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Usually, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year trophy adheres to a straightforward pattern. It commonly serves as a kind of apology. We regret we misjudged your squad in our preseason projections.

On paper, it's a direct path: the coach who orchestrated the most dramatic resurgence wins the prize. In practice, it sparks an annual argument about preseason outlooks and whether we're genuinely honoring superior coaching or merely the most shocking shock.

However this year's competition is profoundly unique. The pool of nominees is exceptionally deep. It has been the campaign of turnarounds. The league has been messy, with reigning conference winners fading and longtime underperformers ascending together. In an typical year, a coach leading the his team to the summit of the AFC would make him the stone-cold favorite. Yet in this wild and entertaining season, he's up against five other outstanding candidates.

Below is how the ideal vote could look.

5) The Chicago Bears Coach, Chicago Bears, 11-5

Voters for Coach of the Year voters are fascinated by quarterbacks. History shows this. Sean McVay in 2017. Another in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. Should you fix a quarterback, you're well on your way home.

Ben Johnson didn't merely corrected Caleb Williams; he's unleashed him. Within an ideal environment, the QB has been given the opportunity to showcase his otherworldly talent. Since Week 9, the Bears rank number four in offensive EPA per play. That's not a hot streak – it's sustained dominance. Under his guidance, Williams has become increasingly decisive, less reckless, and has willingly surrendered to the scheme rather than improvising. It is an offense built solely in Johnson's image: a bully-ball run game, a steady dose of play-action passes and a imaginative passing attack that frees wide receiver targets all over the field. The QB has taken advantage. And when easy reads haven't been available, he's been capable to create big plays from nothing.

The coach arrived to the Bears with a clear offensive blueprint. Almost each bet – rebuilding the trenches, highlighting the pass-catchers, transforming the QB into a timing-based thrower – has paid off. This is rare for a rookie skipper. And it's even more uncommon yet for a coach who entered the organization with the level of hype he did. For consecutive straight offseasons, he was the hottest candidate on the coaching market. But when it comes to hiring a head coach, there are no guarantees. Remarkably, he has met the hype – and even surpassed them. He's demonstrated not only to be a offensive genius but the type of leader that can breathe new life into an organization.

During a ordinary year, Johnson would be the overwhelming choice. But the current isn't a normal campaign!

Where Johnson's case runs a bit unstuck is on defense. The Chicago defense currently rank in the bottom third in defensive efficiency. They are relying on takeaways, and turnovers are notoriously inconsistent. Defensive minds can stress creating turnovers, but no one can ensure it. He is on the ballot because the offensive production is real. He's not higher because luck is doing an outsized share of the defense's heavy lifting. If not for a couple bounces of the ball, the team would be two wins behind. It's been an exceptional turnaround, and the core is in place for sustained success. But he comes up short in this ranking.

4) Liam Coen, Jacksonville Jaguars, 12-4

The Jaguars' coach is in a similar situation to his counterpart. He's a fellow rookie leader who has orchestrated a dramatic resurgence. Over the crucial final weeks of the season, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the finest overall ball of his career. And he's also overseen the overhaul of a defense that now sits at number five in the NFL in Expected Points Added per play.

What's more notably, Coen has mastered the off-field stuff, which wasn't a given after his early press conference introduction and some of his preseason decisions.

The coach walked into Jacksonville with an uncommonly inexperienced staff. In contrast to Johnson, who surrounded themselves with the perfect staff mix of youth and veteran savvy, he trusted first-timers. Starting with the head coach on down to assistants to position coaches, the Jags are filled with first-timers. That kind of setup is intriguing in theory, but often fails in reality – as past failures are a cautionary tale – because everybody is figuring out a new job on the fly. But Coen has pulled everyone and everything into sync.

After an initial hot beginning, there was a chance that the campaign would go off the track. A midseason setback had the team stumbling once more. That's usually when coaches overcorrect. Coen didn't. Instead, he streamlined things. The offense stopped chasing explosive answers and started hunting sustainable ones. The coach recentered the offense around key players and the ground attack, and asked Lawrence to use his legs more.

The outcomes are obvious. The Jags have won seven games in a row and will be the conference's number three seed. Coen receives the tiniest deduction in the rankings because he took over a skilled team, but he has demonstrated he can get the most out of that roster.

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

Every Coach of the Year argument has a pivotal decision. For Mike Macdonald, it was his QB move.

Moving on from a incumbent, signing a different signal-caller and pairing him with an new play-caller might have derailed the campaign in October. Rather, it shaped it. By the mid point of the season, the acquisition was an MVP front-runner. He has cooled off after that hot streak, slipping to a lower rank in EPA per dropback over the second half of the season, putting him only a single spot ahead of peers.

Still