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Ordinarily, the NFL's Coach of the Year trophy adheres to a simple script. It often serves as a kind of mea culpa. Our apologies we underestimated your franchise in our preseason projections.

Theoretically, it's a direct path: the skipper who engineered the most dramatic turnaround receives the award. In reality, it creates an annual argument about preseason outlooks and whether we're actually rewarding superior coaching or just the biggest surprise.

But this year's competition is profoundly different. The group of candidates is remarkably strong. It has been the year of comebacks. The NFL has been chaotic, with reigning division winners falling away and longtime strugglers ascending together. During an ordinary year, Sean Payton leading the his team to the summit of the AFC would make him the stone-cold front-runner. Yet in such a wild and thrilling year, he's facing five other exceptional coaches.

Here is how the hypothetical vote ought to shake out.

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

Voters for Coach of the Year voters are fascinated by signal-callers. History shows this. A certain coach in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. Should you transform a quarterback, you're halfway home.

The Bears' head coach hasn't just fixed his young quarterback; he's unlocked him. In the right environment, the QB has been given the opportunity to demonstrate his special talent. From midseason onward, the Bears sit at fourth in offensive EPA per play. This isn't a hot streak – it's sustained dominance. With Johnson, Williams has become more confident, far less careless, and has eagerly submitted to the gameplan instead of improvising. It is an attack constructed solely in the coach's image: a bully-ball run game, a heavy dose of play-action and a creative aerial game that springs wide receiver receivers all over the field. The QB has taken advantage. And when easy reads haven't been available, he's been capable to conjure big plays from broken plays.

The coach came to Chicago with a specific offensive blueprint. Virtually each gamble – overhauling the trenches, utilizing the pass-catchers, transforming the QB into a rhythm passer – has worked. This is rare for a rookie head coach. And it's rarer still for a coach who walked into the organization with the immense expectations Johnson did. For consecutive straight cycles, he was the hottest candidate on the coaching market. But when it comes to selecting a head coach, there are zero guarantees. Somehow, Johnson has lived up to expectations – and even exceeded them. He's proven not just to be a offensive wizard but the type of leader that can breathe fresh energy into an franchise.

In a typical year, he would be the overwhelming favorite. But the current is not a normal campaign!

The area where his candidacy runs slightly into trouble is on the defensive side. The Chicago defense currently sit 25th in defensive efficiency. They are surviving on turnovers, and takeaways are famously unreliable. Coaches can emphasise creating turnovers, but nobody can guarantee it. He is on the ballot because the offensive production is sustainable. He's ranked lower 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 behind. It's been an remarkable turnaround, and the core is established for long-term winning. However he falls short in this ranking.

4) Liam Coen, Jacksonville Jaguars, 12-4

Coen is in a comparable situation to his counterpart. He's another rookie leader who has engineered a dramatic turnaround. During the stretch run of the year, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the most complete all-around ball of his professional life. And he's also spearheaded the overhaul of a defensive unit that now ranks fifth in the NFL in Expected Points Added per play.

What's more notably, he has excelled at the leadership stuff, which wasn't a certainty after his initial press conference introduction and some of his offseason decisions.

The coach walked into Jacksonville with an uncommonly inexperienced staff. In contrast to other coaches, who packed their staff with the ideal coaching mix of youth and veteran savvy, Coen trusted first-timers. Starting with the leader himself to coordinators to assistant coaches, the Jaguars are filled with rookies. That type of approach is intriguing in theory, but frequently collapses in practice – as past failures are a cautionary tale – because everybody is figuring out a new job in real-time. Yet Coen has managed to bring everyone and everything together.

After an early strong start, there was a risk that the campaign would go off the track. A midseason setback had the Jags stumbling again. That's typically when leaders panic and change too much. Coen didn't. Instead, he streamlined the approach. The offense stopped chasing explosive plays and started seeking sustainable ones. The coach refocused the offense around his playmakers and the ground attack, and encouraged Lawrence to use his legs more often.

The results are evident. The Jags have won seven games consecutively and will be the conference's No 3 playoff seed. Coen 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 roster.

3) Mike Macdonald, Seattle Seahawks, Their Record

Every Strong of the Year narrative has a hinge moment. For Mike Macdonald, it was his QB move.

Parting ways from a veteran, signing a different quarterback and pairing him with an innovative offensive coordinator could have derailed the campaign in the early weeks. Rather, it defined it. Through the mid point of the year, the new QB was an Most Valuable Player contender. He has regressed after that time, dropping to a lower rank in EPA per pass attempt over the latter part of the season, putting him just one place ahead of peers.

Still