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Ordinarily, the NFL's Coach of the Year award adheres to a straightforward script. It commonly serves as a type of mea culpa. Sorry we got wrong your squad in our preseason forecasts.

Theoretically, it's a direct trajectory: the skipper who engineered the biggest improvement is handed the award. However, it sparks an annual argument about expectations and whether we're genuinely rewarding superior coaching or simply the most shocking surprise.

However the current competition is profoundly unique. The list of nominees is remarkably talented. It has been the campaign of resurgences. The NFL has been unpredictable, with recent division winners fading and longtime underperformers improving in unison. In an normal year, a coach leading the Denver Broncos to the summit of the AFC would make him the stone-cold front-runner. But in such a chaotic and entertaining season, he's up against several other outstanding coaches.

This is how the ideal vote ought to shake out.

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

Coach of the Year selectors love QBs. This is a tradition. A certain coach in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. A third in 2022. If you fix a quarterback, you're halfway to winning the award.

The Bears' head coach hasn't just corrected Caleb Williams; he's unleashed him. Within an ideal system, the QB has been afforded the chance to showcase his otherworldly ability. Since Week 9, the Chicago offense sit at number four in offensive EPA per play. That's not a brief surge – it's sustained dominance. Under Johnson, the quarterback has become increasingly decisive, far less reckless, and has willingly surrendered to the gameplan rather than improvising. It is an attack built solely in Johnson's image: a bully-ball run game, a steady dose of play-action and a imaginative aerial game that springs wide receiver targets consistently. The QB has capitalized. And when openings weren't there, he's been able to spin magic from broken plays.

The coach came to the Bears with a clear offensive vision. Almost every gamble – rebuilding the offensive line, utilizing the pass-catchers, turning Williams into a rhythm thrower – has paid off. That's rare for a first-year head coach. And it's rarer still for a leader who walked into the building with the immense hype he did. For two straight cycles, he was the top name on the coaching market. However when it comes to selecting a head coach, there are no sure things. Somehow, Johnson has lived up to the hype – and even exceeded them. He's proven not only to be a scheme dork but the kind of leader that can breathe new life into an organization.

During a ordinary season, he would be the clear-cut choice. But this isn't a normal season!

The area where Johnson's case runs a bit into trouble is on the defensive side. The Chicago defense currently sit 25th in defensive success rate. They are relying on takeaways, and turnovers are famously inconsistent. Coaches can emphasise creating turnovers, but no one can guarantee it. Johnson is on the ballot because the offense is real. He's not higher because luck 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 worse off. It's been an remarkable turnaround, and the foundation is in place for sustained success. But he falls just short in this ranking.

4) The Jacksonville Jaguars Coach, Jacksonville Jaguars, Their Record

Coen is in a similar spot to his counterpart. He's another rookie head coach who has orchestrated a swift turnaround. During the crucial final weeks of the season, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the finest overall ball of his career. And he's also overseen the transformation of a defense that now ranks fifth in the NFL in EPA per play.

Even more impressively, Coen has nailed the off-field stuff, which wasn't a guarantee after his early press conference appearances and some of his preseason moves.

The coach walked into the Jaguars with an exceptionally inexperienced coaching staff. In contrast to Johnson, who packed themselves with the ideal staff cocktail of new ideas and experience, Coen hired first-timers. Starting with the head coach on down to assistants to position coaches, the Jags are stocked with rookies. That type of setup is intriguing on paper, but frequently fails in practice – with other teams are a cautionary tale – because everybody is figuring out a new job in real-time. Yet he has pulled the entire group and all elements into sync.

After an initial hot start, there was a possibility that the campaign would go off the track. A midseason setback had the team wobbling again. That's usually when leaders overcorrect. Coen didn't. Rather, he simplified things. The offense stopped chasing home-run answers and started hunting consistent ones. The coach refocused the attack around key players and the running game, and encouraged his QB to use his legs more.

The results are obvious. The Jaguars have won multiple games consecutively and will be the conference's No 3 seed. Coen receives the tiniest knock in the rankings because he inherited a skilled roster, but he has demonstrated he can get the most out of that roster.

3) Mike Macdonald, Seattle Seahawks, Their Record

Every Coach of the Year narrative has a pivotal moment. For the Seahawks coach, it was his QB decision.

Moving on from a veteran, bringing in a different quarterback and pairing him with an innovative offensive coordinator could have derailed the campaign in the early weeks. Instead, it shaped it. Through the middle point of the year, the new QB was an Most Valuable Player contender. He has fallen away after that hot streak, dropping to a lower rank in efficiency per dropback over the latter part of the season, placing him just a single place ahead of peers.

Still