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Ordinarily, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year honor follows a simple pattern. It commonly serves as a kind of mea culpa. Our apologies we misjudged your squad in our pre-campaign forecasts.

In theory, it's a direct path: the coach who oversaw the most dramatic resurgence wins the award. In reality, it creates an annual argument about preseason outlooks and whether we're actually rewarding excellent leadership or just the most shocking upset.

Yet the current field is fundamentally unique. The group of nominees is unusually deep. It has been the season of turnarounds. The league has been unpredictable, with recent conference winners declining and longtime underperformers ascending in unison. Under an typical year, a coach guiding the Denver Broncos to the top of the conference would make him the stone-cold favorite. Yet in such a turbulent and entertaining season, he's facing five other elite candidates.

Here is how the ideal vote ought to shake out.

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

Voters for Coach of the Year selectors love quarterbacks. History shows this. A certain coach in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. When you transform a quarterback, you're well on your way to winning the award.

The Bears' head coach hasn't just corrected his young quarterback; he's freed him. Within an ideal environment, the QB has been afforded the opportunity to display his rare talent. Since Week 9, the Bears sit at fourth in offensive Expected Points Added per play. This isn't a hot streak – it's prolonged excellence. Under his guidance, Williams has become increasingly decisive, less reckless, and has eagerly surrendered to the scheme rather than going rogue. It is an attack built entirely in the coach's vision: a bully-ball run game, a heavy dose of play-action and a innovative aerial game that frees wide receiver targets everywhere. Williams has capitalized. And when openings haven't been there, he's been capable to create magic from broken plays.

Johnson came to Chicago with a clear offensive philosophy. Almost each bet – overhauling the offensive line, highlighting the tight ends, transforming Williams into a rhythm passer – has worked. That's rare for a first-year head coach. And it's rarer yet for a coach who entered the building with the kind of pressure he did. For consecutive straight offseasons, he was the most sought-after candidate on the coaching carousel. However when it comes to hiring a head coach, there are zero sure things. Remarkably, Johnson has met the hype – and even exceeded them. He's proven not only to be a offensive genius but the kind of leader that can inject new life into an franchise.

In a typical year, he would be the runaway choice. Yet the current isn't a normal campaign!

The area where Johnson's case runs slightly into trouble is on the defensive side. The Chicago defense currently rank in the bottom third in defensive success rate. They are relying on takeaways, and takeaways are famously unreliable. Coaches can focus on creating turnovers, but nobody can ensure it. He is on the ballot because the offensive production is sustainable. He's not higher because luck is doing an outsized share of the defense's work. With a few bounces of the ball, the Bears would be several victories behind. It's been an remarkable transformation, and the foundation is established for sustained success. However he comes up short here.

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

The Jaguars' coach is in a comparable spot to Johnson. He's a fellow rookie head coach who has engineered a dramatic resurgence. During the stretch run of the season, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the finest overall football of his career. And he's also overseen the remaking of a defense that now sits at number five in the NFL in Expected Points Added per play.

What's more notably, he has excelled at the leadership aspects, which wasn't a given following his initial public introduction and some of his preseason moves.

Coen walked into Jacksonville with an exceptionally inexperienced coaching staff. In contrast to other coaches, who surrounded themselves with the perfect coaching cocktail of new ideas and experience, he trusted first-timers. Starting with the leader on down to coordinators to assistant coaches, the Jaguars are filled with rookies. That type of setup is exciting in theory, but often fails in practice – with other teams are a warning – because everybody is learning a new job on the fly. But he has managed to bring the entire group and all elements into sync.

Following an initial hot start, there was a chance that the season would go off the track. A midseason collapse had the Jags wobbling once more. That's usually when coaches overcorrect. Coen did not. Rather, he simplified things. The offense stopped chasing explosive plays and started hunting consistent ones. The coach refocused the attack around his playmakers and the ground attack, and encouraged Lawrence to use his mobility more.

The results are clear. The Jags have won multiple games consecutively and will be the AFC's number three seed. He gets the slightest knock in the rankings because he inherited a skilled roster, but he has demonstrated he can get the most out of that roster.

3) The Seattle Seahawks Coach, Seattle Seahawks, 13-3

Every Strong of the Year narrative has a pivotal moment. For Mike Macdonald, it was his quarterback decision.

Parting ways from a veteran, signing a different quarterback and pairing him with an new offensive coordinator might have derailed the season in the early weeks. Instead, it shaped it. By the middle point of the year, the acquisition was an Most Valuable Player front-runner. He has cooled off after that hot streak, dropping to 23rd in efficiency per dropback over the second half of the schedule, placing him just one spot ahead of other QBs.

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