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Usually, the NFL's Coach of the Year trophy adheres to a simple script. It frequently serves as a form of mea culpa. Our apologies we misjudged your franchise in our pre-campaign predictions.

On paper, it's a clear-cut trajectory: the coach who engineered the biggest improvement is handed the award. In practice, it creates an annual discussion about preseason outlooks and whether we're truly rewarding superior coaching or just the most shocking surprise.

But this year's field is fundamentally unique. The pool of contenders is exceptionally strong. It has been the campaign of comebacks. The NFL has been chaotic, with recent conference winners declining and longtime strugglers improving in unison. Under an typical season, Sean Payton leading the Denver Broncos to the summit of the AFC would make him the clear front-runner. Yet in this turbulent and fun year, he's up against five other elite candidates.

This is how the ideal vote could look.

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

Voters for Coach of the Year selectors love signal-callers. History shows this. A certain coach in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. A third in 2022. If you solve a quarterback, you're halfway home.

The Bears' head coach hasn't just corrected his young quarterback; he's unleashed him. Given a proper system, the QB has been afforded the opportunity to demonstrate his rare talent. From midseason onward, the Bears rank fourth in offensive EPA per play. That's not a lucky run – it's prolonged dominance. Under Johnson, the quarterback has become increasingly decisive, far less careless, and has eagerly submitted to the gameplan rather than improvising. It is an attack built solely in the coach's image: a bully-ball run game, a consistent dose of play-action and a creative aerial game that springs wide receiver receivers consistently. Williams has thrived. And when clear throws haven't been available, he's been able to conjure big plays out of broken plays.

Johnson arrived to Chicago with a specific offensive blueprint. Almost each gamble – overhauling the offensive line, featuring the tight ends, turning the QB into a timing-based thrower – has paid off. That's uncommon for a first-year skipper. And it's even more uncommon still for a coach who walked into the building with the immense hype he did. For two straight cycles, he was the top name on the coaching carousel. However when it comes to selecting a head coach, there are zero guarantees. Remarkably, Johnson has lived up to the hype – and even surpassed them. He's demonstrated not just to be a scheme dork but the kind of culture builder that can breathe new life into an organization.

In a typical year, he would be the clear-cut choice. But this isn't a typical campaign!

The area where his candidacy runs slightly unstuck is on the defensive side. The Bears currently rank in the bottom third in defensive efficiency. They are surviving on turnovers, and takeaways are famously inconsistent. Coaches can focus on ball disruption, but nobody can ensure it. He is on the ballot because the offensive production is sustainable. He's not higher because luck is doing too much of the defense's heavy lifting. If not for a few breaks of the ball, the Bears would be several victories behind. It's been an exceptional turnaround, and the foundation is established for long-term success. However Johnson falls short in this ranking.

4) Liam Coen, His Team, Their Record

Coen is in a comparable spot to his counterpart. He's a fellow rookie leader who has engineered a dramatic resurgence. During the stretch run of the year, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the most complete all-around ball of his professional life. And he's also overseen the remaking of a defensive unit that now ranks number five in the league in Expected Points Added per play.

Even more notably, he has nailed the leadership stuff, which was not a certainty following his initial press conference appearances and some of his preseason decisions.

Coen took over Jacksonville with an uncommonly raw coaching staff. Unlike other coaches, who surrounded their staff with the perfect staff mix of youth and experience, Coen trusted newbies. From the head coach on down to assistants to assistant coaches, the Jaguars are stocked with first-timers. That kind of approach is intriguing on paper, but often collapses in practice – with other teams are a cautionary tale – because everyone is learning a new job on the fly. Yet Coen has managed to bring everyone and everything together.

After an early hot start, there was a risk that the season would go off the rails. A midseason collapse caused the team wobbling again. That's usually when coaches overcorrect. Coen didn't. Instead, he streamlined the approach. The offense stopped pursuing explosive answers and started seeking consistent ones. Coen refocused the offense around key players and the running game, and asked his QB to use his mobility more often.

The outcomes are evident. The Jags have won seven games consecutively and will be the conference'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 talent.

3) Mike Macdonald, His Team, Their Record

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

Parting ways from a incumbent, signing a new quarterback and partnering him with an new play-caller could have ended the season in the early weeks. Instead, it defined it. By the middle point of the year, the new QB was an MVP front-runner. He has cooled off since that hot streak, slipping to a lower rank in EPA per pass attempt over the second half of the season, putting him just a single spot ahead of peers.

Still