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Ordinarily, the National Football League's Coach of the Year honor follows a straightforward pattern. It frequently acts as a form of apology. We regret we misjudged your squad in our pre-campaign forecasts.

On paper, it's a clear-cut line: the skipper who oversaw the most dramatic turnaround is handed the award. However, it sparks an yearly argument about preseason outlooks and whether we're actually honoring excellent leadership or simply the most shocking surprise.

But the current race is distinctly different. The group of candidates is remarkably talented. It has been the season of resurgences. The league has been unpredictable, with recent division winners declining and longtime underperformers rising together. In an normal season, Sean Payton leading the Denver Broncos to the top of the conference would make him the stone-cold favorite. Yet in this wild and entertaining season, he's facing five other exceptional candidates.

Here is how the hypothetical vote ought to shake out.

5) Ben Johnson, Chicago Bears, 11-5

Voters for Coach of the Year voters are fascinated by quarterbacks. They always have. A certain coach in 2017. Another in 2020. A third in 2022. If you transform a franchise QB, you're halfway to winning the award.

The Bears' head coach hasn't just corrected his young quarterback; he's unleashed him. In the right ecosystem, Williams has been afforded the opportunity to display his otherworldly ability. Since Week 9, the Bears rank fourth in offensive EPA per play. That's not a brief surge – it's prolonged performance. Under his guidance, Williams has become more decisive, less careless, and has willingly surrendered to the scheme instead of going rogue. It is an attack designed solely in Johnson's image: a physical run game, a consistent dose of play-action and a creative passing attack that springs wide-open receivers all over the field. The QB has taken advantage. And when easy reads haven't been available, he's been capable to create magic from broken plays.

Johnson arrived to the Bears with a specific offensive vision. Almost each decision – rebuilding the trenches, featuring the pass-catchers, turning the QB into a timing-based passer – has succeeded. This is rare for a first-year skipper. And it's rarer yet for a coach who walked into the building with the immense hype Johnson did. For consecutive straight cycles, he was the top name on the coaching market. However when it comes to selecting a leader, there are zero sure things. Somehow, he has lived up to the hype – and even surpassed them. He's demonstrated not just to be a scheme wizard but the kind of leader that can inject fresh energy into an organization.

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

The area where Johnson's candidacy comes a bit into trouble is on the defensive side. The Bears currently rank in the bottom third in defensive success rate. They are relying on takeaways, and turnovers are notoriously inconsistent. Defensive minds can emphasise creating turnovers, but nobody can guarantee it. He is on the ballot because the offense is sustainable. He's not higher because luck is doing an outsized share of the defense's work. If not for a few breaks of the ball, the team would be two victories worse off. It's been an exceptional turnaround, and the core is established for long-term success. However Johnson falls just short here.

4) The Jacksonville Jaguars Coach, His Team, Their Record

Coen is in a similar position to his counterpart. He's a fellow rookie leader who has engineered a dramatic resurgence. During the crucial final weeks of the year, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the best overall ball of his professional life. And he's also spearheaded the transformation of a defensive unit that now sits at number five in the league in EPA per play.

What's more notably, Coen has mastered the intangibles stuff, which wasn't a certainty after his initial press conference appearances and some of his offseason decisions.

The coach walked into Jacksonville with an exceptionally inexperienced staff. In contrast to other coaches, who surrounded themselves with the perfect staff blend of youth and experience, Coen hired newbies. Starting with the head coach himself to assistants to assistant coaches, the Jags are filled with rookies. That kind of approach is intriguing in theory, but often collapses in reality – with other teams are a warning – because everybody is figuring out a their job on the fly. But Coen has pulled everyone and everything together.

After an early hot start, there was a risk that the campaign would go off the rails. A mid-year setback had the Jags stumbling once more. That's typically when leaders overcorrect. Coen didn't. Instead, he streamlined things. Jacksonville stopped pursuing home-run answers and started hunting sustainable ones. The coach recentered the attack around key players and the running game, and encouraged Lawrence to use his mobility more.

The results are evident. The Jags have won multiple games in a row and will be the conference's number three playoff seed. He gets the tiniest knock in the rankings because he took over a skilled team, but he has proven he can get the most out of that talent.

3) Mike Macdonald, Seattle Seahawks, Their Record

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

Moving on from a veteran, signing a different signal-caller and pairing him with an innovative play-caller might have derailed the campaign in the early weeks. Rather, it shaped it. By the mid point of the year, the new QB was an MVP front-runner. He has regressed after that time, slipping to a lower rank in efficiency per pass attempt over the latter part of the schedule, placing him only a single place ahead of other QBs.

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