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Usually, the National Football League's Coach of the Year award follows a simple pattern. It often serves as a type of mea culpa. We regret we misjudged your team in our preseason forecasts.

On paper, it's a clear-cut trajectory: the coach who orchestrated the most dramatic improvement receives the award. In practice, it fuels an annual debate about preseason outlooks and whether we're actually honoring superior coaching or just the biggest upset.

However the latest race is distinctly different. The pool of nominees is remarkably strong. It has been the campaign of turnarounds. The NFL has been messy, with recent conference winners fading and recent underperformers rising collectively. Under an ordinary season, a coach guiding the his team to the top of the conference would make him the clear favorite. Yet in this chaotic and fun year, he's competing with multiple other exceptional candidates.

Below is how the ideal ballot should be structured.

5) The Chicago Bears Coach, His Team, Their Record

Voters for Coach of the Year selectors adore QBs. History shows this. A certain coach in 2017. Another in 2020. A third in 2022. When you fix a franchise QB, you're halfway home.

Ben Johnson hasn't just fixed his young quarterback; he's unleashed him. In the right environment, the QB has been given the opportunity to showcase his rare talent. Since midseason onward, the Chicago offense sit at fourth in offensive Expected Points Added per play. This isn't a brief surge – it's sustained excellence. With Johnson, the quarterback has become increasingly confident, less reckless, and has willingly surrendered to the system rather than improvising. It is an attack designed entirely in the coach's vision: a physical ground attack, a heavy dose of play-action and a creative aerial game that creates wide receiver receivers all over the field. The QB has taken advantage. And when clear throws haven't been there, he's been capable to spin magic out of broken plays.

The coach arrived to Chicago with a specific offensive philosophy. Virtually each gamble – overhauling the trenches, highlighting the pass-catchers, transforming Williams into a rhythm passer – has succeeded. This is uncommon for a first-year head coach. And it's even more uncommon yet for a coach who walked into the organization with the level of expectations Johnson did. For two straight cycles, he was the most sought-after name on the coaching market. However when it comes to selecting a leader, there are zero guarantees. Remarkably, he has lived up to the hype – and even exceeded them. He's demonstrated not just to be a offensive genius but the kind of leader that can breathe fresh energy into an franchise.

During a ordinary year, he would be the clear-cut favorite. Yet this is not a typical season!

The area where Johnson's candidacy runs a bit into trouble is on the defensive side. The Chicago defense presently rank 25th in defensive efficiency. They are living on turnovers, and turnovers are famously fickle. Coaches can stress ball disruption, but nobody can guarantee it. Johnson is on the list because the offensive production is legitimate. He's not higher because luck is doing too much of the defensive heavy lifting. If not for a couple bounces of the ball, the Bears would be two victories behind. It's been an exceptional transformation, and the core is established for sustained winning. However he comes up just short in this ranking.

4) Liam Coen, Jacksonville Jaguars, Their Record

Coen is in a similar spot to Johnson. He's a fellow first-time head coach who has engineered a swift resurgence. Over the crucial final weeks of the season, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the most complete overall ball of his career. And he's also overseen the transformation of a defensive unit that now ranks fifth in the league in EPA per play.

What's more notably, Coen has excelled at the intangibles aspects, which was not a given after his initial press conference introduction and some of his offseason moves.

Coen walked into the Jaguars with an uncommonly raw coaching staff. Unlike other coaches, who packed themselves with the perfect coaching blend of youth and veteran savvy, Coen trusted first-timers. From the leader himself to assistants to assistant coaches, the Jags are stocked with first-timers. That kind of setup is intriguing on paper, but frequently collapses in reality – with other teams are a warning – because everybody is figuring out a new job on the fly. But Coen has managed to bring everyone and everything together.

After an initial hot start, there was a risk that the season would veer off the track. A midseason setback had the Jags stumbling once more. That's typically when leaders overcorrect. Coen did not. Rather, he streamlined things. The offense stopped chasing explosive answers and started hunting consistent ones. Coen recentered the attack around his playmakers and the running game, and asked his QB to use his legs more often.

The results are clear. The Jaguars have won seven games consecutively and will be the AFC's number three playoff seed. Coen gets the tiniest deduction in the rankings because he inherited a talented team, but he has demonstrated he can maximize that roster.

3) Mike Macdonald, Seattle Seahawks, 13-3

Each Coach of the Year narrative has a hinge decision. For the Seahawks coach, it was his QB decision.

Moving on from a incumbent, signing a different signal-caller and pairing him with an new offensive coordinator might have ended the campaign in October. Rather, it made it. Through the middle point of the year, the new QB was an MVP contender. He has cooled off after that hot streak, dropping to a lower rank in efficiency per pass attempt over the latter part of the season, placing him just one place ahead of other QBs.

Still