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Usually, the National Football League's Coach of the Year trophy adheres to a straightforward script. It often serves as a kind of mea culpa. Our apologies we underestimated your squad in our preseason projections.

On paper, it's a clear-cut line: the coach who orchestrated the largest resurgence is handed the award. However, it sparks an annual argument about preseason outlooks and whether we're actually honoring superior coaching or just the biggest surprise.

Yet this year's race is profoundly unique. The group of nominees is exceptionally talented. It has been the season of turnarounds. The league has been chaotic, with reigning conference champions falling away and longtime underperformers rising in unison. During an ordinary season, a coach guiding the his team to the top of the conference would make him the stone-cold favorite. Yet in this turbulent and fun season, he's up against five other outstanding candidates.

Below is how the ideal vote ought to look.

5) The Chicago Bears Coach, Chicago Bears, Their Record

Coach of the Year voters are fascinated by quarterbacks. They always have. Sean McVay in 2017. Another in 2020. A third in 2022. When you transform a quarterback, you're well on your way home.

The Bears' head coach didn't merely fixed his young quarterback; he's unleashed him. Within an ideal ecosystem, the QB has been given the chance to display his special ability. Since midseason onward, the Bears sit at number four in offensive EPA per play. That's not a brief surge – it's consistent performance. Under his guidance, Williams has become more decisive, less reckless, and has willingly surrendered to the scheme rather than improvising. It is an attack designed entirely in Johnson's image: a physical ground attack, a heavy helping of play-action passes and a creative aerial game that springs wide-open targets everywhere. The QB has taken advantage. And when clear throws haven't been available, he's been capable to conjure magic from broken plays.

The coach came to the Bears with a specific offensive vision. Almost every decision – overhauling the offensive line, utilizing the tight ends, turning Williams into a timing-based thrower – has paid off. That's rare for a rookie skipper. And it's rarer yet for a leader who entered the organization with the level of pressure Johnson did. For consecutive straight cycles, he was the hottest candidate on the coaching carousel. However when it comes to hiring a head coach, there are zero guarantees. Somehow, he has lived up to the hype – and even surpassed them. He's proven not only to be a offensive wizard but the kind of culture builder that can breathe new life into an franchise.

During a typical season, he would be the overwhelming favorite. But the current isn't a typical campaign!

Where his candidacy runs a bit unstuck is on the defensive side. The Bears presently rank in the bottom third in defensive success rate. They are surviving on turnovers, and turnovers are famously inconsistent. Defensive minds can focus on creating turnovers, but no one can ensure it. Johnson is on the ballot because the offense is real. He's ranked lower because luck is doing too much of the defensive work. With a couple bounces of the ball, the team would be two wins worse off. It's been an remarkable transformation, and the core is in place for sustained success. But Johnson comes up just short in this ranking.

4) Liam Coen, His Team, 12-4

Coen is in a comparable spot to Johnson. He's another first-time head coach who has orchestrated a swift turnaround. During the crucial final weeks of the year, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the most complete overall football of his career. And he's also spearheaded the remaking of a defense that now sits at fifth in the league in Expected Points Added per play.

Even more notably, Coen has excelled at the leadership stuff, which wasn't a certainty after his early public introduction and some of his preseason decisions.

The coach took over the Jaguars with an uncommonly inexperienced staff. Unlike other coaches, who packed their staff with the ideal staff mix of new ideas and experience, he trusted newbies. Starting with the leader on down to assistants to assistant coaches, the Jags are filled with rookies. That type of approach is intriguing in theory, but often collapses in reality – with other teams are a warning – because everyone is figuring out a new job on the fly. But Coen has pulled the entire group and everything together.

After an initial hot start, there was a possibility that the campaign would go off the track. A midseason collapse caused the Jags wobbling again. That's usually when leaders panic and change too much. Coen didn't. Instead, he streamlined things. The offense stopped chasing home-run answers and started seeking sustainable ones. The coach refocused the attack around his playmakers and the running game, and asked Lawrence to use his legs more.

The outcomes are clear. The Jags have won multiple games consecutively and will be the conference's number three seed. He receives the slightest deduction in the standings because he inherited a skilled roster, but he has demonstrated he can maximize that roster.

3) Mike Macdonald, His Team, 13-3

Every Coach of the Year argument has a pivotal decision. For the Seahawks coach, it was his quarterback choice.

Parting ways from a veteran, bringing in a new quarterback and partnering him with an innovative play-caller might have ended the campaign in October. Rather, it made it. By the middle point of the season, the new QB was an MVP candidate. He has fallen away since that hot streak, dropping to a lower rank in efficiency per dropback over the latter part of the season, putting him only a single place ahead of peers.

Still