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Usually, the National Football League's Coach of the Year award adheres to a straightforward script. It frequently functions as a type of mea culpa. Sorry we got wrong your squad in our preseason projections.

Theoretically, it's a direct trajectory: the skipper who engineered the largest resurgence receives the prize. However, it fuels an yearly discussion about expectations and whether we're truly rewarding superior coaching or just the biggest shock.

However the current race is fundamentally different. The pool of candidates is exceptionally deep. It has been the campaign of comebacks. The league has been chaotic, with recent conference winners fading and longtime also-rans rising collectively. During an typical year, a coach leading the his team to the top of the AFC would make him the clear favorite. Yet in such a chaotic and thrilling season, he's competing with five other outstanding coaches.

Here is how the ideal ballot should be structured.

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

Coach of the Year selectors love QBs. They always have. Sean McVay in 2017. Another in 2020. A third in 2022. If you fix a quarterback, you're halfway home.

Ben Johnson not only corrected Caleb Williams; he's freed him. In the right environment, the QB has been afforded the opportunity to demonstrate his special talent. From Week 9, the Bears rank fourth in offensive Expected Points Added per play. This isn't a hot streak – it's prolonged excellence. With Johnson, the quarterback has become more decisive, less careless, and has eagerly surrendered to the gameplan instead of freelancing. It is an attack designed entirely in Johnson's image: a physical run game, a consistent helping of play-action and a imaginative aerial game that creates wide receiver targets all over the field. Williams has taken advantage. And when openings weren't there, he's been able to create big plays out of nothing.

The coach arrived to the Bears with a specific offensive philosophy. Virtually every decision – rebuilding the trenches, utilizing the pass-catchers, turning the QB into a rhythm thrower – has succeeded. That's rare for a first-year skipper. And it's rarer yet for a leader who entered the organization with the immense pressure he did. For two straight cycles, he was the top candidate on the head coaching market. However when it comes to selecting a leader, there are zero guarantees. Somehow, Johnson has met expectations – and even surpassed them. He's proven not only to be a scheme wizard but the type of culture builder that can inject new life into an franchise.

During a normal year, Johnson would be the runaway favorite. Yet this is not a typical campaign!

The area where his candidacy runs slightly into trouble is on defense. The Chicago defense presently sit 25th in defensive efficiency. They are surviving on turnovers, and takeaways are famously inconsistent. Defensive minds can emphasise creating turnovers, but no one can ensure it. He is on the ballot because the offense is legitimate. He's not higher because variance is doing too much of the defensive work. With a few breaks of the ball, the Bears would be two victories behind. It's been an exceptional turnaround, and the foundation is in place for sustained winning. However Johnson falls just short in this ranking.

4) Liam Coen, Jacksonville Jaguars, 12-4

Coen is in a comparable position to his counterpart. He's another rookie head coach who has masterminded a rapid resurgence. Over the crucial final weeks of the year, he has his franchise quarterback playing the most complete all-around ball of his professional life. And he's also overseen the transformation of a defense that now sits at fifth in the league in Expected Points Added per play.

What's more impressively, he has excelled at the off-field stuff, which was not a certainty after his initial public appearances and some of his offseason moves.

The coach took over Jacksonville with an exceptionally raw coaching staff. In contrast to other coaches, who surrounded themselves with the ideal staff cocktail of youth and experience, Coen trusted first-timers. Starting with the leader himself to assistants to assistant coaches, the Jags are filled with rookies. That type of approach is intriguing in theory, but frequently collapses in practice – with other teams are a cautionary tale – because everybody is learning a new job on the fly. But he has managed to bring everyone and everything together.

Following an initial hot beginning, there was a chance that the campaign would go off the rails. A midseason collapse had the team wobbling once more. That's typically when coaches panic and change too much. Coen did not. Instead, he streamlined things. The offense stopped pursuing explosive answers and started seeking sustainable ones. The coach recentered the offense around key players and the running game, and asked Lawrence to use his legs more.

The outcomes are obvious. The Jags have won multiple games in a row and will be the conference's No 3 playoff seed. Coen receives the tiniest deduction in the standings because he took over a talented roster, but he has proven he can maximize that talent.

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

Each Coach of the Year narrative has a pivotal decision. For Mike Macdonald, it was his QB choice.

Moving on from a veteran, bringing in a new signal-caller and pairing him with an innovative play-caller could have ended the campaign in the early weeks. Rather, it made it. By the mid point of the season, the new QB was an Most Valuable Player contender. He has cooled off after that hot streak, slipping to 23rd in efficiency per pass attempt over the second half of the schedule, putting him only a single spot ahead of peers.

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