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Ordinarily, the National Football League's Coach of the Year honor follows a straightforward script. It commonly acts as a type of apology. We regret we got wrong your squad in our pre-campaign predictions.

In theory, it's a clear-cut trajectory: the coach who engineered the biggest turnaround receives the prize. However, it creates an annual argument about preseason outlooks and whether we're actually rewarding superior leadership or just the biggest surprise.

Yet the latest field is fundamentally different. The list of contenders is unusually deep. It has been the year of resurgences. The NFL has been messy, with reigning conference winners fading and recent also-rans rising collectively. Under an ordinary season, Sean Payton guiding the Denver Broncos to the summit of the AFC would make him the overwhelming favorite. Yet in such a wild and thrilling season, he's facing several other exceptional coaches.

Below is how the ideal vote could be structured.

5) Ben Johnson, His Team, 11-5

Voters for Coach of the Year voters love quarterbacks. This is a tradition. A certain coach in 2017. Another in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. Should you transform a franchise QB, you're well on your way to winning the award.

The Bears' head coach not only fixed Caleb Williams; he's unleashed him. Within an ideal system, Williams has been afforded the opportunity to showcase his special ability. From midseason onward, the Chicago offense sit at number four in offensive Expected Points Added per play. This isn't a lucky run – it's sustained excellence. Under his guidance, Williams has become more decisive, less reckless, and has eagerly surrendered to the scheme instead of freelancing. It is an offense built entirely in the coach's vision: a physical run game, a steady helping of play-action and a creative passing attack that springs wide receiver targets all over the field. Williams has thrived. And when easy reads haven't been there, he's been able to spin magic from broken plays.

Johnson came to the Bears with a specific offensive vision. Almost each bet – overhauling the trenches, utilizing the pass-catchers, turning the QB into a rhythm thrower – has succeeded. This is uncommon for a first-year head coach. And it's even more uncommon yet for a leader who walked into the organization with the immense pressure Johnson did. For consecutive straight offseasons, he was the top candidate on the coaching carousel. But when it comes to hiring a leader, there are zero guarantees. Remarkably, Johnson has lived up to the hype – and even surpassed them. He's proven not only to be a offensive wizard but the kind of culture builder that can breathe new life into an franchise.

During a typical season, he would be the runaway favorite. Yet the current is not a normal season!

The area where Johnson's case comes slightly into trouble is on the defensive side. The Chicago defense presently rank 25th in defensive efficiency. They are living on turnovers, and takeaways are famously unreliable. Coaches can emphasise creating turnovers, but no one can ensure it. He is on the list because the offense is legitimate. He's ranked lower because variance is doing too much of the defensive work. If not for a couple bounces of the ball, the Bears would be several victories worse off. It's been an remarkable turnaround, and the core is in place for long-term winning. However he falls just short in this ranking.

4) Liam Coen, His Team, Their Record

The Jaguars' coach is in a comparable situation to his counterpart. He's another rookie leader who has masterminded a rapid resurgence. During the stretch run of the year, he has his franchise quarterback playing the best overall ball of his professional life. And he's also spearheaded the remaking of a defense that now sits at fifth in the league in EPA per play.

What's more notably, Coen has excelled at the intangibles aspects, which wasn't a guarantee after his early press conference introduction and some of his offseason moves.

Coen walked into the Jaguars with an exceptionally raw coaching staff. Unlike Johnson, who surrounded their staff with the perfect coaching mix of new ideas and veteran savvy, Coen hired first-timers. From the head coach himself to assistants to position coaches, the Jags are filled with rookies. That type of setup is intriguing on paper, but often 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 early strong beginning, there was a risk that the season would veer off the track. A midseason setback had the Jags wobbling once more. That's typically when leaders overcorrect. He did not. Rather, he simplified things. Jacksonville stopped chasing home-run plays and started hunting reliable ones. Coen refocused the attack around his playmakers and the running game, and asked Lawrence to use his mobility more often.

The outcomes are clear. The Jaguars have won multiple games consecutively and will be the AFC's number three playoff seed. Coen gets the slightest deduction in the rankings because he took over a skilled team, but he has demonstrated he can maximize that talent.

3) Mike Macdonald, Seattle Seahawks, Their Record

Each Coach of the Year argument has a defining moment. For the Seahawks coach, it was his quarterback decision.

Moving on from a veteran, signing a new signal-caller and pairing him with an new play-caller might have ended the season in October. Rather, it defined it. By the mid point of the season, the acquisition was an Most Valuable Player candidate. He has fallen away since that time, slipping to a lower rank in efficiency per pass attempt over the second half of the schedule, placing him just one place ahead of peers.

Still