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Ordinarily, the National Football League's Coach of the Year award follows a simple script. It commonly acts as a kind of mea culpa. We regret we underestimated your squad in our pre-campaign predictions.

On paper, it's a direct line: the skipper who engineered the biggest improvement receives the award. In practice, it fuels an yearly discussion about expectations and whether we're genuinely rewarding excellent coaching or just the greatest shock.

Yet this year's field is fundamentally different. The pool of nominees is unusually strong. It has been the season of resurgences. The league has been unpredictable, with reigning division winners declining and recent strugglers ascending in unison. During an normal season, Sean Payton guiding the his team to the summit of the AFC would make him the stone-cold front-runner. Yet in this chaotic and thrilling season, he's up against multiple other exceptional candidates.

Here is how the hypothetical ballot ought to shake out.

5) The Chicago Bears Coach, Chicago Bears, 11-5

Coach of the Year selectors are fascinated by quarterbacks. History shows this. Sean McVay in 2017. Another in 2020. A third in 2022. Should you transform a quarterback, you're well on your way home.

The Bears' head coach not only corrected his young quarterback; he's freed him. In the right system, Williams has been given the opportunity to demonstrate his rare ability. From Week 9, the Chicago offense rank number four in offensive Expected Points Added per play. That's not a lucky run – it's consistent excellence. With his guidance, the quarterback has become more confident, less careless, and has eagerly submitted to the gameplan instead of freelancing. It is an offense built entirely in the coach's image: a bully-ball run game, a consistent helping of play-action and a innovative passing attack that creates wide receiver targets everywhere. The QB has taken advantage. And when clear throws haven't been available, he's been able to create big plays out of broken plays.

The coach arrived to the Bears with a defined offensive philosophy. Virtually every decision – overhauling the offensive line, utilizing the tight ends, transforming Williams into a timing-based thrower – has paid off. This is rare for a first-year head coach. And it's even more uncommon still for a coach who entered the organization with the level of pressure he did. For two straight cycles, he was the top candidate on the head coaching carousel. But when it comes to hiring a leader, there are no sure things. Somehow, Johnson has met the hype – and even surpassed them. He's proven not only to be a offensive genius but the kind of culture builder that can inject fresh energy into an franchise.

During a normal year, he would be the clear-cut favorite. Yet the current isn't a typical year!

The area where Johnson's candidacy comes slightly unstuck is on defense. The Bears presently sit in the bottom third in defensive efficiency. They are surviving on turnovers, and turnovers are famously unreliable. Coaches can focus on creating turnovers, but no one can guarantee it. He is on the list because the offensive production is real. He's ranked lower because luck is doing an outsized share of the defensive work. With a couple bounces of the ball, the Bears would be two victories worse off. It's been an remarkable transformation, and the foundation is in place for sustained winning. But Johnson comes up short in this ranking.

4) Liam Coen, Jacksonville Jaguars, 12-4

The Jaguars' coach is in a comparable position to his counterpart. He's a fellow rookie leader who has engineered a dramatic resurgence. During the stretch run of the season, he has his franchise quarterback playing the most complete all-around ball of his professional life. And he's also overseen the transformation of a defense that now sits at fifth in the NFL in EPA per play.

Even more notably, he has mastered the off-field aspects, which wasn't a given following his initial press conference introduction and some of his offseason moves.

Coen took over Jacksonville with an uncommonly inexperienced coaching staff. Unlike other coaches, who packed themselves with the perfect staff cocktail of new ideas and experience, Coen trusted newbies. Starting with the leader on down to coordinators to assistant coaches, the Jags are filled with first-timers. That type of approach is exciting on paper, but frequently collapses in reality – with other teams are a warning – because everybody is learning a new job in real-time. Yet Coen has pulled everyone and all elements into sync.

After an early hot beginning, there was a possibility that the season would veer off the track. A midseason collapse had the team wobbling again. That's usually when leaders panic and change too much. Coen didn't. Rather, he streamlined the approach. The offense stopped chasing home-run answers and started hunting sustainable ones. Coen recentered the offense around key players and the ground attack, and encouraged his QB to use his legs more often.

The outcomes are clear. The Jaguars have won seven games consecutively and will be the conference's number three seed. Coen gets the slightest deduction in the standings because he took over a skilled team, but he has proven he can maximize that talent.

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

Every Strong of the Year argument has a pivotal moment. For the Seahawks coach, it was his QB move.

Parting ways from a veteran, bringing in a new signal-caller and partnering him with an new offensive coordinator might have ended the campaign in the early weeks. Rather, it shaped it. Through the mid point of the year, the new QB was an Most Valuable Player candidate. He has cooled off after that time, slipping to 23rd in efficiency per pass attempt over the second half of the season, placing him only one place ahead of other QBs.

Still