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Typically, the National Football League's Coach of the Year award follows a simple script. It often functions as a form of mea culpa. Our apologies we underestimated your squad in our pre-campaign projections.

Theoretically, it's a clear-cut trajectory: the coach who engineered the biggest resurgence wins the award. In reality, it fuels an yearly argument about preseason outlooks and whether we're truly honoring excellent leadership or simply the biggest upset.

But this year's competition is fundamentally different. The pool of contenders is exceptionally deep. It has been the campaign of comebacks. The NFL has been chaotic, with reigning division champions declining and longtime underperformers ascending collectively. Under an normal year, Sean Payton leading the his team to the summit of the conference would make him the clear favorite. Yet in such a wild and fun year, he's competing with five other outstanding candidates.

This is how the ideal vote should shake out.

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

Voters for Coach of the Year voters love quarterbacks. History shows this. Sean McVay in 2017. Another in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. Should you solve a quarterback, you're halfway to winning the award.

The Bears' head coach didn't merely corrected Caleb Williams; he's unlocked him. Within an ideal ecosystem, Williams has been given the opportunity to demonstrate his rare talent. From Week 9, the Chicago offense rank number four in offensive EPA per play. That's not a lucky run – it's consistent dominance. With his guidance, Williams has become more confident, far less reckless, and has willingly surrendered to the system instead of freelancing. It is an offense constructed solely in the coach's image: a bully-ball ground attack, a consistent helping of play-action and a creative aerial game that creates wide receiver targets everywhere. Williams has thrived. And when clear throws weren't there, he's been capable to conjure magic out of broken plays.

Johnson arrived to Chicago with a defined offensive philosophy. Virtually every decision – rebuilding the trenches, highlighting the tight ends, transforming the QB into a timing-based thrower – has paid off. That's uncommon for a rookie head coach. And it's even more uncommon yet for a coach who entered the organization with the kind of expectations Johnson did. For consecutive straight cycles, he was the top name on the head coaching carousel. But when it comes to hiring a head coach, there are no sure things. Somehow, Johnson has met expectations – and even exceeded them. He's demonstrated not only to be a scheme dork but the kind of leader that can breathe fresh energy into an organization.

In a ordinary year, he would be the runaway favorite. But the current isn't a typical campaign!

The area where his candidacy runs slightly unstuck is on the defensive side. The Chicago defense currently rank 25th in defensive success rate. They are living on turnovers, and takeaways are notoriously inconsistent. Defensive minds can emphasise creating turnovers, but nobody can ensure it. He is on the list because the offense is real. He's ranked lower because luck is doing too much of the defensive work. If not for a few bounces of the ball, the Bears would be two wins worse off. It's been an remarkable turnaround, and the foundation is established for long-term success. However Johnson comes up just short in this ranking.

4) Liam Coen, His Team, 12-4

The Jaguars' coach is in a similar spot to his counterpart. He's a fellow rookie head coach who has orchestrated a rapid resurgence. During the crucial final weeks of the season, he has his franchise quarterback playing the most complete all-around football of his career. And he's also overseen the transformation of a defense that now ranks fifth in the NFL in Expected Points Added per play.

Even more impressively, Coen has excelled at the off-field stuff, which wasn't a certainty after his initial public introduction and some of his preseason decisions.

Coen walked into the Jaguars with an exceptionally raw staff. In contrast to Johnson, who packed their staff with the ideal coaching blend of youth and veteran savvy, he trusted first-timers. From the head coach on down to coordinators to position coaches, the Jags are filled with first-timers. That kind of approach is exciting in theory, but often fails in practice – as past failures are a warning – because everyone is learning a new job in real-time. But Coen has pulled everyone and all elements together.

After an initial hot beginning, there was a risk that the campaign would veer off the rails. A mid-year setback caused the Jags stumbling again. That's usually when coaches panic and change too much. He didn't. Instead, he simplified the approach. Jacksonville stopped pursuing home-run plays and started seeking reliable ones. Coen refocused the offense around his playmakers and the ground attack, and asked his QB to use his mobility more often.

The results are obvious. The Jags have won seven games consecutively and will be the AFC's No 3 seed. He gets the tiniest knock in the standings because he took over a skilled team, but he has demonstrated he can maximize that roster.

3) Mike Macdonald, Seattle Seahawks, 13-3

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

Moving on from a incumbent, bringing in a different quarterback and partnering him with an innovative play-caller might have ended the campaign in the early weeks. Rather, it made it. By the mid point of the year, the acquisition was an Most Valuable Player candidate. He has fallen away since that hot streak, dropping to 23rd in EPA per pass attempt over the second half of the schedule, placing him only one place ahead of other QBs.

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