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Typically, the NFL's Coach of the Year honor follows a simple script. It commonly serves as a type of mea culpa. Sorry we underestimated your squad in our preseason predictions.

On paper, it's a direct trajectory: the skipper who orchestrated the most dramatic resurgence receives the award. In practice, it creates an yearly discussion about expectations and whether we're truly honoring excellent coaching or simply the greatest upset.

However the latest race is distinctly different. The group of nominees is unusually talented. It has been the campaign of turnarounds. The NFL has been unpredictable, with recent division champions declining and recent underperformers ascending collectively. During an normal season, a coach guiding the Denver Broncos to the summit of the AFC would make him the clear favorite. Yet in this chaotic and thrilling year, he's up against multiple other exceptional coaches.

Below is how the projected ballot should be structured.

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

Coach of the Year voters love signal-callers. History shows this. A certain coach in 2017. Another in 2020. A third in 2022. Should you transform a quarterback, you're well on your way to winning the award.

The Bears' head coach not only corrected Caleb Williams; he's unleashed him. Given a proper environment, Williams has been given the opportunity to showcase his otherworldly talent. From midseason onward, the Chicago offense sit at number four in offensive Expected Points Added per play. This isn't a hot streak – it's consistent excellence. Under Johnson, Williams has become more decisive, far less careless, and has eagerly surrendered to the system instead of going rogue. It is an offense built solely in the coach's image: a physical run game, a steady dose of play-action and a innovative passing attack that frees wide-open receivers everywhere. The QB has thrived. And when easy reads haven't been available, he's been capable to create magic out of broken plays.

The coach came to Chicago with a clear offensive vision. Virtually each bet – rebuilding the offensive line, utilizing the pass-catchers, transforming the QB into a timing-based thrower – has paid off. That's rare for a first-year skipper. And it's rarer still for a coach who walked into the building with the level of hype he did. For consecutive straight cycles, he was the hottest candidate on the head coaching carousel. However when it comes to selecting 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 wizard but the type of leader that can inject new life into an franchise.

In a normal year, Johnson would be the clear-cut choice. Yet this isn't a typical season!

Where his candidacy runs a bit unstuck is on defense. The Bears currently rank 25th in defensive efficiency. They are living on turnovers, and takeaways are famously inconsistent. Defensive minds can stress creating turnovers, but nobody can guarantee it. Johnson is on the list because the offense is sustainable. He's not higher because luck is doing an outsized share of the defensive heavy lifting. If not for a couple bounces of the ball, the team would be two wins worse off. It's been an remarkable transformation, and the core is established for long-term success. But Johnson falls short in this ranking.

4) The Jacksonville Jaguars Coach, Jacksonville Jaguars, Their Record

Coen is in a similar spot to Johnson. He's a fellow rookie head coach who has engineered a rapid turnaround. During the crucial final weeks of the year, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the best all-around football of his professional life. And he's also spearheaded the remaking of a defensive unit that now sits at number five in the NFL in EPA per play.

Even more impressively, he has excelled at the off-field aspects, which was not a given following his early press conference introduction and some of his preseason moves.

The coach took over Jacksonville with an exceptionally inexperienced staff. Unlike other coaches, who packed their staff with the perfect staff mix of new ideas and veteran savvy, Coen hired newbies. From the head coach on down to coordinators to assistant coaches, the Jags are filled with first-timers. That kind of approach is exciting on paper, but often collapses in practice – as past failures are a cautionary tale – because everybody is figuring out a their job in real-time. Yet Coen has pulled everyone and everything together.

Following an early hot beginning, there was a chance that the campaign would go off the rails. A midseason setback caused the Jags wobbling once more. That's typically when coaches overcorrect. Coen did not. Rather, he streamlined things. The offense stopped pursuing home-run plays and started seeking reliable ones. The coach refocused the attack around his playmakers and the ground attack, and encouraged Lawrence to use his legs more.

The outcomes are obvious. The Jaguars have won multiple games in a row and will be the AFC's No 3 playoff seed. He gets the tiniest deduction in the standings because he inherited a talented roster, but he has proven he can get the most out of that talent.

3) Mike Macdonald, Seattle Seahawks, Their Record

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

Moving on from a veteran, signing a new signal-caller and pairing him with an innovative play-caller might have derailed the season in October. Rather, it defined it. Through the middle point of the season, the acquisition was an Most Valuable Player contender. He has cooled off after that time, slipping to a lower rank in EPA per dropback over the latter part of the schedule, placing him just a single spot ahead of other QBs.

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