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Ordinarily, the NFL's Coach of the Year award adheres to a simple script. It often serves as a type of apology. Sorry we underestimated your franchise in our preseason projections.

Theoretically, it's a direct line: the coach who oversaw the biggest turnaround is handed the prize. However, it fuels an yearly argument about preseason outlooks and whether we're actually rewarding excellent leadership or simply the biggest surprise.

However this year's competition is fundamentally unique. The pool of nominees is exceptionally talented. It has been the year of resurgences. The league has been unpredictable, with recent division winners fading and recent strugglers improving together. During an ordinary season, a coach leading the Denver Broncos to the top of the conference would make him the clear front-runner. But in such a turbulent and thrilling season, he's competing with five other outstanding coaches.

This is how the hypothetical ballot could shake out.

5) Ben Johnson, His Team, Their Record

Coach of the Year selectors are fascinated by quarterbacks. They always have. A certain coach in 2017. Another in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. Should you fix a quarterback, you're well on your way to winning the award.

The Bears' head coach not only fixed Caleb Williams; he's unlocked him. Given a proper ecosystem, Williams has been afforded the chance to demonstrate his special ability. Since Week 9, the Bears sit at fourth in offensive Expected Points Added per play. That's not a lucky run – it's sustained dominance. With Johnson, the quarterback has become increasingly confident, less careless, and has willingly surrendered to the system instead of going rogue. It is an attack constructed entirely in the coach's image: a bully-ball run game, a heavy dose of play-action passes and a imaginative aerial game that creates wide receiver targets everywhere. Williams has capitalized. And when openings haven't been there, he's been able to conjure big plays from broken plays.

The coach arrived to the Bears with a clear offensive blueprint. Virtually each gamble – rebuilding the offensive line, featuring the pass-catchers, turning Williams into a rhythm thrower – has paid off. This is rare for a rookie skipper. And it's rarer still for a coach who walked into the building with the kind of pressure Johnson did. For two straight cycles, he was the top name on the coaching market. However when it comes to selecting a leader, there are zero sure things. Remarkably, Johnson has lived up to expectations – and even surpassed them. He's proven not just to be a scheme genius but the type of leader that can inject new life into an organization.

During a normal season, he would be the runaway favorite. Yet this isn't a normal campaign!

Where his candidacy comes a bit unstuck is on defense. The Chicago defense presently rank in the bottom third in defensive success rate. They are relying on takeaways, and turnovers are notoriously inconsistent. Defensive minds can stress ball disruption, but nobody can ensure it. Johnson is on the list because the offensive production is legitimate. He's not higher because variance is doing an outsized share of the defensive work. With a few breaks of the ball, the team would be several victories behind. It's been an remarkable transformation, and the foundation is in place for sustained success. However he falls short in this ranking.

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

Coen is in a comparable spot to his counterpart. He's a fellow rookie leader who has engineered a dramatic turnaround. During the crucial final weeks of the season, he has his franchise quarterback playing the finest overall football of his professional life. And he's also overseen the overhaul of a defensive unit that now sits at number five in the league in Expected Points Added per play.

Even more impressively, he has excelled at the intangibles stuff, which wasn't a certainty after his early press conference appearances and some of his offseason decisions.

Coen walked into the Jaguars with an exceptionally raw coaching staff. Unlike Johnson, who surrounded themselves with the ideal coaching cocktail of new ideas and experience, Coen bet on newbies. From the leader himself to assistants to position coaches, the Jaguars are filled with rookies. That type of approach is exciting in theory, but frequently fails in practice – as past failures are a warning – because everyone is figuring out a new job in real-time. But Coen has managed to bring the entire group and all elements into sync.

Following an early strong beginning, there was a risk that the campaign would veer off the track. A midseason collapse had the team wobbling once more. That's usually when leaders panic and change too much. He did not. Rather, he simplified the approach. Jacksonville stopped chasing explosive plays and started seeking sustainable ones. The coach refocused the attack around key players and the running game, and asked his QB to use his legs more often.

The outcomes are evident. The Jags have won seven games in a row and will be the conference's No 3 seed. Coen receives the slightest knock in the rankings because he inherited a skilled roster, but he has demonstrated he can get the most out of that roster.

3) Mike Macdonald, His Team, Their Record

Every Coach of the Year narrative has a pivotal moment. For the Seahawks coach, it was his QB move.

Parting ways from a incumbent, signing a new signal-caller and pairing him with an innovative play-caller might have derailed the campaign in the early weeks. Rather, it shaped it. Through the middle point of the year, the acquisition was an MVP front-runner. He has regressed after that hot streak, slipping to a lower rank in EPA per pass attempt over the second half of the season, placing him only a single spot ahead of other QBs.

Still