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Usually, the NFL's Coach of the Year honor follows a straightforward script. It frequently acts as a type of apology. Our apologies we got wrong your franchise in our pre-campaign predictions.

On paper, it's a direct path: the skipper who engineered the most dramatic resurgence is handed the award. However, it sparks an yearly discussion about preseason outlooks and whether we're actually rewarding excellent leadership or simply the biggest surprise.

However this year's field is profoundly different. The pool of contenders is remarkably strong. It has been the campaign of comebacks. The league has been messy, with recent conference winners declining and recent also-rans improving in unison. Under an ordinary season, Sean Payton guiding the Denver Broncos to the top of the AFC would make him the clear front-runner. Yet in such a wild and entertaining year, he's competing with five other exceptional candidates.

This is how the ideal vote could be structured.

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

Coach of the Year voters adore QBs. This is a tradition. A certain coach in 2017. Another in 2020. A third in 2022. If you solve a quarterback, you're well on your way to winning the award.

Ben Johnson not only fixed his young quarterback; he's unlocked him. Within an ideal environment, the QB has been afforded the chance to display his otherworldly talent. Since Week 9, the Chicago offense sit at fourth in offensive EPA per play. That's not a brief surge – it's consistent dominance. Under Johnson, the quarterback has become increasingly confident, far less careless, and has willingly submitted to the system instead of freelancing. It is an offense built solely in Johnson's vision: a bully-ball ground attack, a consistent dose of play-action and a creative passing attack that creates wide-open receivers everywhere. The QB has capitalized. And when openings weren't available, he's been able to conjure big plays from nothing.

The coach arrived to Chicago with a clear offensive vision. Virtually each bet – overhauling the trenches, utilizing the pass-catchers, transforming Williams into a rhythm passer – has succeeded. That's rare for a first-year head coach. And it's even more uncommon yet for a coach who walked into the organization with the level of pressure he did. For consecutive straight cycles, he was the top name on the coaching carousel. However when it comes to selecting a head coach, there are zero guarantees. Somehow, he has met expectations – and even exceeded them. He's proven not just to be a offensive wizard but the type of leader that can inject new life into an organization.

In a normal year, he would be the runaway favorite. Yet the current isn't a typical year!

The area where Johnson's case runs slightly unstuck is on the defensive side. The Bears presently sit 25th in defensive efficiency. They are relying on turnovers, and turnovers are notoriously unreliable. Coaches can focus on creating turnovers, but no one can guarantee it. Johnson is on the ballot because the offensive production is legitimate. He's not higher because luck is doing too much of the defense's work. If not for a few breaks of the ball, the team would be two victories behind. It's been an exceptional turnaround, and the core is established for long-term winning. But Johnson falls short here.

4) Liam Coen, Jacksonville Jaguars, 12-4

Coen is in a similar position to his counterpart. He's a fellow first-time head coach who has masterminded a dramatic turnaround. During the crucial final weeks of the year, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the most complete overall football of his professional life. And he's also overseen the overhaul of a defense that now ranks fifth in the NFL in EPA per play.

What's more notably, he has mastered the intangibles stuff, which wasn't a certainty following his early public appearances and some of his offseason decisions.

The coach took over the Jaguars with an exceptionally raw coaching staff. Unlike Johnson, who surrounded themselves with the perfect staff blend of youth and experience, he trusted first-timers. Starting with the head coach on down to assistants to assistant coaches, the Jags are stocked with first-timers. That kind of approach is intriguing on paper, but often fails in reality – as past failures are a warning – because everyone is learning a their job in real-time. Yet he has managed to bring the entire group and everything into sync.

Following an initial strong start, there was a risk that the campaign would veer off the rails. A midseason setback caused the Jags stumbling once more. That's typically when leaders overcorrect. Coen did not. Rather, he simplified the approach. The offense stopped pursuing explosive answers and started hunting reliable ones. Coen refocused the offense around key players and the running game, and asked his QB to use his legs more.

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

3) Mike Macdonald, His Team, 13-3

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

Moving on from a incumbent, signing a new signal-caller and partnering him with an innovative offensive coordinator could have ended the season in the early weeks. Rather, it made it. By the middle point of the year, the new QB was an MVP candidate. He has fallen away after that hot streak, dropping to a lower rank in efficiency per pass attempt over the second half of the schedule, placing him only one place ahead of other QBs.

Still