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Usually, the National Football League's Coach of the Year award follows a straightforward pattern. It often functions as a form of mea culpa. Sorry we underestimated your franchise in our preseason predictions.

Theoretically, it's a direct path: the coach who engineered the biggest resurgence is handed the award. In practice, it sparks an annual discussion about preseason outlooks and whether we're genuinely rewarding superior coaching or merely the biggest upset.

However this year's field is fundamentally different. The pool of contenders is exceptionally deep. It has been the season of resurgences. The league has been chaotic, with reigning conference winners fading and longtime also-rans rising together. Under an typical year, Sean Payton leading the Denver Broncos to the top of the conference would make him the clear favorite. But in such a chaotic and entertaining year, he's competing with five other exceptional candidates.

Here is how the ideal vote could shake out.

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

Coach of the Year selectors adore quarterbacks. They always have. Sean McVay in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. A third in 2022. When you fix a franchise QB, you're halfway to winning the award.

The Bears' head coach didn't merely corrected his young quarterback; he's unleashed him. In the right environment, the QB has been given the chance to showcase his rare ability. Since midseason onward, the Bears rank number four in offensive EPA per play. That's not a hot streak – it's prolonged performance. Under his guidance, Williams has become increasingly decisive, far less careless, and has eagerly surrendered to the gameplan instead of freelancing. It is an attack built entirely in Johnson's vision: a bully-ball run game, a heavy helping of play-action and a creative passing attack that frees wide receiver receivers consistently. Williams has taken advantage. And when clear throws haven't been available, he's been capable to spin big plays out of nothing.

Johnson arrived to Chicago with a clear offensive vision. Almost each decision – rebuilding the offensive line, featuring the pass-catchers, transforming Williams into a timing-based passer – has succeeded. That's rare for a rookie skipper. And it's rarer yet for a coach who entered the organization with the immense hype Johnson did. For consecutive straight offseasons, he was the top name on the coaching carousel. However when it comes to hiring a head coach, there are zero guarantees. Somehow, he has met the hype – and even exceeded them. He's demonstrated not just to be a scheme dork but the type of culture builder that can breathe new life into an organization.

In a normal season, Johnson would be the overwhelming favorite. But the current isn't a typical year!

The area where Johnson's case comes a bit into trouble is on the defensive side. The Chicago defense presently rank 25th in defensive efficiency. They are living on takeaways, and takeaways are famously inconsistent. Coaches can emphasise ball disruption, but nobody can guarantee it. Johnson is on the ballot because the offense is legitimate. He's not higher because luck is doing too much of the defensive heavy lifting. With a few breaks of the ball, the team would be two victories worse off. It's been an exceptional transformation, and the foundation is in place for long-term success. However Johnson falls short here.

4) Liam Coen, His Team, 12-4

The Jaguars' coach is in a similar situation to Johnson. He's a fellow rookie leader who has orchestrated a rapid turnaround. Over the crucial final weeks of the year, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the most complete all-around ball of his career. And he's also spearheaded the remaking of a defense that now ranks number five in the league in Expected Points Added per play.

Even more impressively, he has excelled at the off-field stuff, which was not a given after his early press conference introduction 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 new ideas and veteran savvy, he bet on newbies. Starting with the head coach himself to coordinators to assistant coaches, the Jags are stocked with first-timers. That kind of setup is intriguing on paper, but often collapses in practice – as past failures are a warning – because everybody is learning a new job on the fly. Yet he has pulled everyone and all elements into sync.

After an early strong start, there was a risk that the campaign would go off the rails. A mid-year setback caused the team wobbling once more. That's usually when coaches overcorrect. Coen did not. Instead, he simplified the approach. Jacksonville stopped chasing home-run plays and started hunting reliable ones. Coen recentered the offense around his playmakers and the ground attack, and encouraged his QB to use his mobility more often.

The results are clear. The Jaguars have won seven games consecutively and will be the conference's number three seed. He gets the slightest deduction in the rankings because he took over a skilled team, but he has proven he can get the most out of that talent.

3) Mike Macdonald, His Team, 13-3

Each Coach of the Year narrative has a hinge moment. For Mike Macdonald, it was his QB choice.

Parting ways from a incumbent, signing a new signal-caller and partnering him with an new offensive coordinator could have derailed the campaign in the early weeks. Rather, it shaped it. By the middle point of the year, the acquisition was an Most Valuable Player front-runner. He has fallen away since that hot streak, dropping to a lower rank in EPA per pass attempt over the latter part of the schedule, putting him only a single place ahead of other QBs.

Still