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Typically, the National Football League's Coach of the Year award follows a straightforward pattern. It frequently functions as a kind of apology. Sorry we underestimated your team in our pre-campaign projections.

On paper, it's a clear-cut trajectory: the coach who engineered the biggest improvement is handed the award. However, it creates an annual discussion about expectations and whether we're actually honoring superior coaching or simply the greatest surprise.

However the latest competition is fundamentally unique. The group of contenders is exceptionally strong. It has been the year of turnarounds. The league has been messy, with recent division champions falling away and longtime underperformers rising collectively. In an typical year, Sean Payton guiding the Denver Broncos to the top of the AFC would make him the overwhelming favorite. Yet in such a wild and fun year, he's up against five other outstanding coaches.

This is how the hypothetical ballot ought to shake out.

5) Ben Johnson, His Team, Their Record

Voters for Coach of the Year selectors are fascinated by QBs. They always have. Sean McVay in 2017. Another in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. Should you transform a franchise QB, you're well on your way to winning the award.

Ben Johnson didn't merely corrected Caleb Williams; he's freed him. In the right system, Williams has been given the opportunity to demonstrate his special talent. Since Week 9, the Chicago offense sit at number four in offensive EPA per play. That's not a hot streak – it's prolonged dominance. With Johnson, the quarterback has become more decisive, less reckless, and has willingly submitted to the system instead of going rogue. It is an offense built entirely in the coach's image: a bully-ball run game, a consistent dose of play-action and a imaginative passing attack that frees wide receiver targets consistently. Williams has taken advantage. And when easy reads weren't available, he's been capable to conjure magic out of broken plays.

The coach arrived to the Bears with a specific offensive vision. Almost every decision – overhauling the trenches, highlighting the tight ends, transforming the QB into a rhythm passer – has paid off. This is rare for a rookie head coach. And it's rarer still for a coach who walked into the organization with the level of expectations Johnson did. For two straight offseasons, he was the top candidate on the head coaching market. However when it comes to selecting a head coach, there are zero sure things. Somehow, he has met the hype – and even exceeded them. He's demonstrated not only to be a scheme wizard but the kind of leader that can inject fresh energy into an organization.

During a typical year, Johnson would be the runaway choice. Yet this isn't a normal season!

Where Johnson's case comes slightly unstuck is on the defensive side. The Bears presently sit 25th in defensive success rate. They are living on takeaways, and turnovers are notoriously inconsistent. Coaches can stress creating turnovers, but nobody can guarantee it. Johnson is on the list because the offense is legitimate. He's not higher because luck is doing too much of the defense's heavy lifting. If not for a few bounces of the ball, the Bears would be several wins behind. It's been an exceptional transformation, and the core is established for sustained winning. But Johnson falls just short in this ranking.

4) Liam Coen, His Team, Their Record

Coen is in a similar situation to Johnson. He's a fellow first-time leader who has engineered a dramatic turnaround. Over the crucial final weeks of the year, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the best overall ball of his career. And he's also overseen the overhaul of a defense that now ranks number five in the NFL in EPA per play.

Even more impressively, he has excelled at the leadership stuff, which wasn't a given following his initial press conference appearances and some of his preseason decisions.

The coach walked into Jacksonville with an uncommonly raw staff. Unlike Johnson, who surrounded their staff with the perfect coaching blend of new ideas and experience, he hired newbies. Starting with the head coach himself to assistants to assistant coaches, the Jaguars are filled with rookies. That type of setup is exciting in theory, but frequently fails in practice – as past failures are a cautionary tale – because everybody is learning a their job on the fly. But Coen has pulled the entire group and all elements into sync.

Following an early strong start, there was a risk that the season would veer off the track. A mid-year setback had the team wobbling once more. That's typically when leaders overcorrect. Coen did not. Rather, he simplified the approach. The offense stopped chasing home-run plays and started seeking reliable ones. Coen refocused the offense around key players and the ground attack, and asked his QB to use his mobility more often.

The outcomes are evident. The Jaguars have won multiple games consecutively and will be the conference's number three seed. Coen receives the slightest deduction in the standings because he inherited a talented team, but he has proven he can maximize that roster.

3) Mike Macdonald, His Team, Their Record

Every Strong of the Year case has a hinge moment. For Mike Macdonald, it was his QB choice.

Moving on from a incumbent, bringing in a new quarterback and partnering him with an innovative play-caller could have ended the season in October. Instead, it made it. Through the mid point of the season, the new QB was an MVP contender. He has fallen away after that time, dropping to a lower rank in EPA per dropback over the latter part of the schedule, placing him just a single spot ahead of other QBs.

Still