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Usually, the National Football League's Coach of the Year award follows a simple pattern. It frequently acts as a type of mea culpa. Sorry we underestimated your team in our preseason predictions.

In theory, it's a direct trajectory: the skipper who engineered the biggest improvement is handed the award. In practice, it sparks an annual argument about expectations and whether we're actually rewarding excellent coaching or just the greatest upset.

However the latest field is distinctly unique. The pool of nominees is unusually deep. It has been the campaign of comebacks. The NFL has been unpredictable, with recent division champions falling away and longtime underperformers improving together. Under an normal year, a coach leading the Denver Broncos to the top of the conference would make him the overwhelming favorite. Yet in this wild and thrilling season, he's competing with five other exceptional coaches.

This is how the hypothetical ballot could be structured.

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

Coach of the Year selectors adore signal-callers. This is a tradition. A certain coach in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. When you fix a quarterback, you're halfway to winning the award.

The Bears' head coach didn't merely fixed Caleb Williams; he's unlocked him. In the right environment, Williams has been afforded the chance to display his rare talent. Since midseason onward, the Chicago offense rank number four in offensive EPA per play. This isn't a lucky run – it's prolonged dominance. Under his guidance, Williams has become increasingly confident, less careless, and has willingly submitted to the scheme instead of freelancing. It is an offense designed solely in the coach's image: a bully-ball run game, a consistent dose of play-action and a innovative aerial game that creates wide-open targets consistently. The QB has taken advantage. And when easy reads haven't been available, he's been able to spin big plays from broken plays.

Johnson came to the Bears with a specific offensive vision. Virtually each gamble – rebuilding the trenches, featuring the pass-catchers, turning Williams into a timing-based thrower – has worked. That's uncommon for a rookie skipper. And it's even more uncommon still for a coach who walked into the organization with the kind of hype Johnson did. For two straight cycles, he was the top name on the coaching market. But when it comes to hiring a head coach, there are zero sure things. Remarkably, he has lived up to the hype – and even surpassed them. He's demonstrated not only to be a scheme wizard but the type of leader that can breathe new life into an organization.

In a normal year, he would be the clear-cut choice. Yet this is not a typical season!

Where Johnson's candidacy comes a bit unstuck is on the defensive side. The Chicago defense currently rank 25th in defensive efficiency. They are living on turnovers, and takeaways are famously inconsistent. Defensive minds can emphasise creating turnovers, but nobody can ensure it. He is on the ballot because the offense is legitimate. He's ranked lower because variance is doing an outsized share of the defensive heavy lifting. If not for a few breaks of the ball, the Bears would be several wins worse off. It's been an remarkable transformation, and the core is established for long-term success. But Johnson falls short here.

4) Liam Coen, His Team, 12-4

Coen is in a comparable position to Johnson. He's another first-time head coach who has masterminded a dramatic resurgence. During the stretch run of the season, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the best overall ball of his professional life. And he's also overseen the overhaul of a defensive unit that now ranks number five in the league in Expected Points Added per play.

Even more impressively, he has mastered the intangibles stuff, which was not a certainty following his initial public appearances and some of his offseason moves.

Coen took over Jacksonville with an uncommonly inexperienced coaching staff. Unlike other coaches, who surrounded their staff with the perfect staff cocktail of youth and veteran savvy, he trusted first-timers. Starting with the head coach on down to coordinators to position coaches, the Jags are filled with first-timers. That type of approach is intriguing in theory, but often collapses in reality – with other teams are a warning – because everyone is learning a their job in real-time. But Coen has managed to bring everyone and everything together.

After an early strong start, there was a risk that the campaign would veer off the rails. A mid-year collapse had the team wobbling once more. That's usually when coaches panic and change too much. He did not. Rather, he simplified things. The offense stopped chasing explosive plays and started seeking consistent ones. Coen refocused the attack around his playmakers and the ground attack, and asked Lawrence to use his legs more often.

The results are obvious. The Jags have won multiple games in a row and will be the AFC's number three seed. Coen gets the slightest deduction in the standings because he inherited a skilled roster, but he has proven he can maximize that talent.

3) The Seattle Seahawks Coach, Seattle Seahawks, 13-3

Each Strong of the Year argument has a pivotal decision. For Mike Macdonald, it was his quarterback decision.

Parting ways from a veteran, signing a new signal-caller and partnering him with an new offensive coordinator could have derailed the campaign in October. Rather, it shaped it. Through the mid point of the year, the acquisition was an Most Valuable Player contender. He has cooled off since that hot streak, dropping to a lower rank in efficiency per pass attempt over the second half of the schedule, putting him just one spot ahead of other QBs.

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