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Usually, the National Football League's Coach of the Year award follows a simple formula. It commonly serves as a type of apology. Our apologies we misjudged your squad in our preseason forecasts.

In theory, it's a direct line: the coach who engineered the biggest improvement receives the award. In practice, it creates an yearly discussion about expectations and whether we're genuinely honoring excellent coaching or simply the most shocking surprise.

But the latest competition is profoundly unique. The list of candidates is exceptionally talented. It has been the season of turnarounds. The league has been messy, with reigning division winners falling away and longtime underperformers improving collectively. In an normal season, a coach leading the his team to the summit of the AFC would make him the clear favorite. But in such a wild and entertaining year, he's competing with several other outstanding candidates.

This is how the ideal vote ought to shake out.

5) Ben Johnson, His Team, 11-5

Voters for Coach of the Year selectors love QBs. History shows this. A certain coach in 2017. Another in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. When you solve a quarterback, you're halfway to winning the award.

Ben Johnson not only corrected Caleb Williams; he's unlocked him. In the right system, the QB has been afforded the chance to display his rare talent. Since midseason onward, the Chicago offense rank fourth in offensive Expected Points Added per play. This isn't a hot streak – it's consistent dominance. With his guidance, Williams has become more decisive, less reckless, and has eagerly surrendered to the system rather than improvising. It is an attack built entirely in the coach's image: a physical run game, a heavy helping of play-action passes and a creative passing attack that springs wide receiver targets everywhere. Williams has taken advantage. And when openings weren't there, he's been capable to spin big plays out of nothing.

Johnson arrived to Chicago with a defined offensive philosophy. Virtually each bet – overhauling the offensive line, highlighting the tight ends, turning Williams into a timing-based passer – has worked. This is uncommon for a first-year head coach. And it's even more uncommon yet for a coach who walked into the building with the level of expectations Johnson did. For two straight offseasons, he was the hottest candidate on the coaching market. But when it comes to selecting a head coach, there are no guarantees. Somehow, he has met the hype – and even exceeded them. He's proven not just to be a offensive dork but the kind of culture builder that can inject fresh energy into an franchise.

In a normal year, he would be the overwhelming choice. But this isn't a normal year!

The area where Johnson's case runs slightly into trouble is on defense. The Chicago defense currently sit in the bottom third in defensive efficiency. They are surviving on takeaways, and turnovers are famously inconsistent. Coaches can emphasise ball disruption, but nobody can guarantee it. Johnson is on the list because the offense is real. He's not higher because variance is doing an outsized share of the defensive work. With a few breaks of the ball, the Bears would be two victories worse off. It's been an exceptional transformation, and the core is in place for long-term success. But Johnson comes up just short in this ranking.

4) Liam Coen, His Team, 12-4

The Jaguars' coach is in a similar position to his counterpart. He's another first-time head coach who has orchestrated a swift turnaround. Over the crucial final weeks of the year, he has Trevor Lawrence 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 number five in the NFL in Expected Points Added per play.

Even more notably, he has mastered the intangibles stuff, which wasn't a given after his initial press conference appearances and some of his preseason decisions.

The coach walked into Jacksonville with an exceptionally inexperienced staff. In contrast to Johnson, who surrounded themselves with the perfect coaching blend of youth and experience, Coen hired first-timers. Starting with the leader himself to assistants to assistant coaches, the Jaguars are stocked with first-timers. That kind of setup is intriguing on paper, but often collapses in practice – with other teams are a cautionary tale – because everyone is learning a their job in real-time. Yet Coen has pulled the entire group and everything into sync.

After an early strong beginning, there was a chance that the season would go off the track. A midseason setback had the Jags wobbling once more. That's usually when leaders panic and change too much. He did not. Instead, he streamlined things. The offense stopped pursuing home-run plays and started hunting reliable ones. The coach refocused the attack around his playmakers and the running game, and asked his QB to use his mobility more.

The results are clear. The Jags have won multiple games consecutively and will be the conference's No 3 playoff seed. Coen gets the tiniest deduction in the rankings because he took over a talented team, but he has demonstrated he can get the most out of that talent.

3) Mike Macdonald, His Team, 13-3

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

Parting ways from a veteran, bringing in a new quarterback and partnering him with an innovative play-caller might have derailed the campaign in the early weeks. Rather, it shaped it. Through the middle point of the season, the acquisition was an Most Valuable Player candidate. He has regressed since that hot streak, dropping to a lower rank in EPA per pass attempt over the latter part of the schedule, putting him just a single place ahead of peers.

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