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Ordinarily, the National Football League's Coach of the Year trophy adheres to a straightforward script. It often acts as a kind of apology. Our apologies we underestimated your franchise in our preseason predictions.

On paper, it's a direct trajectory: the skipper who engineered the largest improvement wins the prize. In practice, it sparks an yearly argument about expectations and whether we're genuinely honoring excellent leadership or just the greatest upset.

But this year's field is profoundly different. The pool of nominees is unusually deep. It has been the season of resurgences. The NFL has been chaotic, with recent conference champions fading and recent also-rans rising collectively. During an typical season, a coach guiding the Denver Broncos to the top of the AFC would make him the stone-cold front-runner. Yet in this wild and entertaining year, he's competing with five other elite coaches.

Below is how the ideal vote could shake out.

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

Coach of the Year voters love quarterbacks. This is a tradition. A certain coach in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. A third in 2022. If you solve a franchise QB, you're well on your way to winning the award.

The Bears' head coach hasn't just fixed his young quarterback; he's unleashed him. Given a proper system, the QB has been afforded the opportunity to demonstrate his special talent. Since midseason onward, the Bears sit at fourth in offensive EPA per play. This isn't a brief surge – it's prolonged performance. With Johnson, Williams has become more decisive, far less reckless, and has eagerly surrendered to the gameplan instead of freelancing. It is an offense designed entirely in the coach's image: a physical ground attack, a steady helping of play-action and a creative aerial game that frees wide-open receivers everywhere. Williams has thrived. And when clear throws haven't been available, he's been capable to spin big plays from nothing.

Johnson arrived to Chicago with a clear offensive vision. Almost each gamble – rebuilding the trenches, utilizing the pass-catchers, transforming the QB into a rhythm thrower – has succeeded. That's rare for a rookie head coach. And it's rarer still for a coach who walked into the building with the level of pressure Johnson did. For consecutive straight cycles, he was the hottest name on the coaching market. But when it comes to hiring a leader, there are no guarantees. Somehow, he has lived up to expectations – and even exceeded them. He's demonstrated not just to be a offensive wizard but the type of leader that can inject fresh energy into an franchise.

During a typical season, he would be the overwhelming choice. But this is not a typical campaign!

The area where his candidacy comes a bit into trouble is on the defensive side. The Chicago defense presently rank in the bottom third in defensive efficiency. They are living on turnovers, and takeaways are notoriously inconsistent. Defensive minds can focus on creating turnovers, but no one can guarantee it. He is on the list because the offensive production is legitimate. He's ranked lower because variance is doing an outsized share of the defense's heavy lifting. With a few breaks of the ball, the Bears would be two victories behind. It's been an remarkable transformation, and the core is in place for sustained success. However he falls short here.

4) The Jacksonville Jaguars Coach, Jacksonville Jaguars, 12-4

The Jaguars' coach is in a comparable spot to his counterpart. He's another first-time head coach who has masterminded a swift turnaround. During the stretch run of the season, he has his franchise quarterback playing the most complete all-around ball of his career. And he's also spearheaded the overhaul of a defense that now sits at number five in the NFL in EPA per play.

Even more notably, he has mastered the intangibles stuff, which was not a certainty after his early press conference appearances and some of his preseason moves.

Coen took over Jacksonville with an uncommonly raw coaching staff. In contrast to Johnson, who packed themselves with the ideal staff blend of youth and veteran savvy, Coen hired newbies. From the leader on down to coordinators to position coaches, the Jags are stocked with rookies. That kind of approach is exciting in theory, but frequently collapses in practice – as past failures are a cautionary tale – because everybody is figuring out a their job on the fly. Yet he has pulled everyone and everything together.

After an early hot start, there was a risk that the campaign would go off the track. A mid-year setback caused the team wobbling again. That's typically when coaches panic and change too much. He didn't. Instead, he simplified the approach. The offense stopped chasing home-run answers and started seeking sustainable ones. Coen refocused the offense around his playmakers and the ground attack, and encouraged Lawrence to use his legs more.

The results are evident. The Jaguars have won multiple games consecutively and will be the conference's number three seed. Coen receives the slightest knock 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 Strong of the Year argument has a defining decision. For the Seahawks coach, it was his QB decision.

Parting ways from a veteran, signing a different quarterback and pairing him with an new play-caller could have ended the season in the early weeks. Instead, it shaped it. By the middle point of the season, the new QB was an Most Valuable Player contender. He has regressed after that hot streak, slipping to a lower rank in efficiency per dropback over the latter part of the schedule, placing him only one place ahead of peers.

Still