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Typically, the NFL's Coach of the Year award adheres to a straightforward pattern. It frequently functions as a type of apology. Our apologies we got wrong your team in our preseason forecasts.

On paper, it's a direct path: the coach who orchestrated the most dramatic improvement is handed the prize. However, it fuels an annual argument about preseason outlooks and whether we're genuinely rewarding excellent coaching or simply the biggest surprise.

Yet the current field is fundamentally unique. The list of candidates is exceptionally talented. It has been the campaign of comebacks. The NFL has been messy, with recent division champions falling away and recent underperformers ascending in unison. Under an typical season, a coach leading the his team to the summit of the conference would make him the stone-cold favorite. Yet in such a turbulent and entertaining year, he's facing multiple other elite coaches.

Below is how the hypothetical vote ought to look.

5) Ben Johnson, His Team, Their Record

Coach of the Year voters love signal-callers. History shows this. Sean McVay in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. A third in 2022. Should you transform a franchise QB, you're well on your way to winning the award.

Ben Johnson not only fixed Caleb Williams; he's freed him. Within an ideal system, the QB has been given the opportunity to demonstrate his special talent. Since midseason onward, the Chicago offense sit at number four in offensive Expected Points Added per play. This isn't a brief surge – it's consistent dominance. Under his guidance, the quarterback has become increasingly confident, far less reckless, and has eagerly surrendered to the system rather than improvising. It is an attack designed entirely in the coach's image: a physical ground attack, a steady dose of play-action and a innovative passing attack that springs wide receiver targets everywhere. Williams has capitalized. And when easy reads haven't been there, he's been able to conjure magic from broken plays.

Johnson arrived to Chicago with a clear offensive philosophy. Virtually every decision – rebuilding the offensive line, utilizing the tight ends, transforming the QB into a rhythm passer – has worked. That's rare for a rookie head coach. And it's rarer still for a coach who walked into the building with the level of expectations he did. For consecutive straight offseasons, he was the hottest candidate on the head coaching market. But when it comes to hiring a leader, there are zero sure things. Somehow, Johnson has lived up to expectations – and even surpassed them. He's demonstrated not just to be a offensive dork but the type of leader that can breathe fresh energy into an organization.

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

Where Johnson's case runs a bit unstuck is on the defensive side. The Bears currently rank 25th in defensive efficiency. They are living on turnovers, and takeaways are notoriously unreliable. Coaches can stress ball disruption, but nobody can ensure it. He 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. With a few bounces of the ball, the Bears would be two victories worse off. It's been an exceptional transformation, and the core is in place for long-term success. However he falls short in this ranking.

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

The Jaguars' coach is in a comparable spot to his counterpart. He's a fellow rookie head coach who has orchestrated a dramatic resurgence. During the crucial final weeks of the year, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the best all-around ball of his professional life. And he's also spearheaded the overhaul of a defense that now ranks number five in the NFL in Expected Points Added per play.

What's more notably, Coen has mastered the intangibles aspects, which was not a certainty after his early public introduction and some of his preseason moves.

Coen took over Jacksonville with an uncommonly raw coaching staff. Unlike other coaches, who packed themselves with the ideal staff blend of new ideas and experience, he hired newbies. Starting with the leader himself to assistants to position coaches, the Jags are filled with rookies. That kind of approach 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 Coen has pulled everyone and everything into sync.

After an initial hot beginning, there was a chance that the campaign would go off the rails. A mid-year setback had the team stumbling again. That's typically when leaders overcorrect. He didn't. Rather, he streamlined things. Jacksonville stopped chasing explosive answers and started seeking reliable ones. Coen refocused the offense around his playmakers and the running game, and asked his QB to use his mobility more.

The results are obvious. The Jags have won multiple games in a row and will be the conference's number three seed. Coen gets the slightest knock in the rankings because he inherited a skilled team, but he has demonstrated he can get the most out of that roster.

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

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

Parting ways from a veteran, signing a new quarterback and pairing him with an innovative offensive coordinator could have derailed the campaign in the early weeks. Rather, it defined it. By the middle point of the season, the new QB was an Most Valuable Player contender. He has cooled off since that time, dropping to a lower rank in efficiency per dropback over the second half of the season, placing him only one spot ahead of other QBs.

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