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Typically, the NFL's Coach of the Year award adheres to a simple pattern. It frequently functions as a type of apology. We regret we underestimated your team in our pre-campaign predictions.

In theory, it's a clear-cut line: the skipper who orchestrated the most dramatic improvement wins the award. In practice, it creates an annual discussion about preseason outlooks and whether we're genuinely honoring excellent coaching or merely the most shocking upset.

However this year's field is distinctly different. The pool of nominees is unusually strong. It has been the year of turnarounds. The league has been chaotic, with reigning conference winners fading and longtime underperformers improving in unison. Under an normal season, a coach guiding the his team to the top of the AFC would make him the clear front-runner. Yet in this wild and entertaining season, he's up against several other elite candidates.

Below is how the hypothetical ballot ought to shake out.

5) Ben Johnson, His Team, Their Record

Coach of the Year selectors adore signal-callers. History shows this. A certain coach in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. A third in 2022. When you solve a franchise QB, you're halfway to winning the award.

The Bears' head coach hasn't just corrected his young quarterback; he's unlocked him. Within an ideal ecosystem, Williams has been afforded the chance to showcase his rare ability. From Week 9, the Bears sit at fourth in offensive Expected Points Added per play. That's not a brief surge – it's consistent performance. Under Johnson, Williams has become increasingly confident, less reckless, and has eagerly surrendered to the system instead of going rogue. It is an attack constructed solely in the coach's vision: a physical ground attack, a heavy dose of play-action passes and a creative passing attack that springs wide receiver targets all over the field. The QB has thrived. And when easy reads haven't been there, he's been able to spin big plays from nothing.

The coach came to the Bears with a clear offensive vision. Almost each decision – rebuilding the offensive line, utilizing the pass-catchers, turning the QB into a rhythm passer – has succeeded. That's rare for a first-year head coach. And it's rarer yet for a leader who walked into the building with the immense expectations Johnson did. For consecutive straight cycles, he was the most sought-after candidate on the head coaching carousel. But when it comes to selecting a head coach, there are no sure things. Remarkably, he has lived up to expectations – and even surpassed them. He's demonstrated not just to be a scheme dork but the type of leader that can inject new life into an franchise.

During a typical season, Johnson would be the overwhelming choice. Yet the current isn't a normal campaign!

The area where his case comes slightly unstuck is on defense. The Chicago defense presently rank 25th in defensive efficiency. They are relying on turnovers, and turnovers are famously inconsistent. Coaches can stress ball disruption, but no one can guarantee it. Johnson is on the ballot because the offense is legitimate. He's ranked lower because luck is doing too much of the defense's heavy lifting. With a few bounces of the ball, the team would be several wins behind. It's been an remarkable transformation, and the foundation is established for long-term winning. But Johnson comes up just short here.

4) The Jacksonville Jaguars Coach, Jacksonville Jaguars, Their Record

Coen is in a similar situation to his counterpart. He's a fellow first-time leader who has orchestrated a dramatic resurgence. Over the stretch run of the year, he has his franchise quarterback playing the finest all-around ball of his professional life. And he's also overseen the overhaul of a defensive unit that now sits at fifth in the NFL in Expected Points Added per play.

Even more impressively, Coen has nailed the off-field stuff, which wasn't a given after his early public introduction and some of his preseason moves.

The coach walked into Jacksonville with an uncommonly raw coaching staff. In contrast to other coaches, who surrounded their staff with the ideal coaching mix of new ideas and experience, he trusted first-timers. From the leader himself to assistants to assistant coaches, the Jags are filled with rookies. That kind of setup is intriguing on paper, but often collapses in practice – as past failures are a cautionary tale – because everybody is figuring out a their job in real-time. But he has pulled the entire group and all elements together.

Following an early hot beginning, there was a chance that the season would go off the rails. A mid-year collapse had the team wobbling once more. That's typically when coaches panic and change too much. He did not. Instead, he streamlined things. The offense stopped pursuing home-run answers and started hunting consistent ones. The coach refocused the attack around key players and the ground attack, and asked his QB to use his legs more often.

The outcomes are obvious. The Jaguars have won seven games in a row and will be the AFC's number three playoff seed. Coen gets the tiniest knock in the rankings because he inherited a talented roster, but he has proven he can maximize that talent.

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

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

Moving on from a incumbent, signing a different signal-caller and partnering him with an new offensive coordinator could have ended the season in October. Rather, it shaped it. Through the mid point of the season, the new QB was an Most Valuable Player front-runner. He has cooled off after that time, slipping to a lower rank in EPA per dropback over the latter part of the season, placing him just one spot ahead of peers.

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