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Usually, the NFL's Coach of the Year trophy adheres to a simple pattern. It frequently serves as a form of apology. Sorry we got wrong your team in our pre-campaign predictions.

Theoretically, it's a clear-cut path: the skipper who oversaw the most dramatic turnaround is handed the prize. However, it sparks an annual discussion about expectations and whether we're truly honoring excellent coaching or just the most shocking shock.

But this year's race is distinctly different. The group of contenders is exceptionally strong. It has been the campaign of comebacks. The NFL has been unpredictable, with reigning conference winners falling away and recent strugglers rising collectively. In an ordinary season, a coach guiding the Denver Broncos to the top of the AFC would make him the clear favorite. Yet in such a wild and fun year, he's competing with multiple other outstanding coaches.

This is how the hypothetical vote could look.

5) Ben Johnson, Chicago Bears, Their Record

Coach of the Year voters love QBs. This is a tradition. A certain coach in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. A third in 2022. If you transform a franchise QB, you're well on your way to winning the award.

Ben Johnson hasn't just corrected Caleb Williams; he's freed him. Within an ideal environment, Williams has been afforded the opportunity to showcase his otherworldly talent. Since midseason onward, the Chicago offense sit at number four in offensive Expected Points Added per play. That's not a lucky run – it's prolonged excellence. With Johnson, Williams has become more confident, less careless, and has eagerly surrendered to the gameplan rather than going rogue. It is an offense built solely in the coach's image: a physical run game, a steady dose of play-action passes and a imaginative passing attack that springs wide-open targets everywhere. Williams has thrived. And when easy reads haven't been there, he's been capable to spin magic out of nothing.

Johnson came to Chicago with a defined offensive philosophy. Almost each gamble – overhauling the trenches, highlighting the pass-catchers, turning Williams into a rhythm thrower – has succeeded. This is uncommon for a first-year skipper. And it's rarer yet for a coach who walked into the organization with the level of hype Johnson did. For consecutive straight cycles, he was the hottest 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 surpassed them. He's proven not just to be a scheme wizard but the type of culture builder that can inject new life into an organization.

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

The area where his candidacy comes a bit unstuck is on the defensive side. The Chicago defense presently rank in the bottom third in defensive success rate. They are surviving on turnovers, and takeaways are famously inconsistent. Defensive minds can focus on creating turnovers, but no one can ensure it. He is on the list because the offensive production is real. He's ranked lower because variance is doing an outsized share of the defense's heavy lifting. With a few bounces of the ball, the Bears would be two victories worse off. It's been an remarkable turnaround, and the core is in place for long-term winning. However Johnson comes up short in this ranking.

4) Liam Coen, Jacksonville Jaguars, Their Record

The Jaguars' coach is in a similar spot to his counterpart. He's a fellow rookie head coach who has orchestrated a dramatic resurgence. During the stretch run of the year, he has his franchise quarterback playing the most complete overall football of his professional life. And he's also overseen the overhaul of a defense that now ranks number five in the league in EPA per play.

Even more notably, he has excelled at the intangibles aspects, which wasn't a given following his initial public appearances and some of his offseason moves.

The coach took over Jacksonville with an uncommonly inexperienced coaching staff. In contrast to Johnson, who packed themselves with the ideal coaching cocktail of new ideas and experience, Coen bet on first-timers. Starting with the head coach on down to coordinators to position coaches, the Jaguars are stocked with rookies. That kind of setup is exciting on paper, but often fails in practice – as past failures are a cautionary tale – because everybody is learning a their job in real-time. Yet Coen has pulled everyone and all elements together.

Following an initial strong start, there was a possibility that the campaign would veer off the rails. A midseason collapse caused the Jags wobbling once more. That's typically when leaders overcorrect. He did not. Rather, he streamlined the approach. Jacksonville stopped pursuing explosive answers and started hunting sustainable ones. Coen refocused the attack around key players and the running game, and asked Lawrence to use his legs more.

The results are clear. The Jaguars have won seven games in a row and will be the AFC's No 3 seed. He receives the tiniest deduction in the rankings because he took over a skilled team, but he has demonstrated he can maximize that roster.

3) Mike Macdonald, Seattle Seahawks, Their Record

Every Strong of the Year case has a defining moment. For the Seahawks coach, it was his quarterback decision.

Moving on from a incumbent, signing a different signal-caller and pairing him with an new play-caller might have derailed the season in the early weeks. Rather, it defined it. By the middle point of the season, the acquisition was an Most Valuable Player candidate. He has fallen away after that hot streak, dropping to a lower rank in EPA per pass attempt over the second half of the season, placing him only one place ahead of peers.

Still