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Usually, the National Football League's Coach of the Year trophy follows a straightforward script. It commonly serves as a kind of apology. Sorry we misjudged your franchise in our preseason projections.

Theoretically, it's a direct trajectory: the coach who orchestrated the largest resurgence receives the award. In practice, it sparks an annual argument about expectations and whether we're genuinely rewarding superior leadership or merely the greatest upset.

However this year's race is profoundly different. The pool of contenders is remarkably deep. It has been the season of resurgences. The league has been messy, with recent conference champions declining and longtime underperformers ascending collectively. Under an typical season, Sean Payton leading the his team to the top of the conference would make him the overwhelming favorite. But in this wild and thrilling year, he's facing five other elite coaches.

This is how the ideal vote could shake out.

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

Coach of the Year selectors adore signal-callers. They always have. Sean McVay in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. A third in 2022. When you transform a franchise QB, you're well on your way to winning the award.

The Bears' head coach not only fixed his young quarterback; he's freed him. Within an ideal system, the QB has been given the opportunity to display his rare ability. Since Week 9, the Bears sit at number four in offensive EPA per play. This isn't a hot streak – it's sustained dominance. Under Johnson, Williams has become increasingly confident, far less careless, and has willingly surrendered to the system rather than freelancing. It is an attack built entirely in the coach's vision: a physical run game, a consistent helping of play-action passes and a creative aerial game that creates wide receiver receivers all over the field. The QB has capitalized. And when easy reads weren't there, he's been capable to conjure magic out of broken plays.

Johnson arrived to the Bears with a defined offensive blueprint. Almost every gamble – overhauling the offensive line, featuring the pass-catchers, transforming the QB into a rhythm passer – has succeeded. That's rare for a first-year head coach. And it's rarer still for a coach who walked into the building with the immense hype he did. For two straight offseasons, he was the hottest name on the coaching market. However when it comes to selecting a head coach, there are zero sure things. Somehow, Johnson has met expectations – and even exceeded them. He's proven not just to be a scheme genius but the type of culture builder that can breathe new life into an organization.

During a typical year, he would be the clear-cut choice. But the current is not a normal campaign!

The area where Johnson's case runs slightly unstuck is on defense. The Chicago defense presently sit in the bottom third in defensive efficiency. They are relying on turnovers, and turnovers are notoriously inconsistent. Coaches can stress creating turnovers, but no one can guarantee it. Johnson is on the ballot because the offensive production is real. He's not higher because luck is doing too much of the defensive heavy lifting. If not for a few breaks of the ball, the team would be several victories worse off. It's been an remarkable turnaround, and the foundation is in place for sustained success. But he falls short in this ranking.

4) Liam Coen, Jacksonville Jaguars, Their Record

The Jaguars' coach is in a similar situation to his counterpart. He's another rookie leader who has engineered a rapid resurgence. During the crucial final weeks of the year, he has his franchise quarterback playing the best overall football of his professional life. And he's also overseen the remaking of a defense that now sits at number five in the league in EPA per play.

Even more impressively, Coen has mastered the intangibles aspects, which wasn't a given following his early press conference introduction and some of his offseason decisions.

The coach walked into the Jaguars with an uncommonly inexperienced coaching staff. Unlike other coaches, who surrounded their staff with the perfect coaching blend of new ideas and veteran savvy, he trusted first-timers. From the head coach himself to coordinators to position coaches, the Jaguars are stocked with rookies. That kind of setup is exciting on paper, but often fails in practice – with other teams are a cautionary tale – because everyone is learning a new job on the fly. But he has pulled the entire group and everything together.

Following an early hot beginning, there was a chance that the season would go off the track. A mid-year collapse caused the team wobbling once more. That's usually when leaders overcorrect. He didn't. Instead, he streamlined the approach. The offense stopped pursuing home-run plays and started seeking reliable ones. The coach refocused the offense around his playmakers and the ground attack, and encouraged his QB to use his legs more often.

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

3) Mike Macdonald, His Team, Their Record

Every Coach of the Year argument has a pivotal decision. For Mike Macdonald, it was his quarterback move.

Moving on from a veteran, bringing in a new quarterback and partnering him with an new offensive coordinator might have ended the campaign in the early weeks. Instead, it defined it. Through the mid point of the year, the new QB was an Most Valuable Player front-runner. He has fallen away since that time, slipping to a lower rank in efficiency per dropback over the latter part of the schedule, placing him only a single place ahead of peers.

Still