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Ordinarily, the NFL's Coach of the Year trophy follows a straightforward script. It frequently acts as a kind of mea culpa. Our apologies we misjudged your team in our preseason forecasts.

Theoretically, it's a clear-cut path: the skipper who orchestrated the biggest resurgence receives the award. However, it creates an annual debate about preseason outlooks and whether we're truly rewarding excellent coaching or simply the most shocking shock.

Yet this year's competition is fundamentally different. The list of candidates is unusually talented. It has been the year of resurgences. The league has been unpredictable, with reigning conference champions declining and recent underperformers improving in unison. Under an typical season, a coach guiding the his team to the summit of the AFC would make him the clear favorite. Yet in such a turbulent and entertaining season, he's up against multiple other elite candidates.

This is how the projected vote should shake out.

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

Coach of the Year selectors adore quarterbacks. History shows this. Sean McVay in 2017. Another in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. Should you fix a quarterback, you're halfway home.

Ben Johnson didn't merely fixed his young quarterback; he's unleashed him. Given a proper environment, Williams has been given the opportunity to display his special ability. From midseason onward, the Bears rank fourth in offensive Expected Points Added per play. This isn't a hot streak – it's consistent excellence. With his guidance, the quarterback has become increasingly confident, far less careless, and has willingly surrendered to the system rather than improvising. It is an attack constructed entirely in Johnson's image: a physical ground attack, a consistent helping of play-action passes and a innovative aerial game that creates wide-open receivers everywhere. Williams has taken advantage. And when openings haven't been there, he's been able to spin big plays from broken plays.

Johnson arrived to Chicago with a clear offensive philosophy. Virtually every gamble – overhauling the trenches, featuring the pass-catchers, transforming the QB into a rhythm passer – has paid off. This is uncommon for a rookie head coach. And it's even more uncommon yet for a leader who entered the building with the immense hype he did. For two straight cycles, he was the most sought-after candidate on the coaching market. However when it comes to hiring a head coach, there are zero guarantees. Remarkably, Johnson has lived up to expectations – and even surpassed them. He's demonstrated not just to be a offensive wizard but the kind of leader that can breathe fresh energy into an organization.

During a ordinary season, he would be the runaway favorite. But the current isn't a normal campaign!

The area where Johnson's candidacy runs slightly unstuck is on defense. The Bears presently sit in the bottom third in defensive efficiency. They are surviving on turnovers, and turnovers are famously inconsistent. Coaches can stress creating turnovers, but nobody can ensure it. He is on the list because the offense is real. He's ranked lower because variance is doing too much of the defensive heavy lifting. If not for a couple bounces of the ball, the team would be two wins worse off. It's been an remarkable turnaround, and the foundation is in place for long-term winning. However Johnson falls just short in this ranking.

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

The Jaguars' coach is in a similar situation to Johnson. He's a fellow first-time head coach who has orchestrated a rapid resurgence. During the stretch run of the year, he has his franchise quarterback playing the best all-around football of his career. And he's also overseen the transformation of a defense that now ranks number five in the league in EPA per play.

What's more notably, Coen has mastered the off-field aspects, which was not a guarantee following his early public introduction and some of his offseason decisions.

The coach walked into Jacksonville with an exceptionally raw staff. In contrast to other coaches, who packed their staff with the ideal coaching blend of new ideas and experience, he hired first-timers. Starting with the leader on down to coordinators to position coaches, the Jaguars are filled with rookies. That type of setup is exciting in theory, but frequently collapses in reality – with other teams are a warning – because everybody is figuring out a new job in real-time. Yet Coen has managed to bring everyone and all elements together.

Following an initial hot start, there was a chance that the season would go off the track. A midseason setback had the team stumbling once more. That's typically when coaches overcorrect. Coen didn't. Rather, he simplified things. Jacksonville stopped chasing home-run plays and started seeking sustainable ones. The coach recentered the offense around key players and the ground attack, and encouraged his QB to use his mobility more.

The results are clear. The Jaguars have won multiple games consecutively and will be the AFC's No 3 seed. He gets the tiniest deduction in the rankings because he took over a skilled team, but he has demonstrated he can get the most out of that talent.

3) Mike Macdonald, His Team, Their Record

Every Strong of the Year argument has a hinge moment. For the Seahawks coach, it was his quarterback choice.

Moving on from a incumbent, signing a new signal-caller and pairing him with an innovative play-caller could have ended the season in the early weeks. Rather, it shaped it. Through the middle point of the year, the acquisition was an MVP front-runner. He has cooled off since that hot streak, slipping to a lower rank in EPA per dropback over the latter part of the schedule, putting him just a single spot ahead of peers.

Still