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Typically, the National Football League's Coach of the Year award adheres to a simple script. It often acts as a form of apology. Sorry we underestimated your team in our preseason predictions.

On paper, it's a direct path: the skipper who orchestrated the most dramatic improvement wins the prize. In practice, it creates an annual discussion about expectations and whether we're actually rewarding superior leadership or merely the greatest upset.

However the latest field is fundamentally different. The pool of candidates is remarkably strong. It has been the year of comebacks. The league has been messy, with reigning division champions falling away and longtime also-rans rising in unison. During an typical year, Sean Payton guiding the Denver Broncos to the top of the AFC would make him the clear favorite. Yet in such a wild and thrilling season, he's up against multiple other elite coaches.

Here is how the ideal vote ought to shake out.

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

Voters for Coach of the Year voters are fascinated by quarterbacks. History shows this. Sean McVay in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. When you transform a franchise QB, you're halfway to winning the award.

The Bears' head coach not only fixed Caleb Williams; he's unlocked him. Within an ideal ecosystem, the QB has been given the chance to demonstrate his otherworldly talent. Since midseason onward, the Chicago offense sit at fourth in offensive EPA per play. This isn't a brief surge – it's consistent dominance. With Johnson, Williams has become increasingly decisive, far less careless, and has eagerly surrendered to the scheme rather than freelancing. It is an offense constructed entirely in the coach's image: a physical ground attack, a heavy dose of play-action passes and a creative aerial game that frees wide receiver receivers all over the field. The QB has capitalized. And when clear throws haven't been there, he's been able to spin big plays from broken plays.

Johnson arrived to the Bears with a clear offensive vision. Virtually each bet – rebuilding the offensive line, featuring the pass-catchers, turning the QB into a timing-based thrower – has paid off. That's uncommon for a first-year head coach. And it's even more uncommon yet for a leader who walked into the organization with the immense pressure Johnson did. For two straight cycles, he was the top candidate on the head coaching market. However when it comes to hiring a head coach, there are no guarantees. Remarkably, Johnson has met expectations – and even surpassed them. He's demonstrated not only to be a offensive wizard but the kind of culture builder that can breathe new life into an organization.

In a ordinary season, Johnson would be the overwhelming choice. Yet the current isn't a typical campaign!

The area where his candidacy runs slightly into trouble is on defense. The Chicago defense currently sit 25th in defensive efficiency. They are surviving on turnovers, and turnovers are famously unreliable. Defensive minds can stress creating turnovers, but no one can guarantee it. Johnson is on the list because the offensive production is legitimate. He's ranked lower because variance is doing an outsized share of the defensive work. With a couple bounces of the ball, the Bears would be several victories behind. It's been an remarkable turnaround, and the foundation is in place for long-term winning. But he comes up short in this ranking.

4) Liam Coen, Jacksonville Jaguars, 12-4

The Jaguars' coach is in a comparable position to Johnson. He's a fellow first-time leader who has orchestrated a dramatic turnaround. During the crucial final weeks of the season, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the best overall football of his career. And he's also spearheaded the overhaul of a defensive unit that now sits at number five in the league in Expected Points Added per play.

Even more impressively, Coen has nailed the intangibles stuff, which was not a certainty following his initial press conference introduction and some of his offseason decisions.

Coen walked into Jacksonville with an exceptionally inexperienced coaching staff. Unlike Johnson, who surrounded themselves with the perfect coaching mix of youth and veteran savvy, Coen hired first-timers. Starting with the head coach himself to assistants to assistant coaches, the Jags are filled with first-timers. That kind of approach is intriguing in theory, but often collapses in practice – as past failures are a warning – because everybody is learning a new job in real-time. Yet he has managed to bring the entire group and all elements together.

Following an early hot beginning, there was a risk that the campaign would go off the track. A midseason collapse had the Jags stumbling once more. That's typically when leaders panic and change too much. Coen didn't. Rather, he simplified things. Jacksonville stopped pursuing explosive answers and started hunting sustainable ones. The coach refocused the attack around his playmakers and the ground attack, and asked Lawrence to use his legs more.

The results are obvious. The Jags have won seven games consecutively and will be the AFC's number three playoff seed. Coen receives the slightest deduction in the rankings because he inherited a talented team, but he has proven he can get the most out of that roster.

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

Every Strong of the Year case has a defining decision. For Mike Macdonald, it was his quarterback move.

Moving on from a veteran, bringing in a different signal-caller and partnering him with an innovative play-caller could have ended the campaign in October. Instead, it made it. By the middle point of the season, the new QB was an Most Valuable Player front-runner. He has regressed since that time, dropping to a lower rank in efficiency per pass attempt over the second half of the season, placing him just a single spot ahead of peers.

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