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Typically, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year award adheres to a simple pattern. It often acts as a kind of mea culpa. Our apologies we got wrong your team in our preseason predictions.

Theoretically, it's a direct path: the coach who engineered the largest improvement receives the prize. In practice, it fuels an yearly debate about expectations and whether we're truly rewarding superior leadership or just the most shocking upset.

But this year's competition is distinctly unique. The group of contenders is exceptionally talented. It has been the campaign of comebacks. The league has been messy, with reigning division winners falling away and longtime also-rans rising together. In an typical year, a coach guiding the Denver Broncos to the summit of the AFC would make him the stone-cold front-runner. But in this turbulent and thrilling season, he's facing several other exceptional candidates.

This is how the ideal ballot should shake out.

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

Voters for Coach of the Year voters love QBs. They always have. A certain coach in 2017. Another in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. Should you transform a franchise QB, you're halfway home.

The Bears' head coach not only corrected Caleb Williams; he's unleashed him. Given a proper ecosystem, the QB has been given the opportunity to showcase his rare talent. Since Week 9, the Bears rank number four in offensive Expected Points Added per play. This isn't a brief surge – it's consistent performance. With his guidance, Williams has become increasingly decisive, less reckless, and has willingly surrendered to the scheme rather than freelancing. It is an offense built entirely in Johnson's vision: a physical run game, a heavy dose of play-action passes and a innovative aerial game that creates wide receiver receivers consistently. The QB has capitalized. And when easy reads weren't available, he's been capable to conjure magic out of nothing.

The coach arrived to Chicago with a defined offensive vision. Virtually every decision – rebuilding the offensive line, utilizing the tight ends, turning the QB into a timing-based passer – has worked. This is rare for a first-year head coach. And it's rarer yet for a leader who walked into the organization with the level of pressure Johnson did. For two straight cycles, he was the top candidate on the coaching carousel. However when it comes to hiring a head coach, there are zero guarantees. Somehow, Johnson has met the hype – and even exceeded them. He's proven not only to be a offensive dork but the kind of leader that can breathe new life into an franchise.

During a ordinary season, he would be the clear-cut favorite. Yet this isn't a typical season!

The area where Johnson's case runs slightly unstuck is on the defensive side. The Bears presently sit 25th in defensive success rate. They are living on takeaways, and takeaways are notoriously fickle. Defensive minds can emphasise ball disruption, 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 too much of the defense's heavy lifting. With a couple breaks of the ball, the team would be two wins worse off. It's been an exceptional turnaround, and the foundation is established for long-term winning. However Johnson comes up just short here.

4) Liam Coen, His Team, Their Record

The Jaguars' coach is in a similar spot to Johnson. He's another rookie head coach who has masterminded a dramatic resurgence. Over the crucial final weeks of the season, he has his franchise quarterback playing the most complete overall football of his professional life. And he's also overseen the overhaul of a defense that now ranks number five in the league in EPA per play.

Even more impressively, Coen has nailed the leadership stuff, which was not a given after his initial public appearances and some of his preseason moves.

The coach took over Jacksonville with an exceptionally inexperienced coaching staff. In contrast to Johnson, who surrounded themselves with the ideal coaching mix of youth and experience, Coen bet on newbies. From the head coach himself to assistants to assistant coaches, the Jaguars are stocked with first-timers. That kind of approach is exciting in theory, but often collapses in reality – with other teams are a cautionary tale – because everyone is figuring out a their job on the fly. But Coen has pulled the entire group and all elements together.

After an early strong start, there was a risk that the campaign would go off the rails. A mid-year collapse had the team stumbling once more. That's typically when leaders panic and change too much. Coen didn't. Rather, he simplified things. Jacksonville stopped pursuing explosive plays and started hunting consistent ones. Coen recentered the offense around key players and the ground attack, and encouraged his QB to use his mobility more often.

The results are obvious. The Jaguars have won seven games consecutively and will be the conference's number three seed. He gets the slightest deduction in the standings because he inherited a skilled team, but he has demonstrated he can maximize that talent.

3) Mike Macdonald, Seattle Seahawks, 13-3

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

Parting ways from a incumbent, signing a new signal-caller and pairing him with an new play-caller might have ended the campaign in the early weeks. Rather, it shaped it. Through the middle point of the season, the new QB was an Most Valuable Player front-runner. He has cooled off after that time, dropping to 23rd in efficiency per dropback over the latter part of the season, placing him only one place ahead of peers.

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