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Ordinarily, the National Football League's Coach of the Year honor adheres to a straightforward formula. It frequently acts as a type of mea culpa. Our apologies we got wrong your squad in our preseason predictions.

On paper, it's a clear-cut trajectory: the skipper who engineered the largest resurgence wins the award. In practice, it fuels an annual discussion about expectations and whether we're genuinely rewarding excellent leadership or simply the most shocking shock.

However the latest race is fundamentally different. The group of candidates is remarkably deep. It has been the year of turnarounds. The NFL has been unpredictable, with reigning conference winners falling away and longtime underperformers improving in unison. Under an typical season, a coach leading the Denver Broncos to the top of the conference would make him the stone-cold favorite. But in this turbulent and thrilling season, he's up against five other elite candidates.

This is how the ideal ballot ought to shake out.

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

Coach of the Year selectors are fascinated by quarterbacks. They always have. A certain coach in 2017. Another in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. If you fix a franchise QB, you're well on your way home.

Ben Johnson not only corrected Caleb Williams; he's unleashed him. Given a proper system, Williams has been given the chance to display his otherworldly ability. From midseason onward, the Bears rank fourth in offensive Expected Points Added per play. This isn't a lucky run – it's prolonged excellence. With Johnson, the quarterback has become increasingly confident, far less careless, and has willingly surrendered to the system instead of freelancing. It is an attack designed entirely in Johnson's vision: a physical run game, a consistent dose of play-action and a innovative passing attack that springs wide receiver receivers consistently. The QB has capitalized. And when clear throws weren't there, he's been able to create magic out of broken plays.

Johnson arrived to Chicago with a specific offensive philosophy. Almost each gamble – rebuilding the offensive line, highlighting the tight ends, turning Williams into a rhythm thrower – has succeeded. That's uncommon for a rookie skipper. And it's rarer yet for a leader who walked into the organization with the immense hype Johnson did. For consecutive straight offseasons, he was the top name on the coaching carousel. However when it comes to hiring a leader, there are zero guarantees. Somehow, Johnson has met the hype – and even exceeded them. He's demonstrated not only to be a scheme wizard but the type of leader that can breathe new life into an organization.

In a normal year, he would be the runaway favorite. But this is not a typical campaign!

Where his case comes slightly unstuck is on defense. The Bears currently rank 25th in defensive efficiency. They are surviving on takeaways, and turnovers are famously inconsistent. Defensive minds can focus on creating turnovers, but no one can ensure it. He is on the list because the offense is sustainable. He's not higher because luck is doing an outsized share of the defensive work. With a couple bounces of the ball, the team would be several victories worse off. It's been an exceptional transformation, and the core is established for sustained success. But he comes up just short in this ranking.

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

Coen is in a similar position to Johnson. He's another first-time head coach who has masterminded a swift resurgence. During the stretch run of the season, he has his franchise quarterback playing the most complete overall ball of his career. And he's also overseen the transformation of a defense that now sits at fifth in the league in EPA per play.

What's more notably, Coen has mastered the off-field stuff, which was not a given after his early public appearances and some of his preseason decisions.

The coach took over Jacksonville with an exceptionally inexperienced coaching staff. In contrast to other coaches, who surrounded their staff with the perfect coaching cocktail of youth and veteran savvy, Coen bet on newbies. From the leader on down to assistants to position coaches, the Jags are filled with first-timers. That type of approach is exciting on paper, but often collapses in practice – as past failures are a cautionary tale – because everybody is figuring out a their job in real-time. But Coen has pulled the entire group and everything into sync.

After an early hot start, there was a risk that the campaign would veer off the rails. A mid-year setback had the team stumbling again. That's typically when coaches panic and change too much. Coen did not. Instead, he simplified things. The offense stopped chasing home-run answers and started hunting reliable ones. The coach refocused the attack around his playmakers and the running game, and asked his QB to use his mobility more often.

The outcomes are clear. The Jags have won multiple games in a row and will be the AFC's No 3 playoff seed. Coen receives the tiniest deduction in the rankings because he inherited a talented roster, but he has demonstrated he can get the most out of that talent.

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

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

Parting ways from a veteran, signing a new quarterback and pairing him with an innovative play-caller might have derailed the season in the early weeks. Rather, it made it. By the mid point of the season, the new QB was an MVP candidate. He has cooled off after that time, dropping to a lower rank in efficiency per dropback over the latter part of the schedule, putting him only one place ahead of other QBs.

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