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Ordinarily, the National Football League's Coach of the Year honor adheres to a straightforward script. It commonly functions as a kind of apology. We regret we got wrong your team in our pre-campaign forecasts.

In theory, it's a clear-cut line: the skipper who oversaw the biggest resurgence receives the award. In reality, it fuels an yearly argument about preseason outlooks and whether we're actually honoring superior coaching or simply the most shocking surprise.

But the current competition is profoundly unique. The pool of nominees is remarkably deep. It has been the year of turnarounds. The league has been unpredictable, with reigning division champions falling away and longtime underperformers rising collectively. Under an typical year, a coach guiding the Denver Broncos to the top of the AFC would make him the overwhelming front-runner. Yet in such a chaotic and thrilling season, he's up against several other outstanding coaches.

This is how the ideal ballot should be structured.

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

Coach of the Year voters adore signal-callers. They always have. Sean McVay in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. A third in 2022. Should you fix a franchise QB, you're well on your way to winning the award.

The Bears' head coach didn't merely fixed Caleb Williams; he's unlocked him. In the right environment, the QB has been afforded the opportunity to display his otherworldly talent. From midseason onward, the Chicago offense sit at fourth in offensive EPA per play. This isn't a brief surge – it's sustained excellence. With his guidance, the quarterback has become more decisive, less careless, and has eagerly surrendered to the gameplan rather than improvising. It is an offense designed entirely in Johnson's vision: a bully-ball run game, a consistent helping of play-action and a creative aerial game that springs wide receiver receivers consistently. Williams has thrived. And when openings haven't been there, he's been capable to conjure magic from broken plays.

Johnson came to Chicago with a defined offensive philosophy. Almost every gamble – rebuilding the trenches, highlighting the pass-catchers, transforming the QB into a rhythm thrower – has paid off. That's rare for a first-year head coach. And it's even more uncommon yet for a coach who entered the building with the immense hype he did. For consecutive straight cycles, he was the most sought-after name on the head coaching carousel. However when it comes to selecting a head coach, there are zero guarantees. Remarkably, Johnson has met expectations – and even surpassed them. He's demonstrated not only to be a scheme genius but the type of leader that can inject new life into an franchise.

During a normal year, Johnson would be the clear-cut choice. But this isn't a typical year!

The area where his candidacy runs a bit unstuck is on the defensive side. The Bears presently rank in the bottom third in defensive efficiency. They are surviving on takeaways, and takeaways are notoriously inconsistent. Coaches can stress ball disruption, but nobody can guarantee it. Johnson is on the ballot because the offense is legitimate. He's not higher because variance is doing an outsized share of the defensive work. If not for a few bounces of the ball, the team would be two victories worse off. It's been an exceptional turnaround, and the foundation is established for long-term winning. But Johnson comes up short here.

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

The Jaguars' coach is in a similar situation to his counterpart. He's another rookie leader who has engineered a rapid resurgence. Over the stretch run of the year, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the finest overall football of his career. And he's also overseen the transformation of a defensive unit that now sits at number five in the league in Expected Points Added per play.

Even more notably, he has mastered the intangibles stuff, which was not a certainty following his initial press conference introduction and some of his offseason decisions.

The coach walked into Jacksonville with an exceptionally raw coaching staff. In contrast to Johnson, who surrounded their staff with the ideal coaching blend of new ideas and veteran savvy, he hired newbies. From the leader himself to coordinators to assistant coaches, the Jags are stocked with rookies. That type of approach is intriguing on paper, but frequently fails in practice – with other teams are a warning – because everybody is figuring out a their job in real-time. Yet he has pulled everyone and all elements into sync.

Following an early strong start, there was a possibility that the season would go off the track. A mid-year collapse had the team stumbling again. That's usually when leaders overcorrect. He did not. Rather, he streamlined the approach. Jacksonville stopped chasing explosive answers and started seeking consistent ones. Coen recentered the attack around his playmakers and the ground attack, and encouraged his QB to use his legs more often.

The results are obvious. The Jags have won seven games in a row and will be the AFC's No 3 playoff seed. He gets the slightest knock in the standings because he inherited a talented roster, but he has proven he can maximize that talent.

3) Mike Macdonald, Seattle Seahawks, Their Record

Each Coach of the Year narrative has a pivotal decision. For the Seahawks coach, it was his QB choice.

Parting ways from a incumbent, bringing in a new signal-caller and pairing him with an new offensive coordinator could have ended the campaign in October. Rather, it shaped it. Through the middle point of the year, the acquisition was an MVP candidate. He has regressed since that time, slipping to 23rd in EPA per pass attempt over the second half of the schedule, placing him only a single spot ahead of peers.

Still