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Ordinarily, the National Football League's Coach of the Year award adheres to a simple script. It commonly functions as a type of apology. We regret we underestimated your team in our pre-campaign forecasts.

Theoretically, it's a direct path: the skipper who oversaw the most dramatic improvement receives the award. In practice, it sparks an annual argument about expectations and whether we're genuinely honoring excellent leadership or just the most shocking surprise.

Yet the current field is profoundly different. The list of nominees is unusually talented. It has been the campaign of turnarounds. The NFL has been unpredictable, with reigning division winners declining and longtime also-rans ascending in unison. During an normal year, Sean Payton guiding the Denver Broncos to the top of the AFC would make him the stone-cold favorite. But in this wild and fun year, he's up against five other elite candidates.

Here is how the projected ballot ought to be structured.

5) The Chicago Bears Coach, Chicago Bears, 11-5

Voters for Coach of the Year voters love quarterbacks. This is a tradition. A certain coach in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. If you transform a franchise QB, you're halfway home.

The Bears' head coach hasn't just corrected his young quarterback; he's unlocked him. Given a proper system, Williams has been given the opportunity to display his otherworldly talent. From midseason onward, the Chicago offense sit at fourth in offensive Expected Points Added per play. That's not a brief surge – it's prolonged dominance. With his guidance, Williams has become increasingly confident, far less reckless, and has willingly surrendered to the system instead of freelancing. It is an offense designed solely in the coach's image: a bully-ball ground attack, a heavy helping of play-action passes and a innovative aerial game that frees wide-open targets everywhere. Williams has thrived. And when clear throws haven't been available, he's been able to spin magic from broken plays.

The coach came to the Bears with a clear offensive vision. Virtually every bet – overhauling the trenches, utilizing the tight ends, turning the QB into a rhythm 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 immense pressure Johnson did. For two straight cycles, he was the hottest candidate on the coaching market. However when it comes to hiring a leader, there are zero sure things. Remarkably, Johnson has lived up to the hype – and even surpassed them. He's proven not only to be a offensive dork but the kind of culture builder that can breathe new life into an organization.

During a ordinary year, Johnson would be the clear-cut choice. Yet the current is not a normal season!

The area where Johnson's case runs slightly unstuck is on the defensive side. The Bears presently sit 25th in defensive success rate. They are living on turnovers, and turnovers are notoriously fickle. Coaches can stress creating turnovers, but no one can guarantee it. He is on the ballot because the offensive production is legitimate. He's not higher because luck is doing too much of the defensive heavy lifting. If not for a couple breaks of the ball, the team would be two victories behind. It's been an exceptional transformation, and the foundation is established for sustained winning. But Johnson comes up just short in this ranking.

4) The Jacksonville Jaguars Coach, Jacksonville Jaguars, Their Record

The Jaguars' coach is in a similar spot to his counterpart. He's another first-time head coach who has engineered a rapid resurgence. Over the crucial final weeks of the year, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the best all-around football of his career. And he's also spearheaded the transformation of a defense that now sits at fifth in the NFL in EPA per play.

Even more notably, Coen has nailed the off-field aspects, which was not a guarantee following his early public introduction and some of his preseason moves.

Coen took over Jacksonville with an uncommonly inexperienced staff. In contrast to other coaches, who packed their staff with the ideal staff cocktail of new ideas and veteran savvy, he trusted newbies. From the head coach himself to coordinators to position coaches, the Jags are filled with rookies. That kind of approach is exciting in theory, but often fails in practice – as past failures are a cautionary tale – because everyone is figuring out a their job on the fly. But Coen has managed to bring everyone and everything together.

Following an initial hot beginning, there was a chance that the season would veer off the rails. A mid-year collapse had the team wobbling again. That's typically when leaders overcorrect. Coen did not. Instead, he simplified things. The offense stopped chasing home-run answers and started hunting consistent ones. The coach refocused the attack around key players and the ground attack, and encouraged his QB to use his mobility more.

The results are clear. The Jags have won seven games in a row and will be the AFC's number three playoff seed. He gets the tiniest deduction in the rankings because he inherited a skilled team, but he has demonstrated he can maximize that roster.

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

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

Moving on from a veteran, bringing in a different quarterback and pairing him with an new offensive coordinator could have ended the season in October. Rather, it made it. Through the middle point of the season, the new QB was an MVP candidate. He has fallen away after that hot streak, slipping to a lower rank in efficiency per pass attempt over the second half of the schedule, putting him only a single place ahead of peers.

Still