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Usually, the National Football League's Coach of the Year award adheres to a straightforward pattern. It commonly functions as a form of apology. Our apologies we misjudged your squad in our pre-campaign predictions.

In theory, it's a clear-cut line: the skipper who oversaw the biggest improvement receives the award. In practice, it fuels an annual discussion about expectations and whether we're actually honoring superior coaching or merely the greatest surprise.

But this year's race is profoundly different. The group of nominees is unusually deep. It has been the campaign of turnarounds. The league has been messy, with recent conference winners declining and recent underperformers rising collectively. In an normal season, Sean Payton guiding the his team to the top of the conference would make him the stone-cold favorite. But in this chaotic and thrilling season, he's competing with multiple other elite coaches.

Here is how the hypothetical vote should look.

5) Ben Johnson, His Team, Their Record

Coach of the Year voters adore quarterbacks. History shows this. Sean McVay in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. A third in 2022. When you solve a franchise QB, you're halfway to winning the award.

The Bears' head coach not only corrected Caleb Williams; he's freed him. Within an ideal system, the QB has been afforded the opportunity to showcase his rare ability. From Week 9, the Bears rank fourth in offensive EPA per play. This isn't a brief surge – it's consistent dominance. Under his guidance, Williams has become increasingly confident, far less careless, and has willingly surrendered to the gameplan instead of freelancing. It is an offense built entirely in the coach's vision: a bully-ball run game, a consistent dose of play-action passes and a imaginative passing attack that frees wide receiver receivers everywhere. The QB has capitalized. And when easy reads weren't available, he's been capable to create magic out of nothing.

Johnson came to the Bears with a clear offensive philosophy. Virtually every gamble – overhauling the trenches, highlighting the pass-catchers, transforming the QB into a timing-based thrower – has succeeded. That's uncommon for a first-year head coach. And it's even more uncommon still for a coach who entered the organization with the level of pressure he did. For two straight cycles, he was the top candidate on the head coaching carousel. But when it comes to hiring a leader, there are zero guarantees. Remarkably, Johnson has lived up to expectations – and even exceeded them. He's demonstrated not only to be a offensive dork but the type of culture builder that can inject fresh energy into an organization.

In a typical year, he would be the runaway favorite. But the current isn't a normal year!

Where Johnson's case comes slightly unstuck is on the defensive side. The Bears presently sit 25th in defensive success rate. They are relying on turnovers, and takeaways are notoriously fickle. Coaches can emphasise ball disruption, but nobody can ensure it. Johnson is on the list because the offensive production is sustainable. He's ranked lower because variance is doing an outsized share of the defensive heavy lifting. If not for a few breaks of the ball, the Bears would be two wins worse off. It's been an remarkable transformation, and the foundation is established for long-term success. But Johnson comes up short here.

4) Liam Coen, His Team, 12-4

The Jaguars' coach is in a comparable position to Johnson. He's another first-time leader who has masterminded a swift resurgence. During the crucial final weeks of the season, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the best all-around football of his professional life. And he's also spearheaded the transformation of a defensive unit that now ranks fifth in the league in Expected Points Added per play.

What's more impressively, he has mastered the off-field aspects, which was not a certainty after his initial press conference introduction and some of his offseason decisions.

Coen took over the Jaguars with an exceptionally raw coaching staff. In contrast to Johnson, who surrounded their staff with the perfect staff cocktail of youth and veteran savvy, he trusted first-timers. Starting with the leader himself to assistants to assistant coaches, the Jaguars are stocked with first-timers. That type of setup is exciting in theory, but often collapses in practice – with other teams are a warning – because everyone is learning a new job on the fly. But Coen has pulled the entire group and all elements together.

Following an early hot start, there was a possibility that the campaign would veer off the track. A mid-year collapse had the team wobbling again. That's usually when coaches overcorrect. He didn't. Rather, he simplified the approach. Jacksonville stopped chasing home-run answers and started seeking reliable ones. Coen refocused the attack around key players and the running game, and encouraged Lawrence to use his mobility more.

The results are evident. The Jaguars have won seven games in a row and will be the AFC's number three playoff seed. He gets the tiniest knock in the standings because he inherited a talented roster, but he has demonstrated he can get the most out of that roster.

3) Mike Macdonald, His Team, 13-3

Every Strong of the Year narrative has a hinge decision. For the Seahawks coach, it was his quarterback choice.

Moving on from a incumbent, signing a different quarterback and pairing him with an new play-caller could have derailed the campaign in the early weeks. Rather, it shaped it. By the mid point of the season, the new QB was an Most Valuable Player candidate. He has fallen away since that time, slipping to 23rd in efficiency per dropback over the latter part of the season, putting him just a single spot ahead of peers.

Still