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Usually, the National Football League's Coach of the Year honor adheres to a simple pattern. It commonly serves as a type of apology. Our apologies we got wrong your squad in our pre-campaign forecasts.

On paper, it's a direct trajectory: the coach who orchestrated the largest resurgence receives the prize. In practice, it sparks an yearly debate about preseason outlooks and whether we're actually rewarding superior coaching or simply the biggest surprise.

However this year's race is distinctly unique. The pool of candidates is remarkably deep. It has been the season of comebacks. The NFL has been messy, with recent conference champions falling away and recent strugglers ascending together. In an ordinary year, a coach leading the his team to the summit of the AFC would make him the stone-cold favorite. But in such a chaotic and fun year, he's facing several other elite candidates.

Below is how the projected ballot should be structured.

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

Coach of the Year voters love quarterbacks. They always have. Sean McVay in 2017. Another in 2020. A third in 2022. If you fix a quarterback, you're halfway to winning the award.

Ben Johnson didn't merely fixed his young quarterback; he's unlocked him. Given a proper ecosystem, the QB has been afforded the chance to demonstrate his special talent. Since midseason onward, the Bears sit at number four in offensive Expected Points Added per play. This isn't a hot streak – it's consistent dominance. Under his guidance, Williams has become more confident, far less reckless, and has willingly surrendered to the gameplan rather than freelancing. It is an offense built entirely in Johnson's image: a bully-ball run game, a consistent dose of play-action and a imaginative passing attack that springs wide receiver targets all over the field. The QB has taken advantage. And when openings weren't available, he's been able to conjure big plays out of nothing.

Johnson arrived to the Bears with a clear offensive philosophy. Almost each bet – rebuilding the trenches, highlighting the pass-catchers, transforming Williams into a timing-based thrower – has worked. That's uncommon for a rookie head coach. And it's rarer still for a leader who walked into the organization with the immense expectations he did. For consecutive straight offseasons, he was the top name on the coaching carousel. But when it comes to hiring a head coach, there are zero sure things. Remarkably, Johnson has met expectations – and even surpassed them. He's proven not only to be a scheme dork but the type of leader that can breathe fresh energy into an organization.

During a ordinary season, he would be the clear-cut favorite. But this is not a typical campaign!

Where Johnson's case comes slightly into trouble is on the defensive side. The Bears currently sit 25th in defensive success rate. They are surviving on turnovers, and takeaways are notoriously unreliable. Coaches can emphasise ball disruption, but nobody can ensure it. Johnson is on the ballot because the offense is sustainable. He's ranked lower because variance is doing an outsized share of the defense's work. If not for a couple breaks of the ball, the Bears would be two wins behind. It's been an remarkable transformation, and the core is in place for sustained success. But he comes up short here.

4) Liam Coen, His Team, 12-4

The Jaguars' coach is in a comparable situation to his counterpart. He's a fellow first-time leader who has masterminded a rapid resurgence. During the stretch run of the year, he has his franchise quarterback playing the most complete overall ball of his career. And he's also spearheaded the transformation of a defense that now ranks fifth in the league in Expected Points Added per play.

What's more notably, Coen has excelled at the intangibles aspects, which was not a guarantee after his early public appearances and some of his offseason moves.

The coach took over Jacksonville with an uncommonly inexperienced staff. Unlike other coaches, who packed themselves with the ideal coaching cocktail of new ideas and veteran savvy, Coen hired newbies. From the head coach himself to coordinators to assistant coaches, the Jags are stocked with rookies. That type of approach is exciting on paper, but frequently collapses in practice – with other teams are a warning – because everyone is learning a new job in real-time. Yet he has managed to bring the entire group and all elements together.

After an initial hot beginning, there was a possibility that the season would veer off the rails. A midseason setback caused the team wobbling again. That's usually when coaches overcorrect. Coen didn't. Rather, he streamlined the approach. The offense stopped pursuing explosive answers and started hunting sustainable ones. Coen recentered the offense around key players and the running game, and asked Lawrence to use his legs more often.

The results are evident. The Jaguars have won multiple games in a row and will be the AFC's number three playoff seed. He gets the tiniest deduction in the rankings because he took over a talented team, but he has demonstrated he can maximize that roster.

3) The Seattle Seahawks Coach, His Team, 13-3

Each Strong of the Year case has a pivotal decision. For Mike Macdonald, it was his QB move.

Moving on from a incumbent, signing a different signal-caller and partnering him with an new offensive coordinator might have derailed the season in the early weeks. Instead, it shaped it. Through the middle point of the year, the acquisition was an MVP contender. He has cooled off after that hot streak, dropping to a lower rank in efficiency per dropback over the latter part of the season, placing him just one place ahead of other QBs.

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