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Ordinarily, the National Football League's Coach of the Year honor follows a straightforward pattern. It commonly serves as a kind of apology. We regret we misjudged your team in our pre-campaign projections.

Theoretically, it's a clear-cut path: the skipper who oversaw the most dramatic improvement wins the prize. However, it sparks an annual debate about preseason outlooks and whether we're truly honoring superior leadership or simply the greatest shock.

But the latest competition is fundamentally different. The pool of candidates is exceptionally talented. It has been the campaign of resurgences. The league has been chaotic, with recent conference winners fading and longtime strugglers rising together. In an typical season, a coach leading the Denver Broncos to the summit of the AFC would make him the overwhelming favorite. Yet in such a turbulent and fun season, he's facing several other outstanding candidates.

Here is how the ideal ballot could look.

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

Coach of the Year voters are fascinated by signal-callers. This is a tradition. Sean McVay in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. If you fix a franchise QB, you're halfway home.

The Bears' head coach not only fixed his young quarterback; he's unleashed him. In the right environment, the QB has been afforded the chance to demonstrate his special ability. Since Week 9, the Bears 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 increasingly confident, less careless, and has willingly submitted to the scheme rather than going rogue. It is an offense constructed entirely in Johnson's image: a physical ground attack, a consistent dose of play-action passes and a innovative aerial game that frees wide-open receivers consistently. Williams has capitalized. And when easy reads weren't there, he's been capable to conjure magic out of nothing.

The coach came to Chicago with a defined offensive vision. Virtually each gamble – rebuilding the trenches, utilizing the pass-catchers, transforming Williams into a rhythm passer – has worked. That's uncommon for a first-year head coach. And it's even more uncommon still for a leader who walked into the organization with the kind of expectations Johnson did. For two straight offseasons, he was the top name on the coaching market. But when it comes to selecting a leader, there are zero guarantees. Somehow, he has lived up to the hype – and even surpassed them. He's demonstrated not just to be a offensive dork but the type of leader that can breathe fresh energy into an franchise.

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

The area where his case comes slightly into trouble is on the defensive side. The Chicago defense currently sit 25th in defensive success rate. They are relying on takeaways, and takeaways are notoriously unreliable. Defensive minds can focus on ball disruption, but nobody can guarantee it. He is on the list because the offensive production is real. He's ranked lower because luck is doing too much of the defense's heavy lifting. If not for a couple bounces of the ball, the Bears would be two victories worse off. It's been an exceptional transformation, and the foundation is established for long-term success. However he comes up short here.

4) Liam Coen, His Team, Their Record

The Jaguars' coach is in a comparable situation to Johnson. He's another rookie leader who has orchestrated a rapid resurgence. Over the crucial final weeks of the season, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the finest all-around football of his professional life. And he's also spearheaded the remaking of a defensive unit that now ranks number five in the NFL in Expected Points Added per play.

What's more impressively, he has nailed the intangibles aspects, which wasn't a certainty following his early press conference introduction and some of his preseason decisions.

Coen took over Jacksonville with an exceptionally raw coaching staff. In contrast to other coaches, who packed themselves with the perfect staff mix of new ideas and experience, Coen bet on first-timers. Starting with the leader himself to coordinators to assistant coaches, the Jags are filled with first-timers. That kind of setup is intriguing on paper, but often fails in reality – with other teams are a warning – because everyone is learning a their job in real-time. Yet he has pulled everyone and all elements into sync.

After an early strong start, there was a chance that the season would veer off the track. A mid-year setback had the Jags stumbling again. That's typically when coaches overcorrect. He did not. Instead, he simplified things. The offense stopped chasing explosive answers and started hunting reliable ones. Coen refocused the offense around his playmakers and the running game, and encouraged Lawrence to use his legs more often.

The outcomes are evident. The Jaguars have won seven games consecutively and will be the conference's number three seed. He receives the slightest knock in the rankings because he inherited a skilled roster, but he has demonstrated he can get the most out of that roster.

3) Mike Macdonald, Seattle Seahawks, Their Record

Every Coach of the Year narrative has a pivotal moment. For Mike Macdonald, it was his QB choice.

Moving on from a incumbent, signing a different quarterback and pairing him with an innovative play-caller might have ended the campaign in the early weeks. Rather, it made it. By the mid point of the season, the acquisition was an MVP contender. He has cooled off after that time, dropping to a lower rank in EPA per pass attempt over the latter part of the season, putting him just one place ahead of other QBs.

Still