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Ordinarily, the NFL's Coach of the Year trophy adheres to a simple script. It commonly functions as a form of mea culpa. Sorry we got wrong your franchise in our preseason predictions.

Theoretically, it's a clear-cut path: the coach who orchestrated the largest resurgence is handed the award. However, it fuels an annual argument about preseason outlooks and whether we're truly honoring superior coaching or merely the greatest shock.

Yet the current field is fundamentally unique. The list of contenders is unusually strong. It has been the campaign of turnarounds. The league has been chaotic, with reigning conference winners fading and longtime strugglers ascending together. Under an typical year, a coach guiding the his team to the summit of the AFC would make him the clear favorite. But in this turbulent and fun season, he's up against multiple other exceptional candidates.

This is how the ideal vote should shake out.

5) Ben Johnson, His Team, Their Record

Coach of the Year selectors adore quarterbacks. This is a tradition. A certain coach in 2017. Another in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. Should you fix a franchise QB, you're halfway home.

The Bears' head coach hasn't just corrected his young quarterback; he's unlocked him. Within an ideal ecosystem, the QB has been given the opportunity to demonstrate his rare ability. Since Week 9, the Bears rank fourth in offensive EPA per play. This isn't a lucky run – it's sustained performance. With Johnson, Williams has become increasingly confident, far less reckless, and has eagerly submitted to the system rather than freelancing. It is an offense constructed entirely in Johnson's image: a physical ground attack, a consistent dose of play-action passes and a imaginative passing attack that creates wide receiver receivers all over the field. The QB has capitalized. And when easy reads weren't there, he's been capable to conjure big plays from nothing.

Johnson arrived to the Bears with a clear offensive vision. Virtually every bet – rebuilding the trenches, highlighting the tight ends, transforming the QB into a rhythm thrower – has paid off. That's uncommon for a rookie skipper. And it's even more uncommon still for a coach who entered the building with the level of hype Johnson did. For two straight cycles, he was the most sought-after candidate on the coaching carousel. But when it comes to hiring a head coach, there are no guarantees. Remarkably, he has lived up to the hype – and even surpassed them. He's proven not just to be a scheme genius but the kind of leader that can inject new life into an franchise.

During a typical season, Johnson would be the overwhelming favorite. Yet the current isn't a typical season!

Where Johnson's candidacy comes slightly unstuck is on the defensive side. The Bears currently rank 25th in defensive efficiency. They are living on turnovers, and turnovers are notoriously inconsistent. Coaches can focus on creating turnovers, but no one can guarantee it. Johnson is on the ballot because the offense is legitimate. He's not higher because luck is doing an outsized share of the defense's heavy lifting. If not for a few breaks of the ball, the Bears would be several victories behind. It's been an exceptional transformation, and the foundation is established for long-term winning. However he comes up just short here.

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

Coen is in a comparable situation to his counterpart. He's another first-time leader who has masterminded a dramatic resurgence. During the stretch run of the season, he has his franchise quarterback playing the most complete all-around ball of his career. And he's also overseen the remaking of a defensive unit that now sits at number five in the league in EPA per play.

Even more notably, he has mastered the off-field stuff, which wasn't a guarantee following his early public appearances and some of his offseason moves.

Coen walked into the Jaguars with an exceptionally raw staff. Unlike Johnson, who surrounded their staff with the perfect staff mix of youth and experience, Coen trusted first-timers. Starting with the head coach on down to assistants to position coaches, the Jaguars are stocked with first-timers. That type of setup is intriguing in theory, but often collapses in reality – as past failures are a warning – because everyone is figuring out a new job on the fly. Yet Coen has managed to bring everyone and all elements into sync.

Following an early hot beginning, there was a chance that the season would go off the rails. A midseason setback had the team wobbling once more. That's typically when leaders overcorrect. He didn't. Instead, he streamlined the approach. The offense stopped pursuing home-run answers and started seeking sustainable ones. The coach recentered the attack around his playmakers and the running game, and asked his QB to use his legs more often.

The results are clear. The Jaguars have won seven games consecutively and will be the conference's No 3 seed. Coen gets the slightest knock in the standings because he inherited a talented team, but he has demonstrated he can maximize that talent.

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

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

Moving on from a veteran, bringing in a new signal-caller and pairing him with an new offensive coordinator could have ended the season in the early weeks. Instead, it defined it. Through the mid point of the year, the new QB was an MVP front-runner. He has fallen away since that hot streak, dropping to a lower rank in efficiency per pass attempt over the latter part of the schedule, putting him only one place ahead of peers.

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