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Usually, the NFL's Coach of the Year trophy follows a straightforward pattern. It often functions as a kind of apology. Our apologies we misjudged your team in our pre-campaign predictions.

On paper, it's a direct trajectory: the coach who engineered the biggest improvement is handed the award. In practice, it fuels an annual argument about preseason outlooks and whether we're actually honoring excellent coaching or simply the most shocking surprise.

But the current field is distinctly different. The list of nominees is remarkably talented. It has been the season of comebacks. The NFL has been messy, with reigning division champions declining and longtime underperformers improving together. In an normal year, a coach leading the Denver Broncos to the top of the AFC would make him the clear favorite. But in this wild and thrilling year, he's facing multiple other outstanding candidates.

Below is how the hypothetical vote ought to shake out.

5) Ben Johnson, Chicago Bears, 11-5

Coach of the Year selectors love QBs. History shows this. A certain coach in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. When you transform a franchise QB, you're halfway to winning the award.

Ben Johnson didn't merely fixed his young quarterback; he's freed him. Within an ideal ecosystem, Williams has been given the opportunity to showcase his rare ability. Since Week 9, the Chicago offense sit at fourth in offensive EPA per play. That's not a hot streak – it's consistent excellence. With Johnson, the quarterback has become more decisive, far less careless, and has willingly submitted to the scheme rather than going rogue. It is an offense built solely in the coach's vision: a bully-ball ground attack, a steady helping of play-action passes and a creative aerial game that frees wide-open receivers all over the field. Williams has capitalized. And when easy reads weren't available, he's been capable to create big plays out of broken plays.

Johnson came to Chicago with a clear offensive blueprint. Almost every decision – rebuilding the offensive line, utilizing the pass-catchers, transforming Williams into a rhythm thrower – has succeeded. This is rare for a rookie skipper. And it's rarer still for a coach who entered the building with the immense expectations Johnson did. For two straight cycles, he was the hottest name on the head coaching market. But when it comes to selecting a leader, there are zero guarantees. Somehow, he has lived up to expectations – and even exceeded them. He's demonstrated not only to be a scheme dork but the kind of leader that can inject fresh energy into an franchise.

During a ordinary year, Johnson would be the runaway choice. Yet the current is not a normal year!

The area where his candidacy runs a bit into trouble is on the defensive side. The Bears currently sit 25th in defensive success rate. They are relying on takeaways, and turnovers are famously unreliable. Defensive minds can focus on ball disruption, but nobody can ensure it. He is on the ballot because the offensive production is real. He's ranked lower because luck is doing too much of the defensive work. If not for a few breaks of the ball, the team would be two wins worse off. It's been an exceptional transformation, and the core is established for sustained success. But Johnson comes up just short in this ranking.

4) Liam Coen, Jacksonville Jaguars, Their Record

Coen is in a similar position to his counterpart. He's another rookie head coach who has masterminded a swift turnaround. During the stretch run of the season, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the most complete overall football of his career. And he's also overseen the remaking of a defensive unit that now sits at fifth in the NFL in Expected Points Added per play.

What's more impressively, Coen has nailed the leadership stuff, which wasn't a given after his early public introduction and some of his offseason moves.

Coen took over Jacksonville with an uncommonly raw staff. In contrast to other coaches, who packed their staff with the perfect staff cocktail of new ideas and experience, Coen bet on first-timers. From the leader on down to assistants to position coaches, the Jaguars are filled with first-timers. That type of approach is intriguing on paper, but often fails in practice – as past failures are a cautionary tale – because everybody is figuring out a their job on the fly. But Coen has pulled the entire group and everything together.

Following an early hot beginning, there was a chance that the season would veer off the rails. A mid-year setback caused the Jags stumbling once more. That's typically when leaders overcorrect. Coen didn't. Rather, he simplified things. Jacksonville stopped chasing explosive answers and started hunting reliable ones. Coen refocused the attack around his playmakers and the running game, and asked his QB to use his mobility more.

The outcomes are clear. The Jaguars have won multiple games consecutively and will be the conference's number three seed. Coen gets the tiniest deduction in the standings because he inherited a skilled roster, but he has demonstrated he can maximize that roster.

3) Mike Macdonald, His Team, Their Record

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

Parting ways from a veteran, bringing in a different signal-caller and partnering him with an innovative offensive coordinator could have derailed the season in the early weeks. Instead, it defined it. Through the middle point of the season, the new QB was an Most Valuable Player front-runner. He has regressed after that time, slipping to 23rd in EPA per pass attempt over the second half of the schedule, putting him only one place ahead of other QBs.

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