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Typically, the NFL's Coach of the Year award follows a straightforward formula. It commonly serves as a type of apology. Our apologies we got wrong your franchise in our pre-campaign projections.

In theory, it's a clear-cut line: the skipper who orchestrated the most dramatic turnaround wins the award. In practice, it fuels an yearly discussion about preseason outlooks and whether we're genuinely rewarding superior coaching or simply the biggest surprise.

However the current competition is fundamentally different. The list of candidates is remarkably deep. It has been the year of turnarounds. The NFL has been unpredictable, with recent division winners declining and recent strugglers rising together. During an typical season, Sean Payton leading the his team to the summit of the conference would make him the overwhelming front-runner. Yet in such a wild and thrilling year, he's competing with five other elite candidates.

This is how the hypothetical vote could look.

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

Coach of the Year voters are fascinated by QBs. This is a tradition. A certain coach in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. When you solve a quarterback, you're halfway home.

Ben Johnson hasn't just fixed Caleb Williams; he's unlocked him. In the right environment, Williams has been given the chance to showcase his rare talent. From midseason onward, the Bears rank number four in offensive Expected Points Added per play. That's not a brief surge – it's sustained excellence. Under his guidance, Williams has become increasingly confident, less careless, and has eagerly submitted to the gameplan rather than going rogue. It is an attack designed solely in the coach's vision: a physical ground attack, a steady dose of play-action passes and a creative passing attack that creates wide receiver targets all over the field. Williams has capitalized. And when easy reads weren't available, he's been able to conjure magic out of broken plays.

The coach arrived to Chicago with a specific offensive philosophy. Almost each decision – rebuilding the offensive line, featuring the tight ends, turning the QB into a rhythm passer – has worked. This is rare for a first-year head coach. And it's even more uncommon yet for a coach who entered the building with the immense hype he did. For consecutive straight offseasons, he was the top candidate on the head coaching market. However when it comes to hiring a leader, there are no sure things. Remarkably, he has met the hype – and even exceeded them. He's proven not just to be a scheme wizard but the type of leader that can breathe fresh energy into an franchise.

During a typical year, he would be the runaway choice. Yet this isn't a normal year!

The area where his candidacy comes slightly unstuck is on the defensive side. The Bears currently sit in the bottom third in defensive success rate. They are living on turnovers, and turnovers are famously inconsistent. Coaches can focus on creating turnovers, but nobody can guarantee it. Johnson is on the ballot because the offense is real. He's ranked lower because luck is doing an outsized share of the defensive heavy lifting. With a couple bounces of the ball, the team would be several wins behind. It's been an exceptional transformation, and the core is in place for sustained success. However Johnson falls short here.

4) Liam Coen, His Team, Their Record

Coen is in a similar situation to his counterpart. He's another rookie head coach who has orchestrated a dramatic resurgence. Over the crucial final weeks of the season, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the most complete all-around ball of his career. And he's also overseen the remaking of a defense that now ranks fifth in the league in EPA per play.

What's more notably, Coen has mastered the intangibles aspects, which wasn't a given following his initial press conference introduction and some of his offseason moves.

The coach took over the Jaguars with an uncommonly raw staff. Unlike other coaches, who packed their staff with the perfect coaching blend of new ideas and veteran savvy, Coen hired newbies. Starting with the head coach on down to coordinators to position coaches, the Jags are filled with first-timers. That kind of setup is exciting on paper, but frequently fails in practice – as past failures are a cautionary tale – because everybody is learning a their job on the fly. Yet Coen has managed to bring the entire group and all elements into sync.

After an early hot start, there was a risk that the season would veer off the track. A mid-year collapse caused the team wobbling again. That's usually when coaches overcorrect. He did not. Instead, he simplified things. The offense stopped chasing home-run plays and started hunting reliable ones. The coach refocused the attack around his playmakers and the ground attack, and encouraged Lawrence to use his legs more.

The results are clear. The Jags have won multiple games consecutively and will be the conference's No 3 seed. He receives the slightest knock in the rankings because he took over a talented team, but he has demonstrated he can maximize that talent.

3) Mike Macdonald, Seattle Seahawks, 13-3

Every Strong of the Year case has a hinge decision. For the Seahawks coach, it was his quarterback decision.

Parting ways from a veteran, bringing in a different quarterback and partnering him with an new play-caller could have derailed the campaign in the early weeks. Instead, it made it. Through the mid point of the season, the acquisition was an Most Valuable Player front-runner. He has regressed since that time, dropping to a lower rank in EPA per pass attempt over the latter part of the schedule, placing him only one place ahead of peers.

Still