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Ordinarily, the National Football League's Coach of the Year award follows a straightforward formula. It commonly serves as a form of apology. Our apologies we underestimated your franchise in our pre-campaign predictions.

Theoretically, it's a clear-cut trajectory: the skipper who orchestrated the largest resurgence wins the prize. In reality, it fuels an yearly argument about preseason outlooks and whether we're actually honoring excellent coaching or just the most shocking surprise.

However this year's competition is distinctly different. The list of candidates is exceptionally talented. It has been the season of turnarounds. The NFL has been chaotic, with recent conference winners fading and longtime strugglers improving collectively. In an ordinary year, a coach guiding the Denver Broncos to the summit of the AFC would make him the clear front-runner. Yet in such a wild and entertaining year, he's facing several other elite candidates.

Below is how the hypothetical ballot should shake out.

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

Coach of the Year voters adore signal-callers. History shows this. Sean McVay in 2017. Another in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. If you transform a franchise QB, you're halfway home.

Ben Johnson not only corrected Caleb Williams; he's unleashed him. In the right ecosystem, Williams has been given the chance to showcase his otherworldly talent. From Week 9, the Chicago offense sit at fourth in offensive Expected Points Added per play. This isn't a brief surge – it's sustained dominance. With his guidance, Williams has become increasingly confident, less reckless, and has eagerly surrendered to the gameplan rather than improvising. It is an attack constructed entirely in the coach's image: a physical ground attack, a steady helping of play-action and a innovative passing attack that creates wide-open receivers consistently. The QB has taken advantage. And when openings haven't been there, he's been able to create magic out of broken plays.

The coach arrived to the Bears with a specific offensive philosophy. Almost every gamble – rebuilding the offensive line, highlighting the pass-catchers, transforming Williams into a rhythm thrower – has succeeded. This is uncommon for a first-year head coach. And it's even more uncommon yet for a coach who entered the organization with the immense expectations he did. For consecutive straight cycles, he was the most sought-after candidate on the coaching carousel. But when it comes to selecting a leader, there are zero sure things. Remarkably, Johnson has met the hype – and even surpassed them. He's proven not only to be a scheme dork but the type of leader that can breathe new life into an franchise.

During a normal season, he would be the runaway favorite. But this isn't a typical year!

Where his candidacy comes a bit unstuck is on the defensive side. The Bears currently rank in the bottom third in defensive efficiency. They are relying on takeaways, and turnovers are famously inconsistent. Defensive minds can emphasise ball disruption, but nobody can ensure it. Johnson is on the ballot because the offense is real. He's not higher because luck is doing too much of the defensive work. With a couple bounces of the ball, the team would be two wins behind. It's been an remarkable turnaround, and the foundation is established for long-term winning. However Johnson comes up short here.

4) The Jacksonville Jaguars Coach, His Team, 12-4

Coen is in a comparable position to Johnson. He's another first-time leader who has masterminded a swift resurgence. Over the crucial final weeks of the season, he has his franchise quarterback playing the best all-around football of his career. And he's also overseen the remaking of a defense that now sits at fifth in the league in Expected Points Added per play.

Even more notably, Coen has mastered the intangibles stuff, which was not a certainty after his initial public introduction and some of his offseason decisions.

Coen took over Jacksonville with an uncommonly raw staff. In contrast to Johnson, who surrounded their staff with the perfect staff cocktail of new ideas and veteran savvy, Coen trusted newbies. Starting with the leader himself to assistants to position coaches, the Jaguars are filled with first-timers. That type of setup is exciting in theory, but frequently fails in reality – with other teams are a warning – because everyone is learning a new job on the fly. Yet Coen has managed to bring everyone and everything together.

Following an early hot start, there was a possibility that the campaign would go off the track. A mid-year collapse had the team stumbling again. That's typically when leaders overcorrect. Coen did not. Instead, he simplified things. The offense stopped chasing home-run answers and started hunting consistent ones. Coen refocused the attack around his playmakers and the ground attack, and asked his QB to use his legs more often.

The outcomes are evident. The Jags have won seven games consecutively and will be the conference's number three playoff seed. Coen gets the tiniest knock in the rankings because he inherited a skilled team, but he has demonstrated he can get the most out of that roster.

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

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

Moving on from a incumbent, bringing in a new signal-caller and pairing him with an innovative offensive coordinator might have ended the campaign in the early weeks. Instead, it shaped it. Through the middle point of the year, the new QB was an Most Valuable Player candidate. He has regressed after that hot streak, slipping to a lower rank in efficiency per pass attempt over the latter part of the season, putting him only one spot ahead of peers.

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