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Usually, the NFL's Coach of the Year honor adheres to a simple script. It commonly serves as a kind of apology. Our apologies we misjudged your team in our preseason forecasts.

On paper, it's a clear-cut line: the coach who engineered the biggest resurgence receives the prize. In practice, it creates an yearly discussion about expectations and whether we're truly honoring excellent coaching or just the most shocking shock.

But this year's competition is distinctly different. The group of contenders is unusually talented. It has been the year of turnarounds. The league has been unpredictable, with reigning division winners declining and longtime strugglers rising together. In an ordinary year, Sean Payton guiding the Denver Broncos to the summit of the AFC would make him the stone-cold front-runner. But in this chaotic and entertaining year, he's up against several other exceptional candidates.

Below is how the hypothetical vote ought to be structured.

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

Coach of the Year selectors are fascinated by quarterbacks. History shows this. Sean McVay in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. When you fix a quarterback, you're well on your way home.

The Bears' head coach hasn't just corrected his young quarterback; he's freed him. In the right environment, Williams has been afforded the chance to display his special ability. Since Week 9, the Bears rank fourth in offensive Expected Points Added per play. This isn't a brief surge – it's prolonged excellence. Under Johnson, Williams has become increasingly decisive, far less careless, and has willingly submitted to the gameplan rather than freelancing. It is an attack built solely in Johnson's image: a physical ground attack, a steady helping of play-action passes and a creative aerial game that springs wide receiver targets consistently. Williams has taken advantage. And when clear throws weren't available, he's been able to create big plays from broken plays.

Johnson arrived to the Bears with a defined offensive philosophy. Virtually each decision – rebuilding the trenches, featuring the pass-catchers, transforming Williams into a timing-based passer – has succeeded. That's rare for a rookie skipper. And it's even more uncommon still for a coach who entered the building with the immense expectations Johnson did. For consecutive straight offseasons, he was the most sought-after name on the head coaching market. But when it comes to selecting a head coach, there are no sure things. Remarkably, he has lived up to expectations – and even surpassed them. He's proven not only to be a scheme wizard but the type of leader that can inject fresh energy into an franchise.

During a typical season, Johnson would be the clear-cut favorite. But the current isn't a normal year!

The area where Johnson's case runs a bit into trouble is on the defensive side. The Chicago defense presently sit in the bottom third in defensive success rate. They are surviving on turnovers, and takeaways are famously unreliable. Coaches can focus on creating turnovers, but no one can ensure it. Johnson is on the ballot because the offensive production is real. He's ranked lower because variance is doing an outsized share of the defense's heavy lifting. If not for a few breaks of the ball, the Bears would be several victories behind. It's been an remarkable turnaround, and the core is established for long-term success. But he comes up just short here.

4) Liam Coen, His Team, 12-4

Coen is in a comparable situation to Johnson. He's another first-time head coach who has engineered a swift turnaround. Over the crucial final weeks of the year, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the best overall football of his professional life. And he's also overseen the overhaul of a defense that now ranks fifth in the league in EPA per play.

Even more impressively, he has nailed the leadership aspects, which wasn't a given after his early public introduction and some of his preseason decisions.

The coach walked into Jacksonville with an uncommonly inexperienced coaching staff. Unlike Johnson, who surrounded themselves with the perfect coaching mix of youth and veteran savvy, Coen hired first-timers. From the head coach himself to coordinators to position coaches, the Jaguars are filled with rookies. That type of setup is intriguing on paper, but often collapses in practice – with other teams are a cautionary tale – because everybody is learning a new job in real-time. But he has managed to bring the entire group and everything together.

Following an early strong start, there was a possibility that the campaign would go off the track. A mid-year collapse caused the Jags stumbling again. That's usually when leaders overcorrect. Coen did not. Instead, he streamlined the approach. The offense stopped chasing home-run answers and started seeking reliable ones. The coach recentered the offense around his playmakers and the running game, and encouraged Lawrence to use his legs more often.

The outcomes are obvious. The Jaguars have won seven games in a row and will be the conference's number three seed. Coen gets the tiniest deduction in the standings because he inherited a talented team, but he has demonstrated he can get the most out of that talent.

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

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

Moving on from a veteran, signing a different quarterback and pairing him with an new play-caller could have ended the campaign in October. Rather, it made it. By the mid point of the season, the new QB was an Most Valuable Player candidate. He has fallen away since that hot streak, dropping to 23rd in EPA per pass attempt over the second half of the season, placing him only one spot ahead of other QBs.

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