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Usually, the NFL's Coach of the Year trophy follows a straightforward formula. It commonly serves as a kind of apology. We regret we underestimated your team in our preseason forecasts.

On paper, it's a direct trajectory: the skipper who engineered the largest improvement is handed the award. In practice, it creates an yearly argument about expectations and whether we're genuinely rewarding superior leadership or just the most shocking shock.

Yet the current field is fundamentally different. The list of candidates is exceptionally talented. It has been the season of resurgences. The league has been messy, with recent conference winners fading and recent underperformers rising together. During an normal season, a coach guiding the Denver Broncos to the summit of the conference would make him the clear front-runner. Yet in such a wild and entertaining season, he's facing several other elite coaches.

This is how the ideal vote ought to shake out.

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

Coach of the Year voters are fascinated by quarterbacks. They always have. A certain coach in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. When you solve a franchise QB, you're halfway home.

Ben Johnson didn't merely corrected his young quarterback; he's freed him. Given a proper environment, Williams has been given the chance to showcase his otherworldly ability. Since midseason onward, the Bears sit at fourth in offensive Expected Points Added per play. That's not a lucky run – it's sustained dominance. With his guidance, the quarterback has become increasingly decisive, far less reckless, and has willingly surrendered to the system instead of freelancing. It is an attack built solely in the coach's vision: a bully-ball run game, a heavy dose of play-action passes and a imaginative aerial game that springs wide receiver targets consistently. Williams has taken advantage. And when easy reads haven't been available, he's been able to create magic from broken plays.

The coach arrived to Chicago with a defined offensive blueprint. Virtually every bet – rebuilding the offensive line, highlighting the tight ends, turning Williams into a timing-based thrower – has paid off. This is uncommon for a first-year head coach. And it's rarer yet for a leader who entered the building with the level of hype Johnson did. For two straight cycles, he was the hottest candidate on the head coaching carousel. But when it comes to hiring a head coach, there are no sure things. Remarkably, Johnson has lived up to expectations – and even exceeded them. He's proven not just to be a offensive dork but the kind of leader that can inject fresh energy into an franchise.

During a ordinary year, he would be the clear-cut favorite. But the current isn't a typical season!

Where Johnson's candidacy comes slightly unstuck is on defense. The Chicago defense currently rank 25th in defensive efficiency. They are relying on turnovers, and takeaways are famously fickle. Defensive minds can stress ball disruption, but nobody can ensure it. Johnson is on the list because the offensive production is sustainable. He's not higher because variance is doing an outsized share of the defense's heavy lifting. If not for a couple bounces of the ball, the Bears would be several wins worse off. It's been an remarkable turnaround, and the core is in place for long-term winning. However Johnson comes up short here.

4) The Jacksonville Jaguars Coach, Jacksonville Jaguars, Their Record

Coen is in a similar situation to Johnson. He's another rookie leader who has orchestrated a rapid resurgence. During the stretch run of the year, he has his franchise quarterback playing the most complete all-around football of his professional life. And he's also spearheaded the remaking of a defense that now sits at number five in the NFL in Expected Points Added per play.

Even more impressively, Coen has excelled at the intangibles aspects, which was not a guarantee following his early press conference appearances and some of his offseason decisions.

Coen walked into Jacksonville with an exceptionally raw coaching staff. In contrast to Johnson, who surrounded themselves with the ideal staff blend of youth and veteran savvy, he bet on first-timers. Starting with the head coach himself to assistants to assistant coaches, the Jags are filled with rookies. That type of approach is exciting in theory, but often collapses in practice – as past failures are a warning – because everyone is figuring out a new job in real-time. Yet he has managed to bring everyone and all elements together.

After an early strong start, there was a possibility that the season would veer off the track. A midseason collapse caused the Jags wobbling again. That's usually when leaders overcorrect. He did not. Instead, he streamlined the approach. Jacksonville stopped chasing home-run answers and started seeking sustainable ones. Coen recentered the offense around key players and the ground attack, and asked his QB to use his mobility more often.

The results are evident. The Jags have won multiple games consecutively and will be the AFC's number three seed. Coen gets the slightest deduction in the rankings because he took over a skilled team, but he has demonstrated he can maximize that talent.

3) Mike Macdonald, Seattle Seahawks, 13-3

Each Strong of the Year case has a pivotal decision. For the Seahawks coach, it was his QB move.

Moving on from a incumbent, signing a different quarterback and partnering him with an new offensive coordinator might have derailed the campaign in October. Instead, it made it. By the middle point of the season, the new QB was an Most Valuable Player candidate. He has regressed since that hot streak, slipping to 23rd in EPA per dropback over the second half of the schedule, putting him only one place ahead of peers.

Still