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Ordinarily, the NFL's Coach of the Year award follows a straightforward pattern. It often acts as a form of mea culpa. We regret we misjudged your squad in our pre-campaign projections.

In theory, it's a direct trajectory: the skipper who engineered the biggest improvement wins the prize. In practice, it creates an annual argument about expectations and whether we're actually honoring superior coaching or just the greatest shock.

But the latest race is fundamentally unique. The group of nominees is remarkably strong. It has been the year of comebacks. The NFL has been messy, with reigning division champions declining and longtime underperformers improving in unison. During an normal year, Sean Payton guiding the his team to the top of the AFC would make him the stone-cold favorite. Yet in such a chaotic and thrilling year, he's up against five other outstanding coaches.

Below is how the hypothetical vote should be structured.

5) Ben Johnson, His Team, 11-5

Coach of the Year voters love QBs. This is a tradition. Sean McVay in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. A third in 2022. If you fix a quarterback, you're well on your way home.

Ben Johnson didn't merely fixed Caleb Williams; he's freed him. Within an ideal ecosystem, Williams has been given the chance to showcase his special talent. From Week 9, the Bears rank fourth in offensive Expected Points Added per play. This isn't a hot streak – it's consistent performance. Under Johnson, the quarterback has become increasingly decisive, less careless, and has eagerly surrendered to the system instead of freelancing. It is an attack designed solely in Johnson's image: a physical run game, a heavy helping of play-action passes and a innovative passing attack that springs wide-open targets consistently. Williams has thrived. And when easy reads haven't been available, he's been able to spin magic out of broken plays.

Johnson came to the Bears with a specific offensive philosophy. Almost each bet – rebuilding the trenches, utilizing the tight ends, turning the QB into a timing-based thrower – has succeeded. This is rare for a first-year head coach. And it's rarer yet for a leader who walked into the organization with the kind of expectations Johnson did. For consecutive straight offseasons, he was the top candidate on the head coaching carousel. But when it comes to selecting a head coach, there are no guarantees. Remarkably, he has met the hype – and even exceeded them. He's proven not only to be a offensive genius but the type of culture builder that can inject new life into an franchise.

During a normal season, he would be the clear-cut choice. But this isn't a typical season!

The area where his case runs slightly into trouble is on defense. The Chicago defense presently sit 25th in defensive efficiency. They are surviving on takeaways, and takeaways are famously fickle. Coaches can stress ball disruption, but nobody can guarantee it. Johnson is on the ballot because the offensive production is real. He's not higher because luck is doing too much of the defense's work. With a couple bounces of the ball, the team would be two victories behind. It's been an exceptional transformation, and the core is in place for sustained success. However Johnson comes up just short here.

4) Liam Coen, His Team, 12-4

Coen is in a comparable situation to Johnson. He's another rookie head coach who has masterminded a rapid turnaround. During the stretch run of the year, he has his franchise quarterback playing the finest overall ball of his professional life. And he's also spearheaded the remaking of a defense that now ranks fifth in the NFL in EPA per play.

What's more notably, he has excelled at the leadership stuff, which was not a certainty following his early press conference introduction and some of his offseason moves.

Coen took over Jacksonville with an exceptionally inexperienced staff. In contrast to Johnson, who packed themselves with the perfect coaching mix of new ideas and experience, he bet on newbies. From the head coach himself to coordinators to position coaches, the Jags are filled with rookies. That kind of approach is intriguing on paper, but frequently collapses in practice – with other teams are a warning – because everyone is learning a their job in real-time. Yet he has pulled the entire group and everything together.

After an early strong start, there was a risk that the campaign would go off the track. A midseason setback had the Jags stumbling once more. That's typically when coaches overcorrect. Coen did not. Rather, he streamlined things. The offense stopped chasing home-run plays and started seeking consistent ones. Coen recentered the offense around his playmakers and the running game, and asked Lawrence to use his mobility more often.

The results are clear. The Jags have won seven games consecutively and will be the AFC's number three playoff seed. He receives the slightest knock in the rankings because he took over a skilled roster, but he has demonstrated he can maximize that roster.

3) Mike Macdonald, His Team, Their Record

Every Strong of the Year argument has a pivotal decision. For Mike Macdonald, it was his QB choice.

Moving on from a veteran, signing a new quarterback and pairing him with an new play-caller could have ended the season in the early weeks. Instead, it shaped it. Through the mid point of the year, the acquisition was an Most Valuable Player front-runner. He has regressed after that time, slipping to 23rd in EPA per pass attempt over the second half of the season, putting him just one place ahead of peers.

Still