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Ordinarily, the National Football League's Coach of the Year trophy follows a simple script. It commonly serves as a type of apology. Our apologies we got wrong your franchise in our pre-campaign forecasts.

Theoretically, it's a direct line: the skipper who engineered the biggest turnaround is handed the prize. In reality, it fuels an annual debate about expectations and whether we're actually honoring excellent coaching or merely the most shocking surprise.

However the current competition is profoundly unique. The pool of contenders is unusually strong. It has been the year of turnarounds. The NFL has been messy, with recent division champions falling away and longtime also-rans ascending collectively. In an normal year, a coach guiding the his team to the summit of the AFC would make him the clear favorite. Yet in such a wild and entertaining year, he's competing with five other outstanding candidates.

Here is how the hypothetical ballot should be structured.

5) Ben Johnson, His Team, Their Record

Coach of the Year selectors love QBs. History shows this. A certain coach in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. Should you transform a franchise QB, you're halfway home.

The Bears' head coach not only corrected Caleb Williams; he's freed him. Within an ideal system, the QB has been given the opportunity to demonstrate his rare ability. From Week 9, the Bears sit at fourth in offensive EPA per play. This isn't a brief surge – it's prolonged excellence. Under his guidance, Williams has become increasingly decisive, far less reckless, and has willingly submitted to the system instead of improvising. It is an offense constructed solely in the coach's image: a bully-ball ground attack, a consistent dose of play-action passes and a innovative passing attack that creates wide receiver receivers all over the field. Williams has thrived. And when easy reads haven't been available, he's been able to create big plays out of nothing.

The coach arrived to Chicago with a specific offensive philosophy. Almost every gamble – overhauling the offensive line, highlighting the pass-catchers, turning the QB into a timing-based thrower – has paid off. That's uncommon for a rookie skipper. And it's rarer yet for a leader who entered the building with the immense hype he did. For two straight offseasons, he was the top candidate on the coaching carousel. But when it comes to selecting a leader, there are no sure things. Remarkably, he has lived up to the hype – and even exceeded them. He's proven not just to be a offensive genius but the kind of leader that can inject fresh energy into an organization.

During a normal year, Johnson would be the runaway choice. But the current isn't a typical year!

Where Johnson's case comes slightly unstuck is on the defensive side. The Bears currently sit in the bottom third in defensive success rate. They are relying on turnovers, and takeaways are notoriously inconsistent. Coaches can focus on ball disruption, but no one can guarantee it. Johnson is on the list because the offense is real. He's ranked lower because variance is doing too much of the defensive work. With a few bounces of the ball, the Bears would be two victories worse off. It's been an exceptional transformation, and the core is established for sustained success. However Johnson falls just short here.

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

Coen is in a comparable spot to his counterpart. He's another rookie leader who has masterminded a rapid resurgence. During the stretch run of the season, he has his franchise quarterback playing the finest overall ball of his career. And he's also overseen the overhaul of a defensive unit that now ranks fifth in the NFL in EPA per play.

Even more notably, he has nailed the leadership aspects, which was not a guarantee after his initial public appearances and some of his offseason decisions.

The coach took over the Jaguars with an uncommonly raw staff. Unlike Johnson, who surrounded their staff with the ideal coaching mix of youth and experience, he trusted first-timers. From the leader himself to coordinators to position coaches, the Jaguars are stocked with first-timers. That kind of approach is exciting in theory, but frequently fails in reality – as past failures are a cautionary tale – because everybody is figuring out a new job in real-time. Yet Coen has managed to bring the entire group and everything together.

After an initial strong start, there was a risk that the season would go off the track. A midseason setback caused the Jags stumbling again. That's usually when leaders overcorrect. He did not. Instead, he simplified the approach. Jacksonville stopped pursuing home-run answers and started seeking reliable ones. Coen refocused the attack around his playmakers and the running game, and encouraged his QB to use his mobility more.

The outcomes are obvious. The Jaguars have won multiple games consecutively and will be the conference's number three playoff seed. Coen receives the slightest deduction in the standings because he inherited 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 narrative has a pivotal decision. For the Seahawks coach, it was his quarterback move.

Parting ways from a veteran, bringing in a new signal-caller and pairing him with an innovative play-caller could have derailed the season in the early weeks. Instead, it shaped it. Through the middle point of the year, the acquisition was an MVP front-runner. He has cooled off since that time, slipping to a lower rank in efficiency per dropback over the latter part of the schedule, placing him just a single spot ahead of peers.

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