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Usually, the National Football League's Coach of the Year honor follows a straightforward pattern. It commonly acts as a form of apology. Our apologies we got wrong your squad in our preseason predictions.

In theory, it's a direct path: the skipper who engineered the most dramatic resurgence receives the prize. In reality, it sparks an annual discussion about preseason outlooks and whether we're truly honoring superior leadership or simply the most shocking shock.

Yet the current field is fundamentally unique. The list of contenders is exceptionally deep. It has been the season of comebacks. The league has been messy, with reigning conference winners declining and recent strugglers ascending collectively. During an normal season, a coach guiding the Denver Broncos to the top of the AFC would make him the clear favorite. Yet in this turbulent and thrilling year, he's competing with multiple other exceptional coaches.

This is how the hypothetical vote should look.

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

Voters for Coach of the Year selectors adore quarterbacks. They always have. 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 corrected Caleb Williams; he's freed him. Given a proper ecosystem, Williams has been afforded the chance to demonstrate his rare ability. Since midseason onward, the Bears sit at number four in offensive EPA per play. This isn't a hot streak – it's prolonged excellence. With his guidance, Williams has become increasingly decisive, far less careless, and has willingly submitted to the system rather than freelancing. It is an offense constructed entirely in Johnson's vision: a bully-ball ground attack, a steady helping of play-action passes and a imaginative passing attack that frees wide receiver targets all over the field. Williams has taken advantage. And when clear throws weren't available, he's been able to spin big plays from nothing.

The coach arrived to Chicago with a specific offensive philosophy. Almost each gamble – overhauling the offensive line, featuring the pass-catchers, transforming the QB into a timing-based passer – has worked. This is rare for a rookie head coach. And it's rarer still for a leader who walked into the building with the immense expectations Johnson did. For two straight offseasons, he was the top candidate on the coaching market. However when it comes to selecting a leader, there are no sure things. Remarkably, Johnson has lived up to the hype – and even surpassed them. He's proven not only to be a scheme dork but the kind of culture builder that can breathe fresh energy into an organization.

During a typical year, Johnson would be the runaway choice. But the current is not a typical campaign!

Where his case comes slightly unstuck is on defense. The Chicago defense presently sit in the bottom third in defensive efficiency. They are surviving on takeaways, and takeaways are notoriously inconsistent. Coaches can stress ball disruption, but no one can ensure it. Johnson is on the list because the offense is legitimate. He's not higher because variance is doing an outsized share of the defensive work. With a couple bounces of the ball, the team would be two wins behind. It's been an exceptional transformation, and the foundation is established for long-term winning. However he comes up just short in this ranking.

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

The Jaguars' coach is in a similar spot to his counterpart. He's another first-time head coach who has masterminded a rapid turnaround. During the stretch run of the season, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the finest overall football of his professional life. And he's also spearheaded the remaking of a defense that now sits at number five in the NFL in Expected Points Added per play.

Even more notably, Coen has nailed the off-field stuff, which was not a certainty following his early press conference introduction and some of his offseason moves.

Coen walked into the Jaguars with an uncommonly inexperienced staff. Unlike other coaches, who packed their staff with the perfect staff mix of youth and experience, he hired newbies. From the head coach on down to coordinators to assistant coaches, the Jags are filled with rookies. That kind of setup is intriguing on paper, but frequently fails in practice – with other teams are a warning – because everybody is learning a new job on the fly. Yet Coen has managed to bring everyone and everything into sync.

Following an early strong start, there was a risk that the season would veer off the rails. A midseason collapse caused the Jags stumbling again. That's usually when leaders panic and change too much. He didn't. Rather, he streamlined things. Jacksonville stopped pursuing home-run answers and started hunting sustainable ones. Coen recentered the attack around key players and the ground attack, and encouraged Lawrence to use his mobility more often.

The results are obvious. The Jaguars have won seven games consecutively and will be the AFC's number three playoff seed. Coen receives the tiniest knock in the rankings because he took over a talented roster, but he has proven he can maximize that talent.

3) The Seattle Seahawks Coach, His Team, Their Record

Every Coach of the Year narrative has a hinge decision. For Mike Macdonald, it was his quarterback decision.

Parting ways from a incumbent, signing a new signal-caller and partnering him with an innovative offensive coordinator might have ended the campaign in October. Rather, it shaped it. Through the mid point of the season, the acquisition was an Most Valuable Player front-runner. He has fallen away after that hot streak, slipping to a lower rank in EPA per pass attempt over the latter part of the schedule, putting him just one spot ahead of peers.

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