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Ordinarily, the National Football League's Coach of the Year award adheres to a simple script. It commonly acts as a form of apology. We regret we underestimated your team in our preseason projections.

In theory, it's a clear-cut path: the skipper who engineered the largest turnaround is handed the award. In reality, it fuels an annual debate about expectations and whether we're actually honoring excellent coaching or merely the greatest upset.

However the latest race is fundamentally unique. The group of nominees is unusually deep. It has been the season of turnarounds. The league has been messy, with recent conference champions fading and recent also-rans improving together. In an ordinary season, a coach leading the Denver Broncos to the summit of the AFC would make him the clear front-runner. Yet in such a chaotic and entertaining season, he's up against several other elite candidates.

Here is how the hypothetical vote should shake out.

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

Voters for Coach of the Year voters are fascinated by signal-callers. They always have. A certain coach in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. If you transform a franchise QB, you're well on your way to winning the award.

The Bears' head coach not only fixed Caleb Williams; he's unleashed him. In the right system, Williams has been given the opportunity to demonstrate his special talent. From midseason onward, the Bears rank fourth in offensive EPA per play. This isn't a brief surge – it's prolonged excellence. With his guidance, the quarterback has become increasingly decisive, far less reckless, and has eagerly submitted to the scheme rather than going rogue. It is an attack constructed entirely in the coach's image: a physical ground attack, a heavy helping of play-action passes and a creative passing attack that creates wide-open targets everywhere. Williams has capitalized. And when openings haven't been available, he's been capable to conjure magic out of nothing.

The coach arrived to Chicago with a defined offensive philosophy. Almost every gamble – overhauling the trenches, featuring the tight ends, transforming Williams into a rhythm passer – has worked. That's rare for a first-year skipper. And it's rarer yet for a leader who walked into the organization with the level of pressure he did. For two straight cycles, he was the most sought-after candidate on the coaching carousel. But when it comes to selecting a head coach, there are zero sure things. Remarkably, Johnson has met the hype – and even exceeded them. He's proven not just to be a scheme wizard but the type of culture builder that can inject fresh energy into an organization.

During a ordinary year, he would be the overwhelming choice. But this is not a normal season!

The area where Johnson's candidacy comes slightly into trouble is on the defensive side. The Bears presently rank 25th in defensive success rate. They are living on turnovers, and turnovers are notoriously fickle. Defensive minds can stress creating turnovers, but no one can guarantee it. Johnson is on the ballot because the offensive production is legitimate. He's not higher because variance is doing too much of the defense's work. With a couple breaks of the ball, the Bears would be two wins worse off. It's been an exceptional turnaround, and the core is in place for sustained success. However he comes up short here.

4) Liam Coen, Jacksonville Jaguars, 12-4

Coen is in a comparable spot to Johnson. He's a fellow first-time leader who has orchestrated a swift turnaround. During the stretch run of the year, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the most complete all-around football of his career. And he's also overseen the overhaul of a defensive unit that now sits at number five in the league in Expected Points Added per play.

Even more notably, he has excelled at the leadership aspects, which was not a guarantee following his initial press conference introduction and some of his offseason decisions.

The coach walked into Jacksonville with an uncommonly inexperienced staff. Unlike Johnson, who packed their staff with the perfect coaching cocktail of youth and veteran savvy, Coen hired first-timers. Starting with the head coach on down to assistants to assistant coaches, the Jaguars are filled with first-timers. That type of approach is intriguing in theory, but frequently collapses in reality – with other teams are a cautionary tale – because everybody is learning a new job in real-time. But Coen has managed to bring the entire group and all elements together.

After an initial strong start, there was a chance that the campaign would veer off the track. A mid-year collapse had the Jags stumbling again. That's usually when coaches overcorrect. Coen didn't. Rather, he streamlined the approach. The offense stopped pursuing explosive answers and started hunting reliable ones. The coach refocused the attack around key players and the ground attack, and asked his QB to use his legs more.

The outcomes are obvious. The Jaguars have won multiple games consecutively and will be the conference's No 3 playoff seed. Coen receives the slightest knock in the rankings because he took over a talented roster, but he has proven he can get the most out of that talent.

3) Mike Macdonald, His Team, Their Record

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

Moving on from a veteran, bringing in a new quarterback and partnering him with an new play-caller might have ended the campaign in October. Instead, it defined it. Through the middle point of the year, the new QB was an MVP contender. He has cooled off since that time, slipping to 23rd in efficiency per dropback over the latter part of the season, putting him just a single place ahead of other QBs.

Still