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Usually, the National Football League's Coach of the Year honor adheres to a straightforward script. It often acts as a kind of apology. Sorry we underestimated your franchise in our pre-campaign predictions.

In theory, it's a clear-cut path: the skipper who orchestrated the biggest resurgence is handed the award. However, it creates an annual debate about expectations and whether we're genuinely honoring excellent coaching or just the greatest surprise.

However this year's field is distinctly different. The pool of contenders is remarkably talented. It has been the season of turnarounds. The league has been unpredictable, with recent division winners fading and recent underperformers improving in unison. In an normal season, Sean Payton guiding the Denver Broncos to the summit of the AFC would make him the clear front-runner. But in such a chaotic and entertaining season, he's up against several other elite candidates.

This is how the hypothetical vote ought to look.

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

Coach of the Year voters love QBs. History shows this. Sean McVay in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. If you fix a quarterback, you're halfway to winning the award.

The Bears' head coach didn't merely fixed Caleb Williams; he's freed him. Given a proper environment, Williams has been given the opportunity to demonstrate his otherworldly ability. From Week 9, the Chicago offense rank number four in offensive Expected Points Added per play. That's not a hot streak – it's prolonged excellence. With Johnson, the quarterback has become increasingly confident, far less reckless, and has eagerly surrendered to the gameplan rather than freelancing. It is an attack built entirely in Johnson's image: a bully-ball ground attack, a consistent helping of play-action passes and a creative passing attack that springs wide-open targets all over the field. Williams has capitalized. And when openings haven't been there, he's been capable to create big plays from nothing.

Johnson came to the Bears with a clear offensive vision. Virtually each gamble – overhauling the offensive line, utilizing the pass-catchers, transforming the QB into a timing-based thrower – has paid off. That's rare for a rookie skipper. And it's even more uncommon yet for a coach who walked into the building with the level of pressure Johnson did. For two straight offseasons, he was the top candidate on the coaching market. However when it comes to selecting a leader, there are no sure things. Somehow, he has lived up to expectations – and even exceeded them. He's proven not just to be a scheme dork but the type of leader that can inject new life into an franchise.

In a ordinary season, he would be the runaway choice. Yet the current isn't a normal campaign!

The area where Johnson's candidacy runs a bit unstuck is on defense. The Chicago defense currently sit in the bottom third in defensive success rate. They are surviving on takeaways, and turnovers are notoriously unreliable. Coaches can focus on creating turnovers, but no one can ensure it. Johnson is on the ballot because the offense is legitimate. He's not higher because luck is doing an outsized share of the defensive work. If not for a couple breaks of the ball, the team would be two wins worse off. It's been an remarkable transformation, and the foundation is in place for sustained winning. However he falls just short here.

4) Liam Coen, His Team, Their Record

The Jaguars' coach is in a similar position to Johnson. He's another first-time leader who has engineered a swift resurgence. During the stretch run of the year, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the best overall ball of his professional life. And he's also spearheaded the overhaul of a defense that now sits at number five in the league in Expected Points Added per play.

Even more impressively, Coen has excelled at the intangibles stuff, which wasn't a guarantee following his early press conference appearances and some of his offseason moves.

Coen took over the Jaguars with an exceptionally raw staff. In contrast to other coaches, who surrounded themselves with the perfect coaching mix of youth and experience, Coen bet on first-timers. From the leader on down to assistants to position coaches, the Jaguars are stocked with rookies. That kind of setup is exciting in theory, but frequently collapses in reality – with other teams are a cautionary tale – because everyone is figuring out a new job on the fly. Yet Coen has managed to bring the entire group and everything into sync.

After an initial strong beginning, there was a chance that the campaign would veer off the rails. A midseason setback had the Jags wobbling once more. That's usually when coaches panic and change too much. Coen did not. Rather, he streamlined things. Jacksonville stopped pursuing home-run answers and started seeking sustainable ones. Coen recentered the attack around his playmakers and the running game, and encouraged Lawrence to use his legs more.

The results are obvious. The Jaguars have won multiple games consecutively and will be the AFC's number three playoff seed. He receives the tiniest knock in the standings because he took over a talented team, but he has proven he can maximize that roster.

3) Mike Macdonald, His Team, Their Record

Each Strong of the Year narrative has a pivotal moment. For Mike Macdonald, it was his QB move.

Parting ways from a incumbent, bringing in a different signal-caller and partnering him with an new offensive coordinator might have ended the season in the early weeks. Rather, it made it. Through the mid point of the season, the new QB was an MVP candidate. He has cooled off since that time, slipping to a lower rank in EPA per dropback over the second half of the schedule, putting him only a single place ahead of peers.

Still