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Usually, the National Football League's Coach of the Year honor adheres to a simple script. It commonly functions as a form of mea culpa. Our apologies we underestimated your franchise in our pre-campaign forecasts.

On paper, it's a clear-cut line: the coach who orchestrated the biggest improvement wins the prize. However, it fuels an yearly discussion about preseason outlooks and whether we're truly rewarding superior coaching or simply the biggest surprise.

Yet the current field is distinctly different. The group of candidates is exceptionally strong. It has been the season of comebacks. The NFL has been messy, with reigning division winners falling away and longtime also-rans improving in unison. During an typical year, a coach leading the Denver Broncos to the summit of the conference would make him the overwhelming favorite. But in this turbulent and thrilling year, he's competing with several other elite coaches.

Below is how the hypothetical vote should look.

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

Coach of the Year selectors are fascinated by QBs. They always have. A certain coach in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. If you transform a quarterback, you're well on your way to winning the award.

Ben Johnson hasn't just corrected his young quarterback; he's unlocked him. Within an ideal environment, the QB has been given the opportunity to display his otherworldly talent. Since midseason onward, the Bears rank number four in offensive Expected Points Added per play. That's not a lucky run – it's prolonged dominance. Under Johnson, the quarterback has become more decisive, less reckless, and has willingly submitted to the gameplan instead of improvising. It is an offense constructed solely in the coach's vision: a bully-ball ground attack, a consistent dose of play-action passes and a imaginative aerial game that frees wide-open targets consistently. Williams has taken advantage. And when clear throws haven't been available, he's been able to conjure magic from nothing.

Johnson came to the Bears with a clear offensive vision. Virtually every decision – overhauling the trenches, highlighting the tight ends, transforming the QB into a timing-based thrower – has succeeded. That's uncommon for a rookie head coach. And it's even more uncommon yet for a leader who entered the organization with the kind of expectations Johnson did. For two straight cycles, he was the hottest candidate on the head coaching carousel. However when it comes to hiring a leader, there are zero sure things. Somehow, he has met the hype – and even exceeded them. He's proven not just to be a scheme dork but the type of leader that can breathe new life into an organization.

During a typical season, he would be the clear-cut choice. Yet the current isn't a typical season!

The area where his candidacy comes slightly into trouble is on the defensive side. The Bears presently sit in the bottom third in defensive success rate. They are relying on turnovers, and takeaways are famously unreliable. Coaches can emphasise ball disruption, but nobody can ensure it. Johnson is on the list because the offense is sustainable. He's not higher because variance is doing too much of the defensive work. If not for a few breaks of the ball, the team would be two wins behind. It's been an remarkable turnaround, and the foundation is in place for long-term winning. But Johnson falls just short in this ranking.

4) Liam Coen, Jacksonville Jaguars, 12-4

The Jaguars' coach is in a similar spot to Johnson. He's a fellow first-time head coach who has engineered a rapid turnaround. Over the stretch run of the season, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the most complete all-around ball of his career. And he's also overseen the transformation of a defense that now ranks number five in the league in EPA per play.

What's more impressively, he has mastered the intangibles aspects, which wasn't a guarantee following his initial public introduction and some of his offseason moves.

Coen walked into Jacksonville with an exceptionally raw coaching staff. In contrast to Johnson, who packed themselves with the perfect coaching cocktail of new ideas and veteran savvy, Coen trusted first-timers. From the leader on down to coordinators to assistant coaches, the Jags are stocked with first-timers. That type of setup is exciting on paper, but frequently collapses in practice – as past failures are a cautionary tale – because everyone is figuring out a new job in real-time. Yet he has managed to bring the entire group and all elements together.

Following an initial strong start, there was a risk that the campaign would go off the track. A midseason setback caused the team wobbling again. That's typically when leaders overcorrect. Coen did not. Rather, he simplified the approach. The offense stopped chasing home-run plays and started hunting sustainable ones. Coen refocused the attack around his playmakers and the ground attack, and encouraged his QB to use his mobility more.

The outcomes are clear. The Jags have won multiple games consecutively and will be the AFC's number three seed. He gets the slightest knock in the standings because he took over 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

Every Strong of the Year narrative has a pivotal moment. For Mike Macdonald, it was his quarterback choice.

Moving on from a incumbent, signing a new quarterback and partnering him with an innovative play-caller might have derailed the season in October. Instead, it shaped it. By the mid point of the season, the new QB was an Most Valuable Player contender. He has regressed after that hot streak, dropping to 23rd in efficiency per pass attempt over the second half of the schedule, placing him only a single spot ahead of peers.

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