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Usually, the National Football League's Coach of the Year award follows a straightforward pattern. It commonly acts as a kind of mea culpa. Sorry we underestimated your squad in our preseason predictions.

Theoretically, it's a clear-cut line: the coach who orchestrated the most dramatic resurgence is handed the award. In practice, it sparks an yearly argument about preseason outlooks and whether we're genuinely honoring superior coaching or just the greatest upset.

But the current competition is profoundly different. The list of candidates is exceptionally strong. It has been the campaign of comebacks. The league has been messy, with reigning conference winners falling away and longtime also-rans rising together. In an normal year, Sean Payton leading the his team to the top of the conference would make him the stone-cold front-runner. But in this wild and entertaining season, he's competing with multiple other outstanding coaches.

This is how the hypothetical vote ought to be structured.

5) Ben Johnson, His Team, 11-5

Voters for Coach of the Year selectors are fascinated by quarterbacks. This is a tradition. Sean McVay in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. A third in 2022. If you transform a franchise QB, you're halfway to winning the award.

The Bears' head coach hasn't just fixed his young quarterback; he's unlocked him. Given a proper system, the QB has been afforded the chance to display his special ability. Since Week 9, the Chicago offense rank fourth in offensive EPA per play. That's not a hot streak – it's sustained excellence. With his guidance, Williams has become more decisive, less reckless, and has willingly submitted to the scheme rather than freelancing. It is an attack built solely in Johnson's image: a bully-ball ground attack, a steady helping of play-action and a innovative passing attack that frees wide-open targets consistently. The QB has taken advantage. And when openings haven't been there, he's been capable to create big plays out of broken plays.

Johnson arrived to the Bears with a specific offensive blueprint. Almost every bet – overhauling the trenches, highlighting the tight ends, turning Williams into a timing-based passer – has paid off. That's rare for a rookie skipper. And it's even more uncommon yet for a leader who walked into the building with the immense hype he did. For consecutive straight cycles, he was the most sought-after candidate on the head coaching market. However when it comes to hiring a head coach, there are zero guarantees. Somehow, Johnson has lived up to expectations – and even exceeded them. He's demonstrated not just to be a scheme genius but the kind of culture builder that can inject new life into an franchise.

In a ordinary year, Johnson would be the runaway choice. But this isn't a normal campaign!

The area where Johnson's case comes slightly into trouble is on defense. The Chicago defense currently sit in the bottom third in defensive success rate. They are surviving on turnovers, and takeaways are famously inconsistent. Coaches can focus on creating turnovers, but no one can guarantee it. Johnson is on the list because the offense is legitimate. He's not higher because luck is doing too much of the defense's work. If not for a few bounces of the ball, the team would be several victories behind. It's been an remarkable turnaround, and the core is established for long-term success. But he comes up short here.

4) Liam Coen, Jacksonville Jaguars, Their Record

Coen is in a similar position to his counterpart. He's another first-time head coach who has engineered a swift resurgence. Over the crucial final weeks of the season, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the most complete overall ball of his professional life. And he's also spearheaded the overhaul of a defense that now ranks number five in the league in Expected Points Added per play.

What's more notably, Coen has mastered the off-field stuff, which was not a given after his early public appearances and some of his preseason decisions.

Coen took over the Jaguars with an uncommonly raw coaching staff. In contrast to Johnson, who surrounded their staff with the ideal coaching mix of youth and experience, he trusted newbies. Starting with the head coach on down to coordinators to position coaches, the Jaguars are filled with rookies. That type of approach is exciting in theory, but frequently collapses in reality – as past failures are a warning – because everyone is figuring out a their job on the fly. But Coen has pulled the entire group and all elements into sync.

Following an initial hot beginning, there was a risk that the season would go off the track. A midseason setback had the team stumbling once more. That's typically when leaders overcorrect. Coen did not. Instead, he streamlined the approach. The offense stopped chasing explosive plays and started seeking reliable ones. Coen refocused the attack around his playmakers and the running game, and asked Lawrence to use his legs more often.

The outcomes are obvious. The Jaguars have won multiple games consecutively and will be the AFC's number three seed. He receives the tiniest knock in the rankings because he took over a talented team, but he has demonstrated he can get the most out of that talent.

3) Mike Macdonald, His Team, Their Record

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

Moving on from a incumbent, bringing in a different signal-caller and pairing him with an new play-caller could have derailed the season in the early weeks. Rather, it defined it. Through the mid point of the season, the acquisition was an MVP front-runner. He has fallen away since that hot streak, slipping to a lower rank in EPA per pass attempt over the latter part of the schedule, placing him just a single place ahead of peers.

Still