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Typically, the National Football League's Coach of the Year trophy adheres to a simple script. It commonly functions as a kind of apology. We regret we underestimated your squad in our pre-campaign predictions.

On paper, it's a clear-cut trajectory: the skipper who orchestrated the most dramatic improvement wins the prize. However, it sparks an yearly debate about preseason outlooks and whether we're truly rewarding excellent coaching or simply the biggest shock.

Yet the latest field is distinctly unique. The group of candidates is unusually talented. It has been the season of comebacks. The NFL has been messy, with recent division champions fading and recent strugglers ascending together. During an typical year, Sean Payton guiding the Denver Broncos to the summit of the conference would make him the clear front-runner. Yet in this turbulent and entertaining season, he's facing several other outstanding coaches.

This is how the ideal ballot should shake out.

5) Ben Johnson, Chicago Bears, Their Record

Voters for Coach of the Year selectors adore signal-callers. History shows this. A certain coach in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. A third in 2022. When you transform a quarterback, you're halfway home.

Ben Johnson hasn't just corrected his young quarterback; he's unlocked him. Within an ideal system, Williams has been afforded the chance to demonstrate his special talent. From midseason onward, the Chicago offense sit at number four in offensive Expected Points Added per play. This isn't a hot streak – it's sustained performance. With Johnson, the quarterback has become more confident, far less reckless, and has eagerly surrendered to the scheme rather than freelancing. It is an attack designed solely in the coach's vision: a physical run game, a consistent helping of play-action and a creative passing attack that creates wide receiver receivers everywhere. Williams has taken advantage. And when clear throws weren't available, he's been capable to conjure big plays from nothing.

Johnson arrived to Chicago with a specific offensive blueprint. Virtually every gamble – rebuilding the offensive line, featuring the tight ends, turning Williams into a timing-based passer – has succeeded. That's uncommon for a rookie skipper. And it's rarer yet for a leader who walked into the building with the kind of hype he did. For consecutive straight cycles, he was the top candidate on the coaching market. However when it comes to hiring a leader, there are zero sure things. Remarkably, Johnson has lived up to expectations – and even exceeded them. He's demonstrated not just to be a offensive dork but the kind of leader that can inject new life into an organization.

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

The area where his candidacy runs a bit unstuck is on defense. The Chicago defense currently rank in the bottom third in defensive efficiency. They are surviving on takeaways, and takeaways are notoriously inconsistent. Coaches can emphasise creating turnovers, but nobody can ensure it. Johnson is on the ballot because the offensive production is sustainable. He's ranked lower because luck is doing an outsized share of the defensive work. With a few bounces of the ball, the Bears would be two wins behind. It's been an remarkable transformation, and the core is established for sustained success. But Johnson comes up just short here.

4) The Jacksonville Jaguars Coach, His Team, 12-4

The Jaguars' coach is in a comparable position to his counterpart. He's a fellow rookie leader who has engineered a dramatic resurgence. During the crucial final weeks of the year, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the best all-around ball of his professional life. And he's also overseen the transformation of a defensive unit that now sits at number five in the NFL in EPA per play.

What's more notably, Coen has excelled at the off-field stuff, which was not a certainty following his early public appearances and some of his preseason moves.

The coach took over Jacksonville with an exceptionally raw coaching staff. Unlike Johnson, who packed their staff with the perfect coaching cocktail of new ideas and experience, Coen hired newbies. Starting with the head coach on down to assistants to assistant coaches, the Jags are stocked with rookies. That kind of setup is exciting in theory, but often collapses in practice – with other teams are a cautionary tale – because everybody is learning a their job in real-time. But he has pulled the entire group and everything together.

Following an early hot start, there was a possibility that the campaign would veer off the rails. A mid-year collapse had the Jags stumbling again. That's typically when leaders overcorrect. Coen didn't. Rather, he streamlined the approach. The offense stopped chasing explosive answers and started hunting consistent ones. The coach refocused the offense around his playmakers and the running game, and asked his QB to use his mobility more.

The results are obvious. The Jaguars have won multiple games in a row and will be the AFC's No 3 seed. He receives the tiniest deduction in the standings because he took over a skilled team, but he has proven he can maximize that roster.

3) Mike Macdonald, Seattle Seahawks, Their Record

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

Parting ways from a veteran, bringing in a different signal-caller and pairing him with an new offensive coordinator might have ended the campaign in the early weeks. Rather, it defined it. Through the middle point of the season, the acquisition was an MVP candidate. He has cooled off after that time, slipping to 23rd in efficiency per pass attempt over the latter part of the season, putting him only a single place ahead of peers.

Still