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

Theoretically, it's a clear-cut trajectory: the skipper who orchestrated the largest resurgence wins the award. However, it fuels an annual debate about expectations and whether we're actually honoring excellent coaching or merely the biggest upset.

Yet the latest competition is profoundly unique. The pool of contenders is unusually deep. It has been the campaign of resurgences. The NFL has been unpredictable, with reigning conference champions falling away and longtime strugglers improving in unison. In an normal season, a coach guiding the Denver Broncos to the summit of the AFC would make him the stone-cold favorite. Yet in such a turbulent and entertaining season, he's facing several other exceptional coaches.

This is how the hypothetical ballot ought to shake out.

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

Voters for Coach of the Year selectors are fascinated by QBs. This is a tradition. A certain coach in 2017. Another in 2020. A third in 2022. When you transform a franchise QB, you're well on your way to winning the award.

Ben Johnson hasn't just corrected his young quarterback; he's unleashed him. Within an ideal system, Williams has been afforded the opportunity to showcase his otherworldly ability. Since Week 9, the Chicago offense sit at fourth in offensive Expected Points Added per play. That's not a hot streak – it's sustained dominance. With his guidance, the quarterback has become more confident, far less careless, and has willingly submitted to the system instead of going rogue. It is an attack designed solely in Johnson's vision: a bully-ball run game, a steady helping of play-action and a creative passing attack that frees wide-open receivers all over the field. Williams has taken advantage. And when clear throws weren't there, he's been able to spin big plays from broken plays.

The coach arrived to the Bears with a specific offensive blueprint. Virtually each decision – overhauling the trenches, featuring the pass-catchers, turning the QB into a timing-based passer – has succeeded. That's rare for a first-year skipper. And it's even more uncommon still for a coach who walked into the organization with the immense hype he did. For consecutive straight offseasons, he was the most sought-after name on the head coaching market. But when it comes to selecting a head coach, there are no guarantees. Remarkably, Johnson has lived up to expectations – and even surpassed them. He's demonstrated not just to be a scheme dork but the kind of leader that can breathe fresh energy into an franchise.

During a normal season, he would be the runaway favorite. But the current is not a normal season!

The area where Johnson's case comes slightly into trouble is on defense. The Chicago defense currently rank 25th in defensive success rate. They are relying on takeaways, and turnovers are famously fickle. Coaches can emphasise ball disruption, but no one can guarantee it. He is on the ballot because the offensive production is real. He's ranked lower because variance is doing an outsized share of the defense's heavy lifting. With a couple bounces of the ball, the Bears would be several wins behind. It's been an remarkable turnaround, and the foundation is in place for sustained winning. However Johnson comes up just short here.

4) The Jacksonville Jaguars Coach, His Team, 12-4

Coen is in a comparable spot to his counterpart. He's a fellow rookie leader who has masterminded a rapid resurgence. Over the crucial final weeks of the year, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the best all-around football of his career. And he's also overseen the transformation of a defense that now sits at number five in the league in EPA per play.

Even more notably, he has nailed the intangibles aspects, which wasn't a guarantee following his initial press conference appearances and some of his preseason decisions.

Coen walked into Jacksonville with an exceptionally inexperienced staff. Unlike Johnson, who packed their staff with the ideal staff cocktail of new ideas and veteran savvy, he trusted first-timers. Starting with the head coach himself to coordinators to position coaches, the Jaguars are stocked with first-timers. That type of approach is exciting in theory, but often fails in practice – as past failures are a cautionary tale – because everybody is figuring out a new job on the fly. Yet he has pulled the entire group and everything into sync.

Following an initial strong beginning, there was a chance that the campaign would go off the rails. A midseason setback caused the team stumbling again. That's typically when coaches overcorrect. He did not. Rather, he simplified the approach. The offense stopped chasing explosive plays and started seeking reliable ones. Coen recentered the attack around his playmakers and the ground attack, and asked Lawrence to use his legs more.

The outcomes are evident. The Jags have won multiple games in a row and will be the AFC's No 3 seed. He gets the slightest knock in the rankings because he took over a skilled roster, but he has proven he can maximize that talent.

3) Mike Macdonald, His Team, Their Record

Every Coach of the Year narrative has a hinge moment. For Mike Macdonald, it was his QB choice.

Parting ways from a veteran, bringing in a new signal-caller and pairing him with an new play-caller could have ended the season in the early weeks. Instead, it made it. By the middle point of the year, the new QB was an Most Valuable Player candidate. He has cooled off since that hot streak, dropping to a lower rank in EPA per pass attempt over the second half of the schedule, placing him only one place ahead of peers.

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