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Ordinarily, the NFL's Coach of the Year trophy adheres to a simple pattern. It commonly functions as a form of apology. We regret we underestimated your squad in our pre-campaign predictions.

On paper, it's a clear-cut trajectory: the skipper who oversaw the largest improvement wins the award. In practice, it fuels an annual argument about preseason outlooks and whether we're truly rewarding excellent coaching or merely the most shocking upset.

However the latest field is fundamentally different. The pool of candidates is remarkably talented. It has been the season of comebacks. The NFL has been chaotic, with recent division champions fading and longtime underperformers ascending together. During an ordinary year, Sean Payton guiding the Denver Broncos to the top of the AFC would make him the overwhelming favorite. Yet in such a turbulent and entertaining year, he's facing five other outstanding coaches.

This is how the ideal vote could be structured.

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

Voters for Coach of the Year voters are fascinated by quarterbacks. They always have. A certain coach in 2017. Another in 2020. A third in 2022. Should you fix a quarterback, you're halfway home.

The Bears' head coach not only corrected his young quarterback; he's freed him. Given a proper environment, Williams has been afforded the opportunity to display his special 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, the quarterback has become more decisive, less careless, and has willingly surrendered to the system instead of improvising. It is an attack constructed entirely in Johnson's image: a bully-ball ground attack, a heavy dose of play-action passes and a creative passing attack that creates wide-open receivers all over the field. The QB has taken advantage. And when easy reads weren't available, he's been able to conjure magic out of nothing.

The coach came to the Bears with a clear offensive vision. Virtually each bet – rebuilding the offensive line, utilizing the pass-catchers, transforming Williams into a rhythm passer – has succeeded. That's uncommon for a rookie head coach. And it's even more uncommon still for a leader who entered the building with the kind of pressure he did. For two straight cycles, he was the hottest name on the coaching market. But when it comes to selecting a leader, there are zero sure things. Somehow, Johnson has met expectations – and even exceeded them. He's proven not just to be a scheme genius but the kind of leader that can inject fresh energy into an franchise.

In a typical season, he would be the clear-cut favorite. But this isn't a typical season!

Where his case comes a bit unstuck is on defense. The Chicago defense presently rank in the bottom third in defensive success rate. They are surviving on takeaways, and turnovers are notoriously unreliable. Coaches can emphasise ball disruption, but nobody can guarantee it. Johnson is on the list because the offensive production is legitimate. He's ranked lower 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 several victories worse off. It's been an exceptional transformation, and the foundation is established for sustained winning. However he falls just short in this ranking.

4) Liam Coen, Jacksonville Jaguars, Their Record

Coen is in a similar situation to Johnson. He's a fellow rookie head coach who has engineered a dramatic resurgence. During the crucial final weeks of the season, he has his franchise quarterback playing the finest all-around ball of his professional life. And he's also spearheaded the remaking of a defense that now sits at fifth in the NFL in EPA per play.

What's more impressively, he has mastered the off-field stuff, which wasn't a guarantee after his initial public appearances and some of his preseason decisions.

The coach took over Jacksonville with an uncommonly inexperienced coaching staff. In contrast to Johnson, who packed their staff with the ideal coaching blend of new ideas and veteran savvy, he hired first-timers. From the leader on down to coordinators to position coaches, the Jags are stocked with rookies. That type of setup is exciting on paper, but frequently collapses in reality – with other teams are a warning – because everyone is learning a new job in real-time. Yet Coen has pulled the entire group and all elements into sync.

After an initial hot beginning, there was a possibility that the season would go off the track. A midseason collapse had the Jags stumbling again. That's usually when coaches overcorrect. Coen did not. Instead, he simplified things. The offense stopped chasing explosive answers and started hunting reliable ones. The coach refocused the attack around his playmakers and the ground attack, and asked Lawrence to use his legs more often.

The outcomes are evident. The Jaguars have won multiple games in a row and will be the AFC's number three seed. Coen gets the slightest deduction in the standings because he inherited a talented roster, but he has proven he can get the most out of that roster.

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

Every Strong of the Year argument has a pivotal moment. For the Seahawks coach, it was his QB move.

Moving on from a veteran, bringing in a new signal-caller and pairing him with an new play-caller might have ended the campaign in the early weeks. Rather, it made it. By the middle point of the year, the acquisition was an Most Valuable Player front-runner. He has regressed since that hot streak, slipping to a lower rank in efficiency per pass attempt over the latter part of the season, putting him only one place ahead of peers.

Still