The Way This Strange Campaign Broke the Typical Coach of the Year Blueprint.

Typically, the National Football League's Coach of the Year trophy follows a straightforward pattern. It commonly acts as a type of apology. Our apologies we got wrong your squad in our pre-campaign projections.

On paper, it's a clear-cut path: the coach who oversaw the biggest turnaround wins the award. In practice, it sparks an annual debate about expectations and whether we're actually honoring excellent leadership or merely the most shocking upset.

However the latest race is profoundly different. The pool of candidates is remarkably deep. It has been the season of resurgences. The NFL has been messy, with reigning division winners declining and recent strugglers ascending in unison. In an normal year, a coach leading the Denver Broncos to the top of the conference would make him the stone-cold front-runner. But in such a wild and fun season, he's up against multiple other exceptional candidates.

Here is how the ideal vote should be structured.

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

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

The Bears' head coach not only fixed his young quarterback; he's unleashed him. Within an ideal environment, Williams has been given the opportunity to showcase his rare ability. Since Week 9, the Bears rank fourth in offensive EPA per play. This isn't a hot streak – it's consistent performance. With Johnson, Williams has become increasingly decisive, far less reckless, and has willingly submitted to the scheme rather than going rogue. It is an offense built entirely in Johnson's image: a bully-ball run game, a steady dose of play-action and a creative aerial game that springs wide-open receivers consistently. Williams has taken advantage. And when openings haven't been there, he's been able to create magic out of nothing.

The coach arrived to Chicago with a clear offensive blueprint. Virtually each decision – rebuilding the trenches, highlighting the pass-catchers, turning Williams into a timing-based passer – has succeeded. That's uncommon for a first-year head coach. And it's even more uncommon yet for a coach who walked into the organization with the kind of pressure he did. For consecutive straight cycles, he was the hottest candidate on the coaching market. But when it comes to hiring a head coach, there are zero sure things. Remarkably, Johnson has lived up to expectations – and even surpassed them. He's proven not just to be a scheme dork but the type of leader that can inject new life into an organization.

In a normal year, Johnson would be the clear-cut favorite. Yet this isn't a typical season!

Where Johnson's candidacy runs slightly unstuck is on defense. The Bears currently sit in the bottom third in defensive success rate. They are surviving on turnovers, and turnovers are notoriously inconsistent. Defensive minds can emphasise creating turnovers, but no one can ensure it. Johnson is on the ballot because the offense is sustainable. He's not higher because luck is doing too much of the defensive heavy lifting. With a few bounces of the ball, the Bears would be two wins worse off. It's been an remarkable turnaround, and the core is established for sustained winning. But he comes up just short in this ranking.

4) Liam Coen, Jacksonville Jaguars, 12-4

The Jaguars' coach is in a similar spot to his counterpart. He's a fellow rookie head coach who has masterminded a dramatic resurgence. Over the stretch run of the year, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the finest all-around ball of his career. And he's also overseen the transformation of a defense that now sits at fifth in the league in EPA per play.

Even more impressively, he has excelled at the leadership stuff, which wasn't a given following his early press conference appearances and some of his offseason moves.

The coach took over Jacksonville with an uncommonly inexperienced staff. In contrast to other coaches, who packed themselves with the perfect coaching blend of youth and experience, he trusted newbies. From the leader on down to coordinators to position coaches, the Jaguars are stocked with first-timers. That kind of approach is exciting in theory, but frequently fails in reality – as past failures are a warning – because everybody is figuring out a new job on the fly. Yet Coen has managed to bring everyone and all elements into sync.

After an early strong beginning, there was a possibility that the campaign would go off the rails. A midseason setback had the Jags stumbling again. That's usually when coaches overcorrect. Coen did not. Instead, he streamlined things. Jacksonville stopped pursuing explosive plays and started hunting consistent ones. The coach refocused the offense around his playmakers and the ground attack, and encouraged Lawrence to use his legs more often.

The results are evident. The Jaguars have won multiple games consecutively and will be the conference's No 3 playoff seed. He gets the tiniest knock in the standings because he inherited a talented roster, but he has demonstrated he can maximize that talent.

3) Mike Macdonald, Seattle Seahawks, 13-3

Every Strong of the Year case has a pivotal moment. For the Seahawks coach, it was his quarterback decision.

Parting ways from a incumbent, signing a different signal-caller and partnering him with an innovative offensive coordinator could have derailed the season in October. Rather, it shaped it. By the mid point of the season, the acquisition was an Most Valuable Player contender. He has fallen away after that time, slipping to a lower rank in EPA per dropback over the latter part of the season, putting him only one spot ahead of peers.

Still