping of play-action passes and a innovative passing attack that creates wide-open targets everywhere. Williams has thrived. And when easy reads weren't there, he's been capable to create magic out of broken plays.

Johnson came to the Bears with a specific offensive blueprint. Virtually each bet – rebuilding the trenches, featuring the tight ends, turning Williams into a rhythm thrower – has worked. This is uncommon for a rookie skipper. And it's rarer still for a coach who walked into the building with the immense pressure he did. For two straight offseasons, he was the most sought-after candidate on the coaching market. However when it comes to hiring a head coach, there are zero sure things. Somehow, Johnson has met the hype – and even surpassed them. He's demonstrated not just to be a scheme dork but the type of leader that can inject new life into an franchise.

During a typical year, Johnson would be the runaway favorite. Yet the current is not a normal season!

Where Johnson's case runs a bit unstuck is on the defensive side. The Bears presently sit 25th in defensive efficiency. They are living on turnovers, and takeaways are famously inconsistent. Coaches can focus on creating turnovers, but nobody can guarantee it. Johnson is on the ballot because the offensive production is real. He's ranked lower because variance is doing too much of the defensive heavy lifting. With a few bounces of the ball, the Bears would be several wins worse off. It's been an exceptional transformation, and the core is in place for long-term winning. But Johnson falls just short here.

4) Liam Coen, His Team, Their Record

The Jaguars' coach is in a comparable spot to Johnson. He's a fellow rookie leader who has masterminded a swift turnaround. Over the crucial final weeks of the year, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the best overall football of his professional life. And he's also overseen the transformation of a defense that now ranks number five in the NFL in EPA per play.

Even more notably, Coen has mastered the intangibles stuff, which wasn't a certainty after his early press conference appearances and some of his offseason decisions.

The coach took over the Jaguars with an exceptionally inexperienced staff. Unlike other coaches, who surrounded their staff with the ideal staff blend of new ideas and veteran savvy, Coen hired newbies. Starting with the head coach on down to assistants to position coaches, the Jaguars are filled with rookies. That type of setup is intriguing in theory, but often collapses in reality – as past failures are a warning – because everyone is learning a their job in real-time. But Coen has managed to bring the entire group and all elements into sync.

Following an initial strong start, there was a possibility that the campaign would veer off the rails. A midseason setback had the Jags stumbling once more. That's usually when coaches overcorrect. Coen didn't. Rather, he streamlined things. The offense stopped pursuing explosive answers and started seeking consistent ones. Coen recentered the offense around his playmakers and the running game, and asked his QB to use his legs more.

The results are clear. The Jags have won multiple games consecutively and will be the conference's number three playoff seed. He receives the tiniest deduction in the standings because he took over a skilled team, but he has proven he can get the most out of that talent.

3) Mike Macdonald, His Team, Their Record

Each Coach of the Year narrative has a hinge decision. For the Seahawks coach, it was his quarterback choice.

Moving on from a incumbent, signing a new quarterback and pairing him with an innovative play-caller might have derailed the campaign in the early weeks. Instead, it defined it. By the mid point of the season, the new QB was an Most Valuable Player contender. He has cooled off after that hot streak, dropping to a lower rank in efficiency per dropback over the second half of the season, placing him just one spot ahead of peers.

Still