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Typically, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year award follows a simple pattern. It frequently functions as a type of mea culpa. We regret we underestimated your squad in our preseason projections.

In theory, it's a direct trajectory: the coach who orchestrated the most dramatic turnaround receives the award. In practice, it fuels an yearly argument about expectations and whether we're genuinely honoring superior leadership or just the greatest upset.

But the current competition is profoundly different. The list of contenders is unusually talented. It has been the season of resurgences. The league has been messy, with reigning division champions declining and longtime also-rans improving in unison. In an ordinary year, Sean Payton leading the Denver Broncos to the top of the AFC would make him the clear front-runner. But in such a turbulent and fun season, he's up against five other elite candidates.

Here is how the ideal vote could look.

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

Coach of the Year voters love QBs. This is a tradition. A certain coach in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. A third in 2022. Should you solve a quarterback, you're well on your way to winning the award.

Ben Johnson hasn't just fixed his young quarterback; he's unleashed him. Within an ideal ecosystem, the QB has been afforded the chance to display his rare ability. Since midseason onward, the Bears rank number four in offensive EPA per play. This isn't a brief surge – it's prolonged dominance. With Johnson, the quarterback has become more decisive, less careless, and has willingly surrendered to the gameplan instead of going rogue. It is an attack built solely in Johnson's image: a physical ground attack, a heavy helping of play-action and a imaginative aerial game that springs wide receiver targets consistently. The QB has thrived. And when easy reads haven't been available, he's been able to spin magic from broken plays.

Johnson arrived to the Bears with a specific offensive blueprint. Virtually every gamble – rebuilding the trenches, utilizing the tight ends, turning the QB into a rhythm thrower – has succeeded. This is uncommon for a first-year head coach. And it's rarer yet for a coach who entered the building with the kind of pressure Johnson did. For consecutive straight cycles, he was the most sought-after candidate on the coaching market. However when it comes to selecting a leader, there are no sure things. Remarkably, Johnson has lived up to the hype – and even surpassed them. He's demonstrated not just to be a offensive dork but the kind of culture builder that can breathe fresh energy into an organization.

During a typical season, Johnson would be the overwhelming choice. Yet the current isn't a typical year!

Where Johnson's candidacy runs slightly unstuck is on the defensive side. The Chicago defense presently sit in the bottom third in defensive success rate. They are surviving on turnovers, and takeaways are notoriously fickle. Coaches can focus on ball disruption, but no one can ensure it. Johnson is on the list because the offensive production is legitimate. He's ranked lower because variance is doing an outsized share of the defense's work. With a couple bounces of the ball, the Bears would be two victories worse off. It's been an exceptional turnaround, and the foundation is in place for long-term winning. However Johnson comes up short in this ranking.

4) Liam Coen, His Team, Their Record

The Jaguars' coach is in a comparable spot to Johnson. He's another first-time leader who has engineered a dramatic turnaround. Over the crucial final weeks of the season, he has his franchise quarterback playing the finest overall ball of his career. And he's also spearheaded the transformation of a defensive unit that now sits at number five in the NFL in Expected Points Added per play.

Even more impressively, he has excelled at the off-field aspects, which was not a given after his early public introduction and some of his offseason moves.

Coen walked into Jacksonville with an uncommonly raw coaching staff. Unlike other coaches, who packed their staff with the ideal staff cocktail of youth and veteran savvy, Coen trusted newbies. From the head coach on down to assistants to assistant coaches, the Jags are stocked with rookies. That type of setup is intriguing on paper, but often collapses in reality – as past failures are a cautionary tale – because everyone is learning a their job in real-time. Yet Coen has managed to bring the entire group and all elements together.

After an early hot beginning, there was a risk that the campaign would go off the rails. A midseason setback caused the Jags wobbling once more. That's typically when leaders overcorrect. Coen did not. Rather, he simplified things. Jacksonville stopped chasing explosive plays and started hunting sustainable ones. The coach refocused the attack around his playmakers and the running game, and encouraged Lawrence to use his legs more.

The outcomes are clear. The Jags have won multiple games in a row and will be the conference's number three playoff seed. He gets the tiniest knock in the rankings because he took over a skilled team, but he has proven he can maximize that talent.

3) Mike Macdonald, His Team, 13-3

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

Parting ways from a veteran, signing a new quarterback and pairing him with an new play-caller could have derailed the season in the early weeks. Instead, it made it. By the middle point of the year, the acquisition was an Most Valuable Player candidate. He has fallen away since that time, dropping to 23rd in efficiency per pass attempt over the latter part of the schedule, putting him just one place ahead of other QBs.

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