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Usually, the NFL's Coach of the Year award follows a straightforward pattern. It often acts as a kind of mea culpa. We regret we got wrong your team in our pre-campaign forecasts.

In theory, it's a clear-cut trajectory: the skipper who engineered the biggest resurgence is handed the prize. In reality, it fuels an annual argument about preseason outlooks and whether we're actually rewarding superior coaching or merely the greatest upset.

However this year's field is distinctly unique. The list of candidates is remarkably deep. It has been the season of resurgences. The league has been messy, with recent conference champions fading and recent also-rans improving collectively. Under an ordinary year, a coach guiding the his team to the summit of the conference would make him the clear favorite. Yet in such a wild and fun year, he's facing several other exceptional coaches.

Below is how the hypothetical vote could be structured.

5) Ben Johnson, Chicago Bears, 11-5

Coach of the Year voters are fascinated by quarterbacks. History shows this. Sean McVay in 2017. Another in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. Should you transform a quarterback, you're well on your way to winning the award.

Ben Johnson didn't merely corrected his young quarterback; he's unleashed him. In the right system, Williams has been given the chance to demonstrate his otherworldly talent. Since midseason onward, the Bears rank number four in offensive Expected Points Added per play. This isn't a brief surge – it's prolonged dominance. With Johnson, Williams has become more decisive, less reckless, and has willingly submitted to the scheme instead of freelancing. It is an offense designed solely in Johnson's vision: a bully-ball run game, a consistent dose of play-action passes and a imaginative passing attack that springs wide-open targets everywhere. Williams has capitalized. And when clear throws weren't available, he's been capable to conjure big plays out of nothing.

The coach arrived to the Bears with a specific offensive vision. Almost each gamble – overhauling the trenches, highlighting the tight ends, transforming the QB into a rhythm passer – has succeeded. That's rare for a rookie skipper. And it's rarer still for a leader who entered the organization with the kind of expectations he did. For consecutive straight cycles, he was the hottest name on the head coaching carousel. But when it comes to selecting a head coach, there are zero sure things. Somehow, he has lived up to expectations – and even surpassed them. He's demonstrated not only to be a scheme dork but the type of culture builder that can breathe new life into an franchise.

During a normal year, Johnson would be the overwhelming favorite. But this isn't a normal season!

Where Johnson's case runs a bit unstuck is on defense. The Bears presently sit 25th in defensive success rate. They are surviving on takeaways, and turnovers are famously inconsistent. Coaches can emphasise creating turnovers, but nobody can ensure it. He is on the list because the offensive production is legitimate. He's ranked lower because luck is doing an outsized share of the defense's work. With a couple breaks of the ball, the team would be several wins behind. It's been an exceptional turnaround, and the core is in place for sustained winning. But he falls just short here.

4) Liam Coen, Jacksonville Jaguars, Their Record

Coen is in a similar situation to Johnson. He's a fellow first-time leader who has engineered a dramatic turnaround. During the stretch run of the season, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the most complete all-around ball of his professional life. And he's also overseen the transformation of a defense that now sits at fifth in the NFL in EPA per play.

What's more notably, Coen has mastered the off-field stuff, which wasn't a certainty after his early public introduction and some of his offseason moves.

The coach walked into the Jaguars with an uncommonly raw staff. In contrast to Johnson, who packed themselves with the perfect staff mix of new ideas and veteran savvy, Coen hired newbies. Starting with the head coach on down to coordinators to position coaches, the Jags are stocked with rookies. That type of setup is intriguing on paper, but frequently collapses in reality – as past failures are a warning – because everybody is figuring out a their job on the fly. But Coen has managed to bring everyone and all elements together.

Following an initial strong start, there was a chance that the season would go off the track. A midseason setback had the Jags stumbling again. That's usually when leaders panic and change too much. Coen did not. Instead, he simplified the approach. Jacksonville stopped pursuing explosive plays and started hunting reliable ones. The coach refocused the offense around his playmakers and the ground attack, and asked Lawrence to use his mobility more often.

The outcomes are evident. The Jags have won multiple games in a row and will be the AFC's number three playoff seed. He receives the tiniest deduction in the standings because he inherited a talented team, but he has proven he can get the most out of that roster.

3) Mike Macdonald, Seattle Seahawks, 13-3

Each Coach of the Year narrative has a defining moment. For Mike Macdonald, it was his quarterback choice.

Parting ways from a incumbent, signing a new signal-caller and partnering him with an new offensive coordinator could have derailed the campaign in October. Rather, it made it. By the middle point of the season, the new QB was an Most Valuable Player candidate. He has cooled off after that time, dropping to a lower rank in efficiency per pass attempt over the latter part of the season, putting him just one place ahead of other QBs.

Still