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Ordinarily, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year trophy follows a straightforward pattern. It often serves as a kind of mea culpa. Our apologies we got wrong your squad in our preseason predictions.

On paper, it's a clear-cut line: the coach who engineered the largest resurgence receives the prize. In reality, it fuels an yearly argument about expectations and whether we're genuinely rewarding excellent coaching or just the greatest upset.

Yet this year's race is profoundly unique. The group of candidates is unusually talented. It has been the year of comebacks. The NFL has been unpredictable, with reigning division winners fading and recent strugglers improving collectively. During an typical year, a coach leading the his team to the top of the AFC would make him the overwhelming favorite. Yet in such a chaotic and fun year, he's facing multiple other elite coaches.

This is how the ideal ballot could shake out.

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

Voters for Coach of the Year voters are fascinated by quarterbacks. History shows this. Sean McVay in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. A third in 2022. If you fix a franchise QB, you're well on your way to winning the award.

The Bears' head coach didn't merely corrected his young quarterback; he's unlocked him. Given a proper ecosystem, Williams has been given the chance to showcase his otherworldly ability. From midseason onward, the Chicago offense rank fourth in offensive EPA per play. That's not a brief surge – it's consistent excellence. With his guidance, the quarterback has become increasingly confident, far less careless, and has willingly submitted to the scheme instead of freelancing. It is an offense constructed entirely in the coach's image: a bully-ball ground attack, a consistent dose of play-action and a imaginative passing attack that frees wide-open targets consistently. The QB has taken advantage. And when easy reads weren't there, he's been capable to create magic out of broken plays.

The coach came to Chicago with a specific offensive philosophy. Virtually every decision – overhauling the trenches, featuring the tight ends, transforming Williams into a timing-based passer – has worked. This is uncommon for a rookie skipper. And it's rarer still for a coach who entered the building with the immense hype he did. For two straight offseasons, he was the hottest candidate on the head coaching market. However when it comes to hiring a head coach, there are zero guarantees. Remarkably, he has met the hype – and even exceeded them. He's demonstrated not only to be a scheme wizard but the type of culture builder that can breathe fresh energy into an franchise.

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

Where his case comes a bit unstuck is on defense. The Chicago defense currently rank 25th in defensive success rate. They are living on takeaways, and turnovers are notoriously fickle. Defensive minds can focus on ball disruption, but nobody can guarantee it. He is on the list because the offense is sustainable. He's ranked lower because luck is doing too much of the defense's heavy lifting. With a couple bounces of the ball, the team would be two wins worse off. It's been an remarkable turnaround, and the foundation is established for long-term winning. However Johnson falls just short in this ranking.

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

The Jaguars' coach is in a similar situation to Johnson. He's another rookie leader who has engineered a dramatic turnaround. Over the stretch run of the year, he has his franchise quarterback playing the finest all-around football of his professional life. And he's also spearheaded the transformation of a defense that now ranks fifth in the league in Expected Points Added per play.

What's more notably, Coen has nailed the leadership aspects, which was not a certainty after his early press conference appearances and some of his preseason moves.

The coach took over the Jaguars with an uncommonly raw staff. Unlike Johnson, who packed themselves with the ideal coaching cocktail of new ideas and veteran savvy, Coen trusted first-timers. From the head coach on down to assistants to assistant coaches, the Jags are filled with rookies. That type of approach is intriguing in theory, but often fails in practice – as past failures are a cautionary tale – because everyone is learning a new job in real-time. But Coen has managed to bring the entire group and everything together.

Following an initial hot beginning, there was a chance that the campaign would go off the track. A mid-year setback had the team stumbling again. That's usually when leaders panic and change too much. He did not. Instead, he streamlined things. Jacksonville stopped pursuing explosive plays and started seeking consistent ones. The coach refocused the attack around his playmakers and the ground attack, and asked Lawrence to use his legs more.

The outcomes are obvious. The Jags have won multiple games in a row and will be the AFC's number three playoff seed. Coen receives the tiniest knock in the rankings because he took over a talented team, but he has proven he can maximize that talent.

3) Mike Macdonald, Seattle Seahawks, Their Record

Each Coach of the Year argument has a hinge moment. For the Seahawks coach, it was his quarterback choice.

Moving on from a veteran, signing a new signal-caller and pairing him with an innovative play-caller could have ended the campaign in October. Rather, it defined it. By the mid point of the year, the acquisition was an MVP contender. He has cooled off after that time, dropping to 23rd in efficiency per pass attempt over the latter part of the season, placing him only a single place ahead of other QBs.

Still