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Ordinarily, the NFL's Coach of the Year trophy adheres to a straightforward formula. It often serves as a type of apology. Our apologies we misjudged your squad in our pre-campaign projections.

Theoretically, it's a clear-cut line: the skipper who engineered the largest resurgence receives the prize. In reality, it fuels an annual debate about preseason outlooks and whether we're truly rewarding superior leadership or merely the greatest surprise.

However the current race is profoundly different. The pool of contenders is exceptionally deep. It has been the campaign of comebacks. The NFL has been chaotic, with recent division winners falling away and recent underperformers ascending collectively. During an normal season, a coach leading the his team to the summit of the conference would make him the stone-cold front-runner. Yet in such a chaotic and fun season, he's up against multiple other elite coaches.

Here is how the hypothetical vote ought to look.

5) Ben Johnson, Chicago Bears, 11-5

Coach of the Year selectors love signal-callers. They always have. Sean McVay in 2017. Another in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. Should you solve a quarterback, you're well on your way to winning the award.

The Bears' head coach not only fixed Caleb Williams; he's freed him. Given a proper ecosystem, the QB has been afforded the opportunity to showcase his rare talent. Since Week 9, the Bears rank number four in offensive Expected Points Added per play. That's not a brief surge – it's sustained dominance. Under his guidance, Williams has become more decisive, far less reckless, and has willingly submitted to the system instead of freelancing. It is an attack designed solely in the coach's image: a bully-ball ground attack, a steady helping of play-action passes and a imaginative passing attack that springs wide-open targets all over the field. Williams has capitalized. And when easy reads weren't there, he's been capable to conjure magic out of broken plays.

Johnson came to the Bears with a defined offensive philosophy. Almost each decision – overhauling the trenches, highlighting the tight ends, turning Williams into a rhythm thrower – has succeeded. This is uncommon for a first-year skipper. And it's rarer still for a coach who entered the organization with the level of pressure Johnson did. For consecutive straight offseasons, he was the top name on the head coaching carousel. But when it comes to hiring a leader, there are no guarantees. Somehow, Johnson has met the hype – and even exceeded them. He's demonstrated not just to be a offensive dork but the kind of culture builder that can breathe new life into an franchise.

During a ordinary year, Johnson would be the clear-cut favorite. Yet the current isn't a normal campaign!

Where his candidacy runs slightly unstuck is on the defensive side. The Chicago defense currently rank 25th in defensive success rate. They are living on turnovers, and takeaways are famously fickle. Coaches can stress ball disruption, but nobody can guarantee it. He is on the ballot because the offense is legitimate. He's ranked lower because luck is doing an outsized share of the defense's heavy lifting. If not for a few breaks of the ball, the team would be several victories behind. It's been an remarkable transformation, and the core is established for long-term winning. However Johnson falls just short in this ranking.

4) Liam Coen, Jacksonville Jaguars, Their Record

Coen is in a similar position to his counterpart. He's another first-time leader who has engineered a dramatic turnaround. During the stretch run of the season, he has his franchise quarterback playing the best all-around ball of his professional life. And he's also spearheaded the transformation of a defensive unit that now sits at fifth in the NFL in Expected Points Added per play.

Even more notably, he has mastered the off-field aspects, which was not a certainty following his early public appearances and some of his offseason moves.

The coach walked into the Jaguars with an uncommonly raw staff. In contrast to Johnson, who packed themselves with the ideal staff mix of new ideas and veteran savvy, he hired first-timers. Starting with the leader on down to assistants to position coaches, the Jags are stocked with rookies. That kind of setup is intriguing in theory, but frequently collapses in practice – as past failures are a warning – because everyone is figuring out a their job in real-time. Yet he has managed to bring the entire group and all elements together.

Following an early strong start, there was a chance that the campaign would go off the rails. A mid-year collapse caused the team wobbling again. That's usually when coaches overcorrect. He didn't. Instead, he streamlined things. Jacksonville stopped chasing explosive plays and started seeking consistent ones. The coach refocused the attack around key players and the ground attack, and asked his QB to use his legs more often.

The results are obvious. The Jags have won seven games in a row and will be the AFC's No 3 playoff seed. Coen receives the slightest deduction in the standings because he took over a skilled roster, but he has proven he can get the most out of that roster.

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

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

Parting ways from a incumbent, signing a new quarterback and pairing him with an innovative offensive coordinator could have derailed the campaign in the early weeks. Rather, it made it. Through the middle point of the season, the acquisition was an Most Valuable Player front-runner. He has cooled off after that time, slipping to a lower rank in EPA per dropback over the second half of the schedule, putting him only one place ahead of other QBs.

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