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Usually, the NFL's Coach of the Year award adheres to a straightforward script. It frequently serves as a kind of apology. Our apologies we underestimated your team in our preseason projections.

On paper, it's a clear-cut path: the skipper who orchestrated the most dramatic turnaround receives the prize. However, it sparks an annual debate about expectations and whether we're actually rewarding superior coaching or just the greatest surprise.

Yet the latest competition is profoundly different. The pool of candidates is unusually strong. It has been the campaign of comebacks. The league has been unpredictable, with recent division winners fading and recent strugglers rising collectively. Under an normal year, a coach leading the his team to the summit of the AFC would make him the stone-cold front-runner. Yet in this wild and entertaining year, he's facing several other exceptional candidates.

Here is how the hypothetical ballot should look.

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

Coach of the Year voters love QBs. History shows this. Sean McVay in 2017. Another in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. Should you fix a franchise QB, you're well on your way home.

Ben Johnson hasn't just fixed his young quarterback; he's freed him. In the right environment, the QB has been given the opportunity to display his special talent. From Week 9, the Bears rank number four in offensive Expected Points Added per play. This isn't a brief surge – it's prolonged excellence. With his guidance, Williams has become increasingly confident, less reckless, and has eagerly surrendered to the scheme rather than freelancing. It is an attack constructed entirely in Johnson's vision: a physical run game, a steady dose of play-action passes and a innovative passing attack that frees wide receiver receivers all over the field. The QB has taken advantage. And when openings haven't been there, he's been capable to create big plays from nothing.

The coach arrived to Chicago with a clear offensive vision. Virtually each bet – rebuilding the trenches, utilizing the pass-catchers, turning the QB into a rhythm thrower – has paid off. This is uncommon for a first-year skipper. And it's rarer yet for a coach who entered the building with the level of pressure he did. For two straight cycles, he was the most sought-after name on the head coaching carousel. But when it comes to selecting a head coach, there are no guarantees. Remarkably, he has met the hype – and even exceeded them. He's demonstrated not just to be a scheme dork but the kind of culture builder that can breathe new life into an organization.

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

Where his case comes a bit unstuck is on defense. The Bears currently sit 25th in defensive success rate. They are relying on takeaways, and turnovers are famously unreliable. Defensive minds can emphasise ball disruption, but nobody can ensure it. He is on the list because the offensive production is sustainable. He's not higher because variance is doing too much of the defensive heavy lifting. With a couple breaks of the ball, the Bears would be two victories behind. It's been an exceptional transformation, and the core is in place for sustained winning. But he falls short here.

4) Liam Coen, Jacksonville Jaguars, Their Record

Coen is in a comparable spot to his counterpart. He's another first-time head coach who has orchestrated a dramatic turnaround. During the crucial final weeks of the season, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the best overall football of his professional life. And he's also overseen the transformation of a defensive unit that now sits at fifth in the NFL in EPA per play.

Even more notably, Coen has mastered the leadership stuff, which was not a certainty following his initial public appearances and some of his preseason decisions.

Coen walked into the Jaguars with an exceptionally raw coaching staff. Unlike Johnson, who packed their staff with the ideal coaching mix of youth and veteran savvy, Coen bet on first-timers. Starting with the head coach on down to assistants to position coaches, the Jags are stocked with rookies. That type of setup is exciting on paper, but frequently collapses in practice – with other teams are a warning – because everybody is figuring out a new job on the fly. But he has managed to bring everyone and everything into sync.

Following an early strong start, there was a chance that the season would go off the rails. A midseason collapse had the team wobbling once more. That's typically when coaches overcorrect. Coen didn't. Instead, he streamlined things. The offense stopped pursuing home-run answers and started hunting reliable ones. The coach recentered the attack around key players and the running game, and asked his QB to use his legs more.

The outcomes are obvious. The Jaguars have won multiple games in a row and will be the AFC's number three playoff seed. He gets the slightest knock in the rankings because he took over a talented roster, but he has demonstrated he can maximize that talent.

3) Mike Macdonald, Seattle Seahawks, 13-3

Each Coach of the Year case has a defining moment. For Mike Macdonald, it was his quarterback choice.

Parting ways from a veteran, signing a different signal-caller and partnering him with an innovative offensive coordinator might have derailed the campaign in the early weeks. Instead, it made it. By the middle point of the year, the new QB was an Most Valuable Player contender. He has fallen away after that hot streak, slipping to 23rd in EPA per pass attempt over the second half of the season, putting him only one place ahead of peers.

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