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Ordinarily, the NFL's Coach of the Year award adheres to a simple pattern. It frequently acts as a type of mea culpa. Sorry we misjudged your franchise in our preseason predictions.

In theory, it's a clear-cut line: the coach who oversaw the largest turnaround receives the prize. In reality, it creates an annual argument about preseason outlooks and whether we're actually rewarding superior leadership or just the most shocking surprise.

Yet the current competition is profoundly different. The list of contenders is exceptionally strong. It has been the campaign of resurgences. The league has been messy, with recent division winners fading and longtime strugglers rising in unison. During an normal year, a coach guiding the his team to the summit of the AFC would make him the overwhelming front-runner. Yet in this turbulent and fun year, he's up against multiple other elite candidates.

Below is how the hypothetical ballot could be structured.

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

Coach of the Year voters love quarterbacks. This is a tradition. A certain coach in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. Should 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 freed him. In the right system, the QB has been afforded the opportunity to demonstrate his otherworldly ability. From midseason onward, the Bears sit at fourth in offensive EPA per play. This isn't a brief surge – it's consistent dominance. Under his guidance, Williams has become more decisive, less reckless, and has willingly surrendered to the scheme rather than freelancing. It is an offense designed solely in Johnson's image: a bully-ball run game, a steady helping of play-action and a creative aerial game that springs wide receiver targets consistently. Williams has taken advantage. And when easy reads haven't been available, he's been able to conjure big plays out of nothing.

Johnson came to Chicago with a defined offensive blueprint. Almost every gamble – overhauling the trenches, highlighting the pass-catchers, transforming the QB into a timing-based thrower – has succeeded. This is uncommon for a first-year head coach. And it's rarer still for a coach who entered the building with the level of hype he did. For two straight offseasons, he was the hottest name on the coaching market. However when it comes to selecting a leader, there are zero sure things. Somehow, Johnson has met the hype – and even exceeded them. He's demonstrated not only to be a scheme genius but the kind of leader that can breathe new life into an franchise.

During a typical season, Johnson would be the runaway choice. Yet this isn't a normal year!

The area where his case comes slightly unstuck is on the defensive side. The Bears presently rank 25th in defensive efficiency. They are living on takeaways, and turnovers are notoriously fickle. Defensive minds can emphasise ball disruption, but no one can guarantee it. Johnson is on the ballot because the offensive production is sustainable. He's not higher because luck is doing too much of the defensive work. If not for a couple bounces of the ball, the team would be several wins worse off. It's been an exceptional transformation, and the foundation is in place for long-term success. However Johnson comes up short in this ranking.

4) Liam Coen, His Team, 12-4

Coen is in a comparable situation to Johnson. He's a fellow first-time head coach who has engineered a rapid turnaround. Over the stretch run of the year, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the finest overall football of his career. And he's also spearheaded the overhaul of a defensive unit that now sits at fifth in the NFL in Expected Points Added per play.

What's more impressively, Coen has mastered the intangibles aspects, which was not a certainty following his initial press conference appearances and some of his offseason decisions.

Coen took over Jacksonville with an uncommonly inexperienced staff. Unlike Johnson, who surrounded themselves with the perfect coaching cocktail of new ideas and experience, Coen hired newbies. From the leader himself to assistants to assistant coaches, the Jags are filled with rookies. That kind of approach is intriguing in theory, but often collapses in reality – with other teams are a cautionary tale – because everybody is learning a their job in real-time. Yet he has managed to bring the entire group and all elements into sync.

After an early strong start, there was a chance that the season would go off the rails. A mid-year setback had the Jags wobbling again. That's typically when leaders panic and change too much. He did not. Rather, he simplified things. The offense stopped pursuing explosive answers and started seeking consistent ones. The coach recentered the offense around his playmakers and the running game, and asked his QB to use his mobility more.

The results are evident. The Jags have won seven games in a row and will be the conference's number three playoff seed. He receives the tiniest deduction in the standings because he inherited a skilled roster, but he has proven he can get the most out of that roster.

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

Each Coach of the Year argument has a hinge decision. For Mike Macdonald, it was his quarterback move.

Moving on from a incumbent, signing a different signal-caller and partnering him with an innovative offensive coordinator could have ended the campaign in October. Instead, it made it. By the middle point of the year, the new QB was an MVP contender. He has fallen away since that time, dropping to a lower rank in EPA per dropback over the second half of the schedule, placing him just a single spot ahead of peers.

Still