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Typically, the National Football League's Coach of the Year honor adheres to a simple script. It frequently acts as a kind of mea culpa. Sorry we got wrong your franchise in our pre-campaign forecasts.

In theory, it's a direct path: the skipper who engineered the biggest turnaround wins the prize. In reality, it fuels an annual discussion about preseason outlooks and whether we're genuinely honoring excellent coaching or just the biggest shock.

However this year's race is distinctly unique. The list of candidates is exceptionally strong. It has been the season of comebacks. The NFL has been unpredictable, with reigning conference winners declining and recent underperformers rising together. During an ordinary year, a coach leading the his team to the summit of the conference would make him the overwhelming front-runner. Yet in such a wild and thrilling season, he's up against multiple other exceptional coaches.

Below is how the ideal vote could be structured.

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. A third in 2022. Should you fix a franchise QB, you're halfway home.

Ben Johnson not only corrected his young quarterback; he's unleashed him. Within an ideal system, the QB has been afforded the chance to showcase his rare talent. From Week 9, the Bears sit at fourth in offensive EPA per play. That's not a brief surge – it's prolonged dominance. Under his guidance, Williams has become more decisive, far less reckless, and has willingly submitted to the scheme instead of freelancing. It is an offense designed entirely in the coach's image: a physical run game, a heavy helping of play-action and a imaginative aerial game that creates wide receiver targets consistently. Williams has thrived. And when openings weren't there, he's been able to spin magic from nothing.

Johnson came to the Bears with a defined offensive vision. Virtually each gamble – overhauling the trenches, highlighting the tight ends, turning Williams into a timing-based thrower – has paid off. That's rare for a rookie head coach. And it's even more uncommon still for a coach who entered the organization with the kind of expectations Johnson did. For two straight offseasons, he was the top name on the head coaching carousel. However when it comes to hiring a head coach, there are zero guarantees. Somehow, Johnson has met expectations – and even surpassed them. He's demonstrated not only to be a scheme dork but the type of leader that can breathe new life into an franchise.

In a normal year, he would be the clear-cut choice. But the current isn't a typical campaign!

The area where his case runs a bit into trouble is on defense. The Bears currently sit 25th in defensive efficiency. They are living on turnovers, and turnovers are notoriously unreliable. Coaches can emphasise ball disruption, but nobody can guarantee it. Johnson is on the list because the offense is real. He's ranked lower because variance is doing an outsized share of the defensive heavy lifting. With a few breaks of the ball, the team would be two victories worse off. It's been an exceptional transformation, and the foundation is in place for sustained success. But Johnson falls just short in this ranking.

4) Liam Coen, Jacksonville Jaguars, Their Record

Coen is in a comparable spot to his counterpart. He's another first-time head coach who has orchestrated a rapid resurgence. Over the stretch run of the season, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the most complete overall football of his career. And he's also overseen the transformation of a defense that now sits at number five in the league in Expected Points Added per play.

What's more notably, Coen has nailed the off-field stuff, which wasn't a certainty after his initial press conference appearances and some of his offseason moves.

The coach took over Jacksonville with an exceptionally raw coaching staff. Unlike Johnson, who packed themselves with the ideal staff mix of new ideas and experience, he hired newbies. Starting with the leader himself to assistants to position coaches, the Jags are filled with first-timers. That type of setup is intriguing in theory, but frequently fails in practice – as past failures are a warning – because everyone is learning a new job in real-time. But he has managed to bring everyone and everything together.

After an early strong beginning, there was a risk that the campaign would go off the track. A midseason setback caused the Jags wobbling once more. That's usually when leaders panic and change too much. Coen didn't. Instead, he simplified things. Jacksonville stopped chasing explosive plays and started seeking reliable ones. Coen recentered the attack around key players and the ground attack, and encouraged his QB to use his legs more often.

The outcomes are obvious. The Jaguars have won multiple games consecutively and will be the AFC's No 3 playoff seed. He receives the tiniest deduction in the rankings because he took over a talented team, but he has proven he can maximize that talent.

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

Every Coach of the Year argument has a pivotal moment. For the Seahawks coach, it was his quarterback decision.

Moving on from a incumbent, bringing in a new quarterback and partnering him with an innovative play-caller could have derailed the season in October. Rather, it made it. Through the middle point of the year, the acquisition was an Most Valuable Player candidate. He has regressed since that time, slipping to a lower rank in EPA per pass attempt over the latter part of the schedule, placing him only one place ahead of peers.

Still