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Ordinarily, the NFL's Coach of the Year trophy adheres to a straightforward script. It frequently serves as a kind of apology. Our apologies we underestimated your team in our preseason predictions.

In theory, it's a clear-cut trajectory: the skipper who oversaw the most dramatic improvement is handed the award. However, it creates an annual debate about expectations and whether we're genuinely honoring excellent coaching or just the greatest surprise.

Yet this year's race is distinctly unique. The list of contenders is remarkably deep. It has been the season of comebacks. The league has been unpredictable, with reigning conference winners falling away and recent underperformers improving collectively. Under an normal season, a coach guiding the Denver Broncos to the summit of the AFC would make him the stone-cold front-runner. Yet in such a turbulent and fun season, he's up against five other outstanding coaches.

Below is how the hypothetical ballot could shake out.

5) Ben Johnson, His Team, Their Record

Coach of the Year voters are fascinated by QBs. History shows this. Sean McVay in 2017. Another in 2020. A third in 2022. When you fix a quarterback, you're well on your way to winning the award.

Ben Johnson didn't merely corrected Caleb Williams; he's freed him. Given a proper environment, Williams has been given the opportunity to display his rare ability. From midseason onward, the Bears rank fourth in offensive EPA per play. That's not a brief surge – it's prolonged performance. With Johnson, Williams has become more confident, less reckless, and has eagerly submitted to the scheme instead of freelancing. It is an attack built solely in Johnson's vision: a physical ground attack, a steady dose of play-action and a imaginative passing attack that creates wide receiver receivers everywhere. The QB has taken advantage. And when openings haven't been available, he's been capable to conjure magic out of broken plays.

Johnson arrived to the Bears with a specific offensive vision. Virtually every gamble – rebuilding the trenches, utilizing the tight ends, transforming Williams into a timing-based passer – has paid off. This is uncommon for a rookie head coach. And it's rarer still for a leader who walked into the organization with the kind of expectations he did. For two straight offseasons, he was the most sought-after candidate on the head coaching market. However when it comes to hiring a leader, there are zero guarantees. Somehow, Johnson has lived up to expectations – and even exceeded them. He's proven not just to be a offensive wizard but the kind of culture builder that can breathe new life into an franchise.

In a ordinary season, he would be the runaway favorite. Yet this isn't a typical season!

Where Johnson's candidacy runs slightly unstuck is on defense. The Bears currently rank in the bottom third in defensive success rate. They are surviving on turnovers, and turnovers are notoriously unreliable. Coaches can focus on creating turnovers, but no one can guarantee it. Johnson is on the ballot because the offense is real. He's not higher because variance is doing too much of the defensive work. With a few breaks of the ball, the Bears would be two victories worse off. It's been an exceptional turnaround, and the core is in place for long-term winning. However he comes up short here.

4) The Jacksonville Jaguars Coach, Jacksonville Jaguars, 12-4

Coen is in a similar position to Johnson. He's another first-time leader who has orchestrated a rapid resurgence. During the stretch run of the season, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the most complete all-around ball of his professional life. And he's also spearheaded the remaking of a defense that now sits at fifth in the NFL in EPA per play.

What's more impressively, Coen has excelled at the off-field stuff, which was not a given following his early press conference appearances and some of his offseason decisions.

Coen took over the Jaguars with an uncommonly raw coaching staff. Unlike other coaches, who surrounded themselves with the perfect staff cocktail of youth and veteran savvy, Coen trusted newbies. From the head coach on down to assistants to assistant coaches, the Jags are stocked with rookies. That type of approach is exciting on paper, but frequently fails in practice – with other teams are a cautionary tale – because everybody is figuring out a new job on the fly. But Coen has pulled the entire group and everything together.

After an early hot beginning, there was a possibility that the campaign would go off the rails. A midseason collapse caused the team wobbling again. That's usually when leaders panic and change too much. Coen didn't. Rather, he streamlined things. Jacksonville stopped chasing home-run plays and started seeking sustainable ones. Coen refocused the attack around his playmakers and the ground attack, and asked his QB to use his legs more.

The outcomes are evident. The Jaguars have won multiple games consecutively and will be the AFC's No 3 seed. Coen gets the slightest deduction in the rankings because he took over a talented team, but he has demonstrated he can maximize that talent.

3) The Seattle Seahawks Coach, Seattle Seahawks, Their Record

Each Strong of the Year narrative has a defining decision. For Mike Macdonald, it was his QB choice.

Moving on from a incumbent, signing a new signal-caller and partnering him with an innovative offensive coordinator could have ended the campaign in the early weeks. Instead, it made it. By the middle point of the season, the new QB was an Most Valuable Player contender. He has fallen away since that hot streak, slipping to a lower rank in efficiency per pass attempt over the latter part of the schedule, placing him only one place ahead of peers.

Still