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Typically, the National Football League's Coach of the Year honor adheres to a straightforward script. It commonly functions as a type of mea culpa. Sorry we got wrong your squad in our pre-campaign forecasts.

Theoretically, it's a clear-cut trajectory: the skipper who orchestrated the biggest resurgence is handed the prize. In reality, it sparks an yearly discussion about preseason outlooks and whether we're genuinely honoring superior coaching or simply the most shocking shock.

Yet this year's field is profoundly unique. The pool of candidates is unusually strong. It has been the season of resurgences. The league has been messy, with reigning conference winners falling away and longtime strugglers ascending collectively. In an ordinary season, a coach leading the Denver Broncos to the top of the AFC would make him the clear favorite. Yet in such a chaotic and fun season, he's competing with multiple other exceptional coaches.

This is how the hypothetical ballot could shake out.

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

Coach of the Year selectors love signal-callers. This is a tradition. Sean McVay in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. If you solve a quarterback, you're halfway to winning the award.

The Bears' head coach not only fixed his young quarterback; he's unlocked him. Within an ideal ecosystem, Williams has been given the opportunity to display his special ability. Since Week 9, the Bears sit at number four in offensive EPA per play. This isn't a lucky run – it's sustained dominance. Under Johnson, the quarterback has become more decisive, far less careless, and has eagerly surrendered to the gameplan instead of going rogue. It is an attack constructed solely in the coach's image: a physical ground attack, a consistent helping of play-action passes and a innovative aerial game that frees wide receiver targets consistently. Williams has thrived. And when clear throws haven't been available, he's been able to conjure big plays out of broken plays.

Johnson came to the Bears with a clear offensive vision. Almost every gamble – overhauling the trenches, highlighting the tight ends, turning the QB into a rhythm thrower – has paid off. That's rare for a rookie head coach. And it's even more uncommon yet for a leader who entered the building with the kind of hype he did. For consecutive straight cycles, he was the top name on the coaching carousel. However when it comes to hiring a leader, there are no sure things. Remarkably, Johnson has lived up to the hype – and even exceeded them. He's demonstrated not only to be a offensive genius but the type of leader that can breathe fresh energy into an franchise.

During a typical year, he would be the overwhelming favorite. Yet the current isn't a typical campaign!

The area where his case comes slightly into trouble is on the defensive side. The Bears currently rank 25th in defensive success rate. They are living on takeaways, and takeaways are notoriously inconsistent. Defensive minds can stress creating turnovers, but no one can ensure it. He is on the ballot because the offense is sustainable. He's ranked lower because luck is doing too much of the defense's work. If not for a couple breaks of the ball, the team would be several wins behind. It's been an exceptional transformation, and the core is in place for long-term winning. However Johnson comes up just short in this ranking.

4) Liam Coen, His Team, Their Record

Coen is in a similar spot to his counterpart. He's a fellow first-time leader who has masterminded a dramatic turnaround. During the stretch run of the year, he has his franchise quarterback playing the best overall ball of his professional life. And he's also spearheaded the transformation of a defense that now ranks number five in the NFL in Expected Points Added per play.

What's more notably, Coen has nailed the intangibles stuff, which was not a given following his early public appearances and some of his preseason decisions.

The coach took over the Jaguars with an uncommonly inexperienced staff. Unlike other coaches, who surrounded themselves with the ideal staff blend of new ideas and experience, Coen trusted first-timers. Starting with the head coach himself to coordinators to assistant coaches, the Jaguars are stocked with first-timers. That kind of setup is intriguing in theory, but often fails in reality – as past failures are a cautionary tale – because everyone is figuring out a their job in real-time. Yet he has managed to bring everyone and all elements together.

Following an initial hot beginning, there was a chance that the season would go off the rails. A mid-year setback caused the team stumbling again. That's usually when coaches overcorrect. Coen did not. Instead, he streamlined things. Jacksonville stopped pursuing explosive answers and started hunting reliable ones. The coach refocused the offense around key players and the running game, and asked Lawrence to use his legs more.

The results are evident. The Jags have won multiple games in a row and will be the AFC's No 3 seed. He gets the slightest deduction in the rankings because he inherited a talented roster, but he has demonstrated he can maximize that talent.

3) The Seattle Seahawks Coach, Seattle Seahawks, Their Record

Each Strong of the Year case has a pivotal decision. For Mike Macdonald, it was his QB choice.

Moving on from a incumbent, bringing in a different signal-caller and partnering him with an new play-caller might have ended the campaign in October. Rather, it made it. By the middle point of the year, the new QB was an Most Valuable Player candidate. He has fallen away after that hot streak, dropping to a lower rank in EPA per pass attempt over the second half of the season, placing him just a single spot ahead of other QBs.

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