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Typically, the National Football League's Coach of the Year honor adheres to a simple script. It commonly acts as a form of mea culpa. Sorry we underestimated your franchise in our pre-campaign predictions.

On paper, it's a clear-cut line: the skipper who orchestrated the biggest turnaround is handed the prize. In reality, it creates an annual argument about expectations and whether we're actually rewarding excellent coaching or simply the biggest surprise.

However this year's field is profoundly unique. The pool of contenders is remarkably talented. It has been the season of comebacks. The league has been messy, with reigning division champions declining and longtime strugglers rising in unison. During an normal season, Sean Payton leading the his team to the top of the AFC would make him the stone-cold favorite. Yet in such a turbulent and entertaining year, he's competing with five other outstanding coaches.

This is how the hypothetical vote should shake out.

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

Voters for Coach of the Year selectors adore quarterbacks. This is a tradition. Sean McVay in 2017. Another in 2020. A third in 2022. When you transform a franchise QB, you're well on your way to winning the award.

The Bears' head coach hasn't just fixed Caleb Williams; he's unlocked him. Within an ideal environment, the QB has been afforded the chance to demonstrate his special ability. Since midseason onward, the Bears rank number four in offensive EPA per play. That's not a lucky run – it's sustained dominance. With Johnson, Williams has become more confident, less reckless, and has willingly surrendered to the gameplan rather than going rogue. It is an offense designed solely in the coach's vision: a physical ground attack, a heavy helping of play-action passes and a innovative aerial game that creates wide-open receivers consistently. The QB has thrived. And when easy reads haven't been available, he's been able to create magic from broken plays.

Johnson came to Chicago with a specific offensive blueprint. Almost every decision – rebuilding the trenches, highlighting the tight ends, turning Williams into a rhythm thrower – has paid off. This is 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 most sought-after name on the head coaching market. But when it comes to hiring a leader, there are zero sure things. Remarkably, Johnson has lived up to the hype – and even exceeded them. He's proven not just to be a scheme wizard but the kind of culture builder that can inject new life into an franchise.

In a typical year, Johnson would be the clear-cut favorite. Yet the current is not a normal campaign!

The area where his candidacy comes slightly into trouble is on defense. The Chicago defense currently rank in the bottom third in defensive efficiency. They are surviving on takeaways, and turnovers are notoriously inconsistent. Coaches can emphasise creating turnovers, but nobody can guarantee it. Johnson is on the ballot because the offense is real. He's ranked lower because variance is doing too much of the defensive heavy lifting. If not for a few breaks of the ball, the team would be several wins worse off. It's been an remarkable transformation, and the core is established for long-term success. But Johnson comes up just short here.

4) Liam Coen, Jacksonville Jaguars, 12-4

Coen is in a similar spot to his counterpart. He's a fellow first-time leader who has masterminded a rapid turnaround. Over the stretch run of the year, he has his franchise quarterback playing the best all-around ball of his career. And he's also overseen the remaking of a defensive unit that now ranks number five in the NFL in EPA per play.

Even more impressively, Coen has mastered the off-field stuff, which was not a certainty following his early public appearances and some of his offseason moves.

The coach walked into Jacksonville with an exceptionally inexperienced staff. In contrast to Johnson, who surrounded themselves with the ideal coaching cocktail of youth and veteran savvy, he trusted newbies. From the leader on down to assistants to assistant coaches, the Jaguars are filled with rookies. That kind of setup is intriguing on paper, but often collapses in reality – with other teams are a warning – because everybody is learning a new job on the fly. But Coen has pulled the entire group and all elements into sync.

After an early strong start, there was a possibility that the campaign would go off the rails. A midseason setback had the team wobbling once more. That's typically when coaches overcorrect. Coen did not. Rather, he streamlined the approach. The offense stopped chasing explosive answers and started seeking sustainable ones. The coach recentered the attack around key players and the ground attack, and asked his QB to use his legs more often.

The results are evident. The Jags have won seven games in a row and will be the AFC's No 3 seed. Coen gets the tiniest deduction in the rankings because he inherited a skilled roster, but he has demonstrated he can maximize that roster.

3) Mike Macdonald, His Team, Their Record

Each Strong of the Year narrative has a hinge decision. For the Seahawks coach, it was his quarterback move.

Moving on from a incumbent, bringing in a new quarterback and partnering him with an innovative play-caller could have derailed the season in October. Instead, it made it. By the mid point of the year, the acquisition was an MVP front-runner. He has regressed after that hot streak, slipping to a lower rank in efficiency per pass attempt over the latter part of the schedule, putting him only a single place ahead of other QBs.

Still