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Typically, the National Football League's Coach of the Year award follows a straightforward formula. It often acts as a type of apology. Our apologies we misjudged your squad in our preseason predictions.

In theory, it's a clear-cut trajectory: the skipper who orchestrated the largest improvement is handed the prize. In reality, it sparks an yearly debate about preseason outlooks and whether we're actually rewarding superior leadership or merely the biggest surprise.

Yet the current field is fundamentally different. The pool of nominees is remarkably strong. It has been the year of resurgences. The NFL has been messy, with reigning conference winners fading and recent strugglers rising in unison. In an ordinary season, a coach leading the his team to the summit of the conference would make him the clear front-runner. Yet in such a wild and fun year, he's facing several other elite coaches.

Below is how the hypothetical vote should look.

5) Ben Johnson, Chicago Bears, Their Record

Coach of the Year voters are fascinated by signal-callers. They always have. Sean McVay in 2017. Another in 2020. A third in 2022. If you solve a quarterback, you're well on your way to winning the award.

The Bears' head coach not only fixed his young quarterback; he's freed him. In the right ecosystem, the QB has been afforded the chance to showcase his special ability. Since Week 9, the Chicago offense sit at fourth in offensive EPA per play. This isn't a brief surge – it's prolonged dominance. With his guidance, Williams has become increasingly confident, less reckless, and has eagerly submitted to the system instead of going rogue. It is an offense built solely in Johnson's image: a bully-ball run game, a steady helping of play-action passes and a imaginative passing attack that springs wide receiver targets everywhere. The QB has thrived. And when openings weren't there, he's been able to conjure big plays from nothing.

The coach came to the Bears with a defined offensive philosophy. Virtually every decision – rebuilding the trenches, utilizing the pass-catchers, turning the QB into a timing-based thrower – has paid off. This is rare for a first-year skipper. And it's even more uncommon still for a coach who walked into the organization with the level of expectations he did. For two straight offseasons, he was the most sought-after candidate on the coaching carousel. But when it comes to hiring a leader, there are no guarantees. Somehow, he has lived up to expectations – and even surpassed them. He's proven not just to be a offensive wizard but the type of culture builder that can inject new life into an organization.

During a typical year, Johnson would be the runaway favorite. But this isn't a typical season!

The area where Johnson's candidacy runs a bit into trouble is on defense. The Bears presently sit in the bottom third in defensive success rate. They are surviving on turnovers, and takeaways are notoriously unreliable. Coaches can emphasise ball disruption, but no one can guarantee it. Johnson is on the ballot because the offense is legitimate. He's not higher because luck is doing too much of the defensive work. If not for a few bounces of the ball, the team would be several wins behind. It's been an exceptional transformation, and the foundation is in place for sustained success. But he falls just short in this ranking.

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

Coen is in a comparable position to his counterpart. He's a fellow first-time leader who has engineered a swift turnaround. Over the crucial final weeks of the year, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the finest all-around ball of his professional life. And he's also overseen the remaking of a defensive unit that now ranks fifth in the league in EPA per play.

Even more notably, he has mastered the intangibles stuff, which wasn't a certainty after his early public introduction and some of his preseason moves.

The coach took over Jacksonville with an uncommonly raw coaching staff. Unlike other coaches, who packed themselves with the ideal coaching blend of new ideas and experience, he trusted newbies. Starting with the leader on down to coordinators to assistant coaches, the Jaguars are filled with first-timers. That kind of setup is intriguing on paper, but often collapses in reality – with other teams are a warning – because everyone is learning a new job in real-time. Yet he has managed to bring everyone and everything together.

Following an early hot beginning, there was a chance that the season would go off the rails. A mid-year setback had the team wobbling once more. That's usually when coaches overcorrect. Coen didn't. Instead, he streamlined the approach. Jacksonville stopped pursuing home-run plays and started hunting consistent ones. The coach refocused the offense around key players and the ground attack, and asked Lawrence to use his mobility more.

The results are obvious. The Jaguars have won multiple games consecutively and will be the conference's No 3 seed. Coen gets the tiniest knock in the standings because he took over a skilled roster, but he has demonstrated he can get the most out of that roster.

3) The Seattle Seahawks Coach, Seattle Seahawks, 13-3

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

Moving on from a incumbent, bringing in a new signal-caller and pairing him with an new offensive coordinator could have derailed the campaign in October. Rather, it made it. By the mid point of the year, the acquisition was an MVP contender. He has regressed since that time, dropping to 23rd in efficiency per dropback over the second half of the season, putting him only one spot ahead of other QBs.

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