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Usually, the National Football League's Coach of the Year trophy follows a simple formula. It frequently acts as a kind of apology. Our apologies we got wrong your squad in our preseason forecasts.

In theory, it's a clear-cut trajectory: the coach who orchestrated the most dramatic resurgence receives the award. However, it sparks an annual debate about preseason outlooks and whether we're actually rewarding excellent coaching or merely the greatest surprise.

However the current field is fundamentally different. The list of nominees is unusually deep. It has been the season of comebacks. The league has been messy, with recent conference champions fading and recent underperformers ascending together. During an ordinary year, a coach leading the Denver Broncos to the summit of the AFC would make him the overwhelming favorite. Yet in such a turbulent and thrilling season, he's facing several other elite candidates.

Here is how the hypothetical vote should shake out.

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

Coach of the Year selectors love quarterbacks. History shows this. Sean McVay in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. If you transform a franchise QB, you're well on your way to winning the award.

Ben Johnson not only corrected his young quarterback; he's unlocked him. Within an ideal ecosystem, Williams has been afforded the chance to showcase his special ability. From midseason onward, the Chicago offense rank fourth in offensive Expected Points Added per play. That's not a brief surge – it's prolonged excellence. Under his guidance, the quarterback has become increasingly decisive, less reckless, and has eagerly surrendered to the scheme instead of freelancing. It is an offense built entirely in Johnson's image: a physical ground attack, a consistent dose of play-action passes and a creative aerial game that frees wide-open targets everywhere. Williams has thrived. And when easy reads weren't there, he's been capable to spin magic out of broken plays.

Johnson came to Chicago with a specific offensive blueprint. Virtually every bet – overhauling the offensive line, highlighting the tight ends, transforming the QB into a rhythm passer – has worked. This is rare for a rookie skipper. And it's even more uncommon yet for a leader who entered the organization with the kind of expectations he did. For two straight offseasons, he was the top name on the head coaching carousel. But when it comes to hiring a leader, there are zero sure things. Somehow, Johnson has met the hype – and even exceeded them. He's proven not only to be a offensive genius but the type of leader that can breathe new life into an organization.

During a typical year, Johnson would be the overwhelming favorite. But the current is not a typical campaign!

Where his candidacy runs a bit into trouble is on defense. The Chicago defense presently sit in the bottom third in defensive success rate. They are living on takeaways, and takeaways are famously fickle. Defensive minds can emphasise creating turnovers, but no one can ensure it. Johnson is on the ballot because the offense is real. He's not higher because variance is doing an outsized share of the defense's work. With a couple bounces of the ball, the team would be several victories behind. It's been an exceptional transformation, and the core is established for sustained success. However Johnson comes up just short here.

4) Liam Coen, His Team, 12-4

The Jaguars' coach is in a comparable situation to his counterpart. He's another rookie head coach who has engineered a rapid turnaround. Over the stretch run of the year, he has his franchise quarterback playing the best all-around football of his professional life. And he's also spearheaded the remaking of a defensive unit that now ranks number five in the NFL in EPA per play.

Even more impressively, he has excelled at the off-field aspects, which wasn't a guarantee after his early public introduction and some of his preseason moves.

Coen took over the Jaguars with an exceptionally raw coaching staff. In contrast to other coaches, who packed their staff with the ideal staff blend of youth and experience, Coen bet on newbies. Starting with the head coach himself 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 cautionary tale – because everyone is figuring out a new job in real-time. Yet he has pulled everyone and all elements together.

Following an initial hot start, there was a possibility that the season would veer off the rails. A midseason collapse caused the team stumbling once more. That's usually when coaches panic and change too much. Coen didn't. Rather, he simplified the approach. The offense stopped pursuing explosive plays and started seeking consistent ones. Coen recentered the offense around key players and the ground attack, and encouraged Lawrence to use his mobility more often.

The results are clear. The Jaguars have won seven games consecutively and will be the AFC's No 3 seed. Coen gets the slightest knock in the rankings because he took over a talented roster, but he has demonstrated he can maximize that roster.

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

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

Parting ways from a incumbent, bringing in a different signal-caller and partnering him with an innovative offensive coordinator could have derailed the season in October. Instead, it shaped it. By the mid point of the season, the new QB was an MVP front-runner. He has fallen away since that hot streak, dropping to 23rd in efficiency per pass attempt over the latter part of the season, placing him just a single spot ahead of other QBs.

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