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Typically, the National Football League's Coach of the Year award adheres to a straightforward script. It often serves as a kind of mea culpa. We regret we misjudged your squad in our pre-campaign predictions.

On paper, it's a direct path: the skipper who orchestrated the biggest resurgence is handed the prize. However, it creates an annual argument about preseason outlooks and whether we're genuinely rewarding excellent leadership or just the greatest shock.

But this year's competition is profoundly different. The group of candidates is unusually deep. It has been the year of resurgences. The league has been unpredictable, with reigning conference champions falling away and longtime strugglers improving together. During an typical season, Sean Payton leading the Denver Broncos to the top of the AFC would make him the stone-cold favorite. Yet in this wild and thrilling year, he's facing several other outstanding coaches.

Here is how the ideal ballot could shake out.

5) Ben Johnson, Chicago Bears, 11-5

Coach of the Year selectors love quarterbacks. History shows this. Sean McVay in 2017. Another in 2020. A third in 2022. If you fix a franchise QB, you're halfway to winning the award.

The Bears' head coach didn't merely fixed his young quarterback; he's unleashed him. In the right ecosystem, the QB has been afforded the opportunity to display his special talent. Since midseason onward, the Bears rank fourth in offensive EPA per play. This isn't a hot streak – it's consistent dominance. Under his guidance, Williams has become more decisive, far less careless, and has willingly submitted to the scheme instead of going rogue. It is an offense built entirely in Johnson's image: a physical run game, a steady helping of play-action and a creative aerial game that frees wide receiver targets all over the field. Williams has capitalized. And when easy reads weren't available, he's been capable to spin magic from broken plays.

Johnson arrived to Chicago with a clear offensive vision. Almost every decision – overhauling the trenches, utilizing the tight ends, turning Williams into a timing-based passer – has worked. That's uncommon for a rookie skipper. And it's rarer still for a leader who entered the organization with the kind of hype he did. For consecutive straight cycles, he was the hottest name on the coaching carousel. But when it comes to selecting a head coach, there are no guarantees. Remarkably, Johnson has lived up to expectations – and even surpassed them. He's proven not just to be a offensive genius but the kind of culture builder that can inject new life into an franchise.

During a typical year, Johnson would be the overwhelming favorite. Yet the current is not a normal season!

The area where Johnson's candidacy runs a bit unstuck is on the defensive side. The Bears currently sit 25th in defensive success rate. They are living on takeaways, and takeaways are notoriously inconsistent. Defensive minds can stress creating turnovers, but no one can guarantee it. Johnson is on the list because the offensive production is legitimate. He's ranked lower because luck is doing an outsized share of the defense's heavy lifting. If not for a couple bounces of the ball, the team would be two victories behind. It's been an remarkable turnaround, and the core is in place for long-term success. But Johnson falls short here.

4) Liam Coen, Jacksonville Jaguars, 12-4

Coen is in a similar position to Johnson. He's a fellow first-time head coach who has engineered a swift resurgence. During the crucial final weeks of the year, he has his franchise quarterback playing the most complete all-around football of his career. And he's also overseen the transformation of a defense that now ranks number five in the league in Expected Points Added per play.

Even more impressively, he has excelled at the intangibles aspects, which was not a given following his initial press conference introduction and some of his preseason decisions.

Coen took over Jacksonville with an exceptionally inexperienced coaching staff. Unlike other coaches, who surrounded themselves with the ideal coaching blend of new ideas and experience, he hired newbies. Starting with the leader on down to assistants to assistant coaches, the Jags are stocked with first-timers. That type of setup is intriguing in theory, but frequently collapses in reality – as past failures are a cautionary tale – because everybody is learning a their job in real-time. Yet Coen has pulled the entire group and everything together.

After an initial strong start, there was a risk that the campaign would go off the track. A mid-year collapse had the team wobbling again. That's usually when leaders overcorrect. He did not. Rather, he streamlined things. The offense stopped chasing explosive answers and started seeking reliable ones. The coach recentered the offense around his playmakers and the ground attack, and encouraged Lawrence to use his legs more often.

The outcomes are evident. The Jaguars have won seven games in a row and will be the AFC's No 3 seed. Coen receives the slightest knock in the standings because he took over a talented roster, but he has proven he can get the most out of that roster.

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

Every Coach of the Year argument has a defining moment. For the Seahawks coach, it was his quarterback choice.

Moving on from a incumbent, bringing in a different quarterback and pairing him with an innovative offensive coordinator might have derailed the campaign in October. Rather, it shaped it. By the middle point of the season, the acquisition was an Most Valuable Player contender. He has regressed after that hot streak, dropping to a lower rank in EPA per pass attempt over the second half of the season, putting him only one spot ahead of other QBs.

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