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Usually, the National Football League's Coach of the Year trophy follows a straightforward pattern. It frequently serves as a kind of apology. Sorry we underestimated your team in our pre-campaign predictions.

On paper, it's a clear-cut line: the coach who oversaw the largest resurgence receives the prize. In practice, it sparks an annual discussion about preseason outlooks and whether we're genuinely rewarding superior leadership or just the biggest shock.

Yet the latest race is profoundly unique. The pool of nominees is remarkably strong. It has been the season of resurgences. The NFL has been messy, with recent division winners declining and recent strugglers improving together. In an normal season, Sean Payton guiding the Denver Broncos to the summit of the conference would make him the stone-cold favorite. Yet in this chaotic and entertaining year, he's up against five other exceptional candidates.

Below is how the projected vote should look.

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

Coach of the Year voters adore QBs. They always have. A certain coach in 2017. Another in 2020. A third in 2022. Should you fix a quarterback, you're halfway home.

Ben Johnson hasn't just corrected Caleb Williams; he's unleashed him. In the right ecosystem, the QB has been given the opportunity to showcase his special ability. Since Week 9, the Chicago offense rank fourth in offensive EPA per play. This isn't a lucky run – it's consistent performance. With Johnson, Williams has become increasingly confident, less careless, and has eagerly surrendered to the system instead of going rogue. It is an attack designed solely in the coach's vision: a bully-ball run game, a consistent dose of play-action passes and a imaginative passing attack that frees wide receiver receivers consistently. The QB has taken advantage. And when openings weren't there, he's been capable to create big plays from nothing.

The coach came to the Bears with a clear offensive philosophy. Virtually every gamble – overhauling the offensive line, featuring the tight ends, turning Williams into a rhythm thrower – has worked. This is uncommon for a rookie head coach. And it's rarer still for a leader who walked into the building with the level of pressure he did. For two straight cycles, he was the top name on the coaching carousel. However when it comes to hiring a head coach, there are zero sure things. Remarkably, he has lived up to expectations – and even exceeded them. He's proven not just to be a offensive genius but the kind of leader that can inject fresh energy into an franchise.

During a ordinary year, he would be the overwhelming favorite. Yet the current isn't a normal year!

The area where Johnson's candidacy comes a bit into trouble is on defense. The Bears presently rank in the bottom third in defensive success rate. They are relying on turnovers, and turnovers are notoriously inconsistent. Defensive minds can stress creating turnovers, but no one can ensure it. Johnson is on the ballot because the offensive production is sustainable. He's ranked lower because variance is doing an outsized share of the defense's work. With a few breaks of the ball, the team would be several victories behind. It's been an remarkable turnaround, and the core is established for sustained success. But Johnson comes up short in this ranking.

4) Liam Coen, His Team, Their Record

Coen is in a comparable position to Johnson. He's a fellow first-time leader who has engineered a dramatic turnaround. Over the crucial final weeks of the season, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the finest all-around 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 EPA per play.

What's more impressively, Coen has nailed the intangibles stuff, which was not a certainty following his early public introduction and some of his offseason decisions.

Coen walked into Jacksonville with an uncommonly inexperienced coaching staff. In contrast to other coaches, who packed their staff with the perfect coaching blend of new ideas and experience, Coen bet on first-timers. Starting with the leader himself to coordinators to assistant coaches, the Jaguars are stocked with rookies. That type of setup is intriguing on paper, but frequently fails in reality – as past failures are a warning – because everyone is learning a their job in real-time. But he has managed to bring everyone and all elements together.

Following an initial hot beginning, there was a chance that the campaign would veer off the track. A midseason setback had the team wobbling once more. That's typically when coaches overcorrect. He didn't. Instead, he streamlined things. Jacksonville stopped chasing explosive plays and started seeking sustainable ones. The coach refocused the offense around his playmakers and the running game, and asked Lawrence to use his legs more often.

The outcomes are evident. The Jaguars have won seven games in a row and will be the conference's number three seed. Coen receives the tiniest deduction in the rankings because he inherited a talented roster, but he has demonstrated he can maximize that talent.

3) Mike Macdonald, His Team, 13-3

Each Strong of the Year narrative has a pivotal moment. For the Seahawks coach, it was his quarterback choice.

Moving on from a incumbent, signing a different quarterback and partnering him with an new offensive coordinator could have derailed the campaign in the early weeks. Instead, it defined it. Through the middle point of the year, the new QB was an Most Valuable Player front-runner. He has fallen away since that time, dropping to 23rd in EPA per pass attempt over the latter part of the season, putting him only one place ahead of other QBs.

Still