The Way The Unusual Campaign Broke the Typical NFL Coach of the Year Mold.

Usually, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year trophy follows a simple formula. It commonly serves as a kind of mea culpa. Our apologies we misjudged your team in our preseason forecasts.

Theoretically, it's a direct path: the coach who oversaw the largest resurgence receives the award. However, it creates an annual argument about preseason outlooks and whether we're actually honoring superior coaching or simply the most shocking upset.

Yet this year's competition is profoundly unique. The list of candidates is unusually talented. It has been the year of resurgences. The league has been unpredictable, with recent division champions falling away and longtime strugglers rising in unison. In an typical season, Sean Payton guiding the Denver Broncos to the summit of the AFC would make him the clear favorite. But in this chaotic and fun season, he's facing five other elite coaches.

Below is how the hypothetical vote should shake out.

5) Ben Johnson, Chicago Bears, 11-5

Voters for Coach of the Year selectors love QBs. This is a tradition. A certain coach in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. A third in 2022. When you solve a quarterback, you're halfway home.

The Bears' head coach hasn't just corrected his young quarterback; he's unlocked him. In the right ecosystem, the QB has been afforded the chance to demonstrate his rare ability. Since Week 9, the Chicago offense rank number four in offensive Expected Points Added per play. This isn't a hot streak – it's sustained excellence. With his guidance, the quarterback has become more confident, far less reckless, and has willingly submitted to the scheme rather than freelancing. It is an offense built solely in Johnson's image: a bully-ball run game, a steady dose of play-action passes and a creative aerial game that frees wide-open targets all over the field. The QB has capitalized. And when openings weren't available, he's been capable to create big plays out of nothing.

Johnson came to Chicago with a clear offensive vision. Almost every bet – overhauling the trenches, highlighting the tight ends, transforming Williams into a timing-based thrower – has worked. This is rare for a first-year skipper. And it's rarer still for a coach who entered the organization with the level of pressure Johnson did. For consecutive straight offseasons, he was the hottest name on the head coaching carousel. But when it comes to selecting a leader, there are zero guarantees. Remarkably, Johnson has met expectations – and even surpassed them. He's demonstrated not just to be a offensive dork but the type of leader that can inject fresh energy into an franchise.

During a typical season, he would be the runaway choice. Yet this is not a normal year!

Where Johnson's candidacy comes slightly unstuck is on defense. The Chicago defense presently rank 25th in defensive efficiency. They are surviving on takeaways, and turnovers are famously unreliable. Coaches can stress creating turnovers, but no one can ensure it. He is on the ballot because the offense is real. He's not higher because variance is doing too much of the defense's heavy lifting. If not for a couple breaks of the ball, the Bears would be several wins behind. It's been an remarkable turnaround, and the core is in place for long-term success. But he falls short in this ranking.

4) Liam Coen, Jacksonville Jaguars, Their Record

The Jaguars' coach is in a comparable situation to his counterpart. He's a fellow first-time leader who has orchestrated a swift resurgence. During the stretch run of the season, he has his franchise quarterback playing the finest overall ball of his career. And he's also spearheaded the overhaul of a defense that now ranks number five in the league in Expected Points Added per play.

What's more notably, he has nailed the off-field stuff, which was not a certainty after his initial press conference introduction and some of his offseason moves.

Coen took over the Jaguars with an exceptionally raw staff. In contrast to other coaches, who packed themselves with the ideal coaching mix of new ideas and veteran savvy, he bet on newbies. Starting with the leader himself to assistants to position coaches, the Jags are stocked with rookies. That type of approach is exciting in theory, but often fails in reality – with other teams are a cautionary tale – because everybody is learning a new job in real-time. But he has managed to bring everyone and everything together.

After an initial strong beginning, there was a chance that the campaign would veer off the rails. A midseason setback caused the team stumbling once more. That's typically when coaches overcorrect. Coen didn't. Rather, he streamlined things. The offense stopped pursuing home-run answers and started seeking sustainable ones. The coach refocused the attack around his playmakers and the ground attack, and encouraged Lawrence to use his legs more often.

The results are evident. The Jags have won seven games in a row and will be the AFC's number three playoff seed. Coen gets the tiniest knock in the rankings because he inherited a talented roster, but he has demonstrated he can maximize that roster.

3) Mike Macdonald, His Team, 13-3

Each Strong of the Year case has a defining moment. For Mike Macdonald, it was his QB move.

Moving on from a incumbent, signing a new signal-caller and pairing him with an innovative offensive coordinator could have derailed the campaign in October. Rather, it made it. Through the mid point of the year, the acquisition was an MVP contender. He has regressed since that hot streak, dropping to a lower rank in efficiency per dropback over the second half of the season, placing him just one place ahead of other QBs.

Still