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Ordinarily, the NFL's Coach of the Year trophy adheres to a straightforward script. It frequently acts as a kind of apology. We regret we underestimated your franchise in our pre-campaign projections.

In theory, it's a direct path: the skipper who engineered the biggest turnaround is handed the award. In practice, it sparks an yearly debate about expectations and whether we're actually honoring superior coaching or merely the greatest shock.

But this year's competition is distinctly different. The list of candidates is unusually talented. It has been the year of turnarounds. The league has been messy, with recent conference winners declining and recent also-rans rising in unison. Under an typical year, a coach guiding the Denver Broncos to the top of the conference would make him the overwhelming favorite. Yet in this turbulent and thrilling year, he's up against multiple other outstanding coaches.

Below is how the hypothetical vote could be structured.

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

Coach of the Year selectors are fascinated by QBs. They always have. A certain coach in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. A third in 2022. Should you transform a franchise QB, you're halfway home.

Ben Johnson not only fixed Caleb Williams; he's freed him. Within an ideal environment, Williams has been given the opportunity to showcase his otherworldly ability. From midseason onward, the Bears sit at fourth in offensive EPA per play. That's not a hot streak – it's sustained performance. With his guidance, Williams has become increasingly confident, less careless, and has eagerly surrendered to the system rather than improvising. It is an attack constructed solely in the coach's vision: a physical run game, a heavy dose of play-action and a creative passing attack that creates wide-open receivers everywhere. Williams has capitalized. And when easy reads weren't there, he's been able to spin magic out of broken plays.

Johnson arrived to Chicago with a defined offensive vision. Virtually every bet – overhauling the trenches, highlighting the tight ends, transforming the QB into a timing-based thrower – has succeeded. This is uncommon for a rookie head coach. And it's even more uncommon still for a leader who entered the organization with the kind of pressure he did. For two straight cycles, he was the top name on the head coaching carousel. But when it comes to selecting a head coach, there are no guarantees. Somehow, Johnson has met expectations – and even surpassed them. He's proven not just to be a offensive dork but the type of leader that can breathe new life into an franchise.

During a typical year, he would be the overwhelming choice. But this isn't a normal year!

Where his case runs slightly unstuck is on the defensive side. The Chicago defense presently sit 25th in defensive efficiency. They are surviving on takeaways, and turnovers are famously unreliable. Coaches can stress ball disruption, but nobody can guarantee it. Johnson is on the list because the offense is legitimate. He's ranked lower because variance is doing an outsized share of the defense's work. With a few bounces of the ball, the Bears would be two wins behind. It's been an exceptional turnaround, and the foundation is established for sustained winning. However Johnson falls just short in this ranking.

4) Liam Coen, His Team, Their Record

The Jaguars' coach is in a similar situation to Johnson. He's another first-time head coach who has engineered a swift turnaround. During the crucial final weeks of the season, he has his franchise quarterback playing the best overall ball of his professional life. And he's also spearheaded the remaking of a defensive unit that now ranks number five in the league in EPA per play.

What's more impressively, he has nailed the off-field aspects, which wasn't a certainty following his early public appearances and some of his offseason moves.

Coen took over the Jaguars with an exceptionally inexperienced staff. Unlike other coaches, who surrounded their staff with the ideal coaching cocktail of youth and veteran savvy, Coen hired first-timers. From the leader himself to assistants to position coaches, the Jaguars are stocked with rookies. That type of approach is intriguing on paper, but frequently fails in reality – with other teams are a cautionary tale – because everyone is figuring out a new job in real-time. But he has pulled the entire group and all elements together.

Following an initial hot beginning, there was a possibility that the season would veer off the track. A midseason setback caused the Jags stumbling once more. That's usually when leaders panic and change too much. Coen did not. Rather, he streamlined things. Jacksonville stopped pursuing home-run answers and started hunting sustainable ones. The coach recentered the offense around key players and the running game, and encouraged his QB to use his legs more often.

The outcomes are evident. The Jaguars have won multiple games in a row and will be the conference's No 3 playoff seed. Coen gets the tiniest deduction in the standings because he inherited a skilled roster, but he has proven he can maximize that talent.

3) Mike Macdonald, His Team, 13-3

Each Strong of the Year case has a hinge moment. For Mike Macdonald, it was his quarterback move.

Parting ways from a incumbent, bringing in a different signal-caller and partnering him with an innovative offensive coordinator might have ended the season in October. Rather, it defined it. Through the mid point of the season, the new QB was an Most Valuable Player candidate. He has cooled off after that hot streak, dropping to a lower rank in EPA per pass attempt over the latter part of the season, putting him just a single spot ahead of other QBs.

Still