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Typically, the National Football League's Coach of the Year trophy follows a simple formula. It often functions as a kind of apology. Our apologies we underestimated your team in our pre-campaign projections.

In theory, it's a clear-cut trajectory: the skipper who orchestrated the most dramatic improvement wins the prize. In practice, it fuels an yearly discussion about expectations and whether we're actually honoring excellent leadership or just the biggest upset.

But this year's field is fundamentally different. The pool of nominees is unusually talented. It has been the year of comebacks. The NFL has been unpredictable, with recent conference champions fading and longtime strugglers improving in unison. Under an typical season, Sean Payton leading the his team to the summit of the AFC would make him the clear front-runner. Yet in this turbulent and thrilling year, he's up against several other outstanding candidates.

Here is how the ideal ballot should shake out.

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

Coach of the Year voters adore signal-callers. They always have. A certain coach in 2017. Another in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. If you fix a quarterback, you're well on your way to winning the award.

The Bears' head coach didn't merely corrected Caleb Williams; he's unleashed him. In the right ecosystem, the QB has been given the opportunity to demonstrate his special ability. From Week 9, the Bears sit at number four in offensive EPA per play. This isn't a hot streak – it's sustained performance. Under his guidance, Williams has become more confident, less reckless, and has willingly surrendered to the gameplan instead of going rogue. It is an offense designed solely in Johnson's vision: a bully-ball run game, a consistent dose of play-action and a imaginative passing attack that creates wide receiver targets everywhere. Williams has thrived. And when easy reads weren't there, he's been able to spin big plays from broken plays.

Johnson arrived to Chicago with a specific offensive vision. Virtually each decision – rebuilding the trenches, highlighting the pass-catchers, turning the QB into a timing-based passer – has paid off. That's uncommon for a rookie skipper. And it's even more uncommon still for a leader who entered the building with the level of expectations Johnson did. For consecutive straight offseasons, he was the hottest candidate on the head coaching market. However when it comes to selecting a leader, there are zero sure things. Remarkably, he has met expectations – and even surpassed them. He's demonstrated not just to be a scheme genius but the type of culture builder that can breathe fresh energy into an franchise.

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

The area where Johnson's candidacy comes slightly unstuck is on the defensive side. The Chicago defense presently rank 25th in defensive success rate. They are relying on turnovers, and turnovers are notoriously fickle. Coaches can focus on ball disruption, but nobody can ensure it. Johnson is on the list because the offensive production is legitimate. He's ranked lower because luck is doing too much of the defensive heavy lifting. If not for a couple bounces of the ball, the team would be several victories behind. It's been an exceptional transformation, and the foundation is in place for sustained success. But he comes up just short here.

4) Liam Coen, Jacksonville Jaguars, 12-4

The Jaguars' coach is in a comparable situation to Johnson. He's another first-time leader who has orchestrated a rapid turnaround. Over the crucial final weeks of the season, he has his franchise quarterback playing the most complete all-around ball of his professional life. And he's also overseen the overhaul of a defensive unit that now ranks number five in the NFL in EPA per play.

Even more impressively, Coen has excelled at the off-field aspects, which was not a certainty after his early press conference introduction and some of his offseason moves.

The coach walked into Jacksonville with an exceptionally inexperienced staff. In contrast to other coaches, who packed their staff with the ideal coaching cocktail of youth and experience, he bet on first-timers. From the leader himself to coordinators to position coaches, the Jaguars are stocked with rookies. That type of approach is exciting on paper, but often fails in practice – as past failures are a warning – because everyone is figuring out a new job on the fly. But Coen has managed to bring everyone and everything together.

After an initial hot start, there was a possibility that the season would veer off the track. A mid-year collapse had the team stumbling once more. That's typically when coaches panic and change too much. Coen didn't. Instead, he simplified things. Jacksonville stopped chasing explosive answers and started seeking sustainable ones. The coach recentered the attack around his playmakers and the running game, and encouraged his QB to use his legs more often.

The results are evident. The Jags have won multiple games in a row and will be the conference's No 3 playoff seed. Coen receives the slightest knock in the rankings because he took over a talented roster, but he has proven he can maximize that talent.

3) The Seattle Seahawks Coach, His Team, Their Record

Each Strong of the Year narrative has a pivotal decision. For the Seahawks coach, it was his quarterback decision.

Moving on from a veteran, bringing in a different quarterback and partnering him with an new play-caller might have derailed the season in the early weeks. Rather, it made it. By the middle point of the year, the new QB was an Most Valuable Player candidate. He has cooled off since that time, dropping to a lower rank in efficiency per dropback over the latter part of the season, putting him just one place ahead of peers.

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