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Ordinarily, the NFL's Coach of the Year award adheres to a simple pattern. It commonly acts as a form of mea culpa. We regret we got wrong your franchise in our pre-campaign forecasts.

Theoretically, it's a clear-cut path: the skipper who oversaw the biggest improvement wins the prize. In reality, it fuels an yearly argument about expectations and whether we're truly honoring excellent leadership or just the biggest shock.

Yet the current field is fundamentally unique. The pool of contenders is exceptionally strong. It has been the season of comebacks. The NFL has been messy, with reigning conference champions fading and recent underperformers rising together. In an typical season, Sean Payton guiding the Denver Broncos to the summit of the AFC would make him the stone-cold favorite. Yet in this chaotic and thrilling season, he's competing with five other exceptional coaches.

This is how the ideal ballot ought to shake out.

5) Ben Johnson, Chicago Bears, 11-5

Coach of the Year voters adore signal-callers. They always have. A certain coach in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. Should you transform a franchise QB, you're well on your way home.

The Bears' head coach didn't merely corrected Caleb Williams; he's unlocked him. In the right environment, Williams has been afforded the chance to display his special talent. From Week 9, the Bears sit at fourth in offensive Expected Points Added per play. This isn't a hot streak – it's prolonged dominance. Under Johnson, the quarterback has become more decisive, less reckless, and has eagerly submitted to the scheme instead of improvising. It is an attack designed solely in Johnson's image: a bully-ball ground attack, a heavy dose of play-action passes and a imaginative aerial game that frees wide-open targets all over the field. Williams has thrived. And when easy reads haven't been there, he's been able to spin magic out of broken plays.

The coach arrived to Chicago with a clear offensive philosophy. Virtually every decision – overhauling the trenches, highlighting the tight ends, transforming Williams into a rhythm thrower – has worked. That's uncommon for a first-year head coach. And it's rarer yet for a leader who walked into the organization with the immense expectations Johnson did. For two straight cycles, he was the top name on the head coaching carousel. However when it comes to hiring a head coach, there are zero sure things. Somehow, Johnson has met the hype – and even exceeded them. He's proven not just to be a offensive genius but the kind of culture builder that can inject new life into an organization.

In a normal season, he would be the clear-cut choice. But the current is not a typical year!

Where Johnson's candidacy comes a bit into trouble is on the defensive side. The Bears presently sit 25th in defensive success rate. They are surviving on takeaways, and takeaways are famously inconsistent. Defensive minds can emphasise ball disruption, but no one can guarantee it. Johnson is on the list because the offense is real. He's ranked lower because luck is doing an outsized share of the defense's heavy lifting. With a couple bounces of the ball, the Bears would be two wins worse off. It's been an remarkable transformation, and the core is in place for long-term winning. But Johnson comes up short in this ranking.

4) The Jacksonville Jaguars Coach, His Team, Their Record

The Jaguars' coach is in a comparable spot to Johnson. He's a fellow rookie head coach who has engineered a swift turnaround. During the crucial final weeks of the year, he has his franchise quarterback playing the most complete all-around football of his career. And he's also spearheaded the transformation of a defense that now sits at number five in the league in Expected Points Added per play.

Even more notably, he has nailed the leadership aspects, which was not a guarantee after his early public introduction and some of his offseason moves.

Coen took over the Jaguars with an uncommonly raw coaching staff. In contrast to other coaches, who packed themselves with the ideal staff mix of youth and experience, he trusted first-timers. Starting with the head coach himself to coordinators to position coaches, the Jaguars are stocked with rookies. That kind of setup is exciting on paper, but frequently collapses in practice – with other teams are a cautionary tale – because everyone is learning a their job in real-time. Yet Coen has pulled everyone and all elements into sync.

Following an initial hot start, there was a possibility that the campaign would go off the track. A midseason setback had the team wobbling once more. That's typically when leaders overcorrect. He did not. Instead, he streamlined the approach. The offense stopped chasing home-run plays and started seeking reliable ones. Coen refocused the offense around his playmakers and the ground attack, and encouraged his QB to use his legs more.

The results are obvious. The Jags have won multiple games consecutively and will be the conference's number three playoff seed. Coen receives the slightest knock in the rankings because he took over a talented roster, but he has demonstrated he can maximize that roster.

3) The Seattle Seahawks Coach, His Team, 13-3

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

Parting ways from a incumbent, bringing in a different quarterback and partnering him with an innovative offensive coordinator might have ended the campaign in the early weeks. Rather, it defined it. Through the mid point of the season, the acquisition was an MVP contender. He has fallen away after that hot streak, dropping to a lower rank in efficiency per pass attempt over the second half of the schedule, placing him just one place ahead of other QBs.

Still