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Ordinarily, the NFL's Coach of the Year award follows a straightforward script. It commonly functions as a form of mea culpa. We regret we underestimated your team in our preseason projections.

In theory, it's a direct path: the skipper who orchestrated the most dramatic improvement is handed the award. However, it fuels an annual debate about preseason outlooks and whether we're genuinely rewarding superior leadership or merely the greatest upset.

However the latest race is distinctly different. The group of nominees is exceptionally strong. It has been the campaign of comebacks. The NFL has been messy, with recent conference winners falling away and recent underperformers ascending in unison. During an typical year, a coach guiding the Denver Broncos to the summit of the AFC would make him the overwhelming favorite. But in such a wild and thrilling year, he's facing several other outstanding coaches.

This is how the ideal vote should look.

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

Voters for Coach of the Year selectors are fascinated by quarterbacks. History shows this. A certain coach in 2017. Another in 2020. A third in 2022. If you solve a quarterback, you're well on your way home.

Ben Johnson didn't merely corrected his young quarterback; he's freed him. Given a proper environment, the QB has been afforded the chance to demonstrate his otherworldly ability. From Week 9, the Chicago offense rank number four in offensive EPA per play. That's not a hot streak – it's sustained performance. Under his guidance, the quarterback has become increasingly confident, less careless, and has eagerly surrendered to the scheme rather than going rogue. It is an offense constructed solely in Johnson's vision: a physical run game, a heavy helping of play-action and a creative aerial game that creates wide receiver receivers consistently. Williams has thrived. And when openings weren't available, he's been able to conjure magic from broken plays.

Johnson came to Chicago with a specific offensive philosophy. Almost each bet – overhauling the trenches, featuring the pass-catchers, turning Williams into a timing-based thrower – has worked. This is rare for a first-year head coach. And it's rarer yet for a coach who entered the organization with the immense pressure Johnson did. For consecutive straight offseasons, he was the hottest candidate on the head coaching carousel. But when it comes to hiring a head coach, there are zero guarantees. Somehow, he has lived up to the hype – and even surpassed them. He's proven not only to be a offensive wizard but the kind of leader that can breathe fresh energy into an organization.

During a ordinary year, he would be the clear-cut favorite. But this isn't a normal campaign!

Where his candidacy comes slightly into trouble is on the defensive side. The Chicago defense presently sit in the bottom third in defensive efficiency. They are living on takeaways, and takeaways are notoriously unreliable. Coaches can emphasise ball disruption, but nobody can guarantee it. He is on the list because the offensive production is real. He's ranked lower because variance is doing too much of the defense's work. If not for a few bounces of the ball, the team would be two victories behind. It's been an remarkable turnaround, and the foundation is established for long-term winning. But Johnson comes up just short in this ranking.

4) Liam Coen, His Team, Their Record

Coen is in a similar position to his counterpart. He's another rookie leader who has engineered a dramatic turnaround. Over the stretch run of the year, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the best overall ball of his career. And he's also spearheaded the remaking of a defense that now ranks fifth in the NFL in EPA per play.

Even more notably, Coen has excelled at the intangibles stuff, which was not a guarantee after his early press conference appearances and some of his offseason moves.

Coen walked into Jacksonville with an uncommonly inexperienced staff. In contrast to Johnson, who surrounded their staff with the perfect staff cocktail of youth and experience, he trusted first-timers. From the leader himself to assistants to assistant coaches, the Jags are stocked with rookies. That kind of approach is intriguing on paper, but frequently fails in practice – with other teams are a cautionary tale – because everyone is learning a new job on the fly. Yet he has pulled the entire group and everything into sync.

After an initial hot start, there was a chance that the campaign would veer off the rails. A midseason setback had the Jags stumbling once more. That's typically when coaches panic and change too much. He did not. Rather, he simplified things. Jacksonville stopped chasing home-run plays and started hunting reliable ones. Coen recentered the attack around his playmakers and the running game, and asked his QB to use his legs more often.

The outcomes are obvious. The Jags have won multiple games consecutively and will be the conference's number three seed. Coen gets the slightest deduction in the standings because he inherited a skilled roster, but he has demonstrated he can maximize that talent.

3) The Seattle Seahawks Coach, Seattle Seahawks, Their Record

Every Strong of the Year narrative has a hinge moment. For the Seahawks coach, it was his QB decision.

Parting ways from a incumbent, signing a new quarterback and pairing him with an innovative offensive coordinator could have ended the season in October. Instead, it shaped it. By the middle point of the year, the new QB was an Most Valuable Player candidate. He has fallen away since that time, slipping to 23rd in efficiency per pass attempt over the latter part of the season, placing him only one spot ahead of peers.

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