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Typically, the NFL's Coach of the Year honor adheres to a simple script. It commonly functions as a type of mea culpa. We regret we misjudged your squad in our preseason projections.

Theoretically, it's a clear-cut trajectory: the coach who orchestrated the largest improvement is handed the award. In practice, it sparks an yearly argument about expectations and whether we're genuinely rewarding superior coaching or merely the greatest shock.

However this year's competition is fundamentally unique. The pool of candidates is exceptionally talented. It has been the year of resurgences. The league has been chaotic, with recent division champions fading and recent underperformers rising in unison. Under an normal season, Sean Payton leading the his team to the summit of the conference would make him the overwhelming front-runner. Yet in this turbulent and fun year, he's facing multiple other outstanding candidates.

Below is how the hypothetical vote ought to look.

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

Voters for Coach of the Year selectors love signal-callers. They always have. Sean McVay in 2017. Another in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. If you fix a franchise QB, you're well on your way home.

The Bears' head coach hasn't just corrected his young quarterback; he's freed him. Given a proper system, the QB has been given the chance to demonstrate his rare ability. From Week 9, the Bears rank fourth in offensive Expected Points Added per play. This isn't a lucky run – it's consistent performance. With Johnson, the quarterback has become increasingly confident, less reckless, and has willingly surrendered to the scheme instead of improvising. It is an offense designed entirely in Johnson's image: a physical ground attack, a heavy helping of play-action passes and a imaginative passing attack that frees wide-open receivers consistently. The QB has capitalized. And when easy reads weren't available, he's been able to create magic out of nothing.

Johnson came to Chicago with a clear offensive vision. Almost each gamble – overhauling the offensive line, highlighting the pass-catchers, transforming the QB into a timing-based thrower – has succeeded. That's uncommon for a first-year head coach. And it's even more uncommon yet for a coach who walked into the organization with the kind of hype he did. For consecutive straight offseasons, he was the most sought-after candidate on the head coaching carousel. However when it comes to selecting a leader, there are zero guarantees. Somehow, Johnson has met expectations – and even exceeded them. He's demonstrated not just to be a scheme wizard but the type of leader that can breathe fresh energy into an organization.

In a ordinary season, he would be the overwhelming favorite. Yet this is not a normal season!

The area where Johnson's candidacy runs a bit unstuck is on the defensive side. The Bears presently rank in the bottom third in defensive success rate. They are relying on takeaways, and turnovers are notoriously unreliable. Defensive minds can emphasise creating turnovers, but no one can guarantee it. He is on the ballot because the offensive production is legitimate. He's not higher because luck is doing an outsized share of the defense's heavy lifting. With a few breaks of the ball, the team would be two wins behind. It's been an remarkable turnaround, and the foundation is in place for sustained winning. However he falls just short in this ranking.

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

The Jaguars' coach is in a similar spot to his counterpart. He's another rookie head coach who has orchestrated a dramatic resurgence. During the stretch run of the season, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the most complete all-around football of his career. And he's also overseen the remaking of a defensive unit that now sits at fifth in the league in Expected Points Added per play.

Even more impressively, Coen has excelled at the leadership aspects, which was not a given following his initial press conference appearances and some of his offseason decisions.

The coach took over the Jaguars with an uncommonly inexperienced staff. Unlike other coaches, who surrounded their staff with the perfect coaching mix of new ideas and veteran savvy, Coen trusted first-timers. Starting with the leader himself to coordinators to assistant coaches, the Jaguars are stocked with first-timers. That kind of setup is intriguing in theory, but frequently fails in reality – with other teams are a warning – because everybody is learning a their 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 go off the track. A midseason collapse caused the Jags wobbling once more. That's typically when coaches panic and change too much. Coen did not. Instead, he simplified the approach. The offense stopped chasing explosive answers and started hunting consistent ones. Coen refocused the attack around his playmakers and the ground attack, and asked Lawrence to use his legs more often.

The results are evident. The Jaguars have won seven games consecutively and will be the conference's No 3 seed. Coen receives the tiniest knock in the standings because he took over a talented team, but he has proven he can maximize that roster.

3) Mike Macdonald, His Team, 13-3

Every Strong of the Year argument has a defining moment. For Mike Macdonald, it was his quarterback choice.

Moving on from a veteran, signing a new quarterback and partnering him with an new offensive coordinator might have derailed the season in the early weeks. Instead, it defined it. Through the mid point of the season, the new QB was an Most Valuable Player candidate. He has regressed after that time, dropping to 23rd in efficiency per dropback over the second half of the schedule, placing him only one spot ahead of other QBs.

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