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Ordinarily, the NFL's Head Coach of the Year honor follows a simple script. It commonly acts as a kind of apology. We regret we underestimated your team in our preseason predictions.

Theoretically, it's a direct path: the coach who engineered the biggest resurgence receives the award. However, it sparks an yearly debate about preseason outlooks and whether we're actually rewarding superior coaching or just the biggest surprise.

But this year's field is profoundly unique. The list of contenders is exceptionally strong. It has been the season of resurgences. The NFL has been unpredictable, with reigning conference winners declining and recent strugglers ascending collectively. Under an normal season, Sean Payton guiding the Denver Broncos to the top of the conference would make him the stone-cold front-runner. But in such a chaotic and thrilling year, he's up against multiple other outstanding candidates.

Here is how the hypothetical vote ought to look.

5) Ben Johnson, His Team, 11-5

Voters for Coach of the Year voters adore quarterbacks. They always have. Sean McVay in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. Should you transform a quarterback, you're halfway to winning the award.

Ben Johnson not only corrected his young quarterback; he's freed him. In the right system, Williams has been given the opportunity to demonstrate his rare ability. From midseason onward, the Bears rank number four in offensive Expected Points Added per play. This isn't a lucky run – it's prolonged excellence. With his guidance, the quarterback has become more confident, less reckless, and has eagerly submitted to the gameplan rather than improvising. It is an offense designed solely in Johnson's vision: a physical run game, a steady dose of play-action passes and a innovative aerial game that frees wide receiver receivers everywhere. The QB has taken advantage. And when openings haven't been available, he's been able to spin magic out of nothing.

The coach arrived to Chicago with a clear offensive vision. Almost each bet – rebuilding the offensive line, highlighting the pass-catchers, turning the QB into a timing-based passer – has succeeded. That's rare for a rookie skipper. And it's rarer yet for a coach who walked into the building with the kind of hype he did. For consecutive straight cycles, he was the top name on the coaching carousel. However when it comes to selecting a leader, there are no guarantees. Remarkably, Johnson has lived up to the hype – and even exceeded them. He's proven not only to be a scheme wizard but the kind of leader that can breathe new life into an organization.

In a typical season, Johnson would be the clear-cut favorite. Yet the current is not a normal year!

Where Johnson's candidacy runs a bit into trouble is on the defensive side. The Chicago defense currently sit in the bottom third in defensive success rate. They are surviving on turnovers, and turnovers are notoriously unreliable. Coaches can focus on creating turnovers, but no one can ensure it. Johnson is on the list because the offensive production is sustainable. He's ranked lower because luck is doing an outsized share of the defensive heavy lifting. If not for a few breaks of the ball, the Bears would be two wins worse off. It's been an remarkable turnaround, and the core is in place for long-term success. But he comes up just short here.

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

Coen is in a comparable spot to Johnson. He's another rookie head coach who has orchestrated a rapid turnaround. Over the crucial final weeks of the season, he has his franchise quarterback playing the most complete all-around 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 EPA per play.

What's more impressively, Coen has nailed the intangibles aspects, which was not a guarantee after his initial press conference introduction and some of his preseason moves.

The coach took over the Jaguars with an exceptionally inexperienced coaching staff. Unlike Johnson, who surrounded themselves with the ideal staff mix of new ideas and veteran savvy, Coen hired first-timers. Starting with the head coach on down to coordinators to position coaches, the Jags are stocked with rookies. That type of setup is intriguing in theory, but frequently fails in practice – with other teams are a warning – because everyone is learning a their job on the fly. Yet Coen has managed to bring everyone and everything into sync.

After an early hot beginning, there was a chance that the season would veer off the track. A midseason collapse had the team wobbling again. That's usually when leaders panic and change too much. Coen did not. Instead, he simplified the approach. Jacksonville stopped chasing explosive answers and started hunting reliable ones. The coach refocused the attack around key players and the ground attack, and encouraged his QB to use his legs more often.

The results are evident. The Jags have won multiple games consecutively and will be the conference's number three playoff seed. Coen receives the slightest deduction in the standings because he took over a talented roster, but he has demonstrated he can get the most out of that roster.

3) Mike Macdonald, Seattle Seahawks, 13-3

Every Strong of the Year case has a defining decision. For the Seahawks coach, it was his quarterback decision.

Moving on from a veteran, bringing in a new signal-caller and partnering him with an innovative play-caller might have derailed the campaign in October. Instead, it shaped it. Through the middle point of the season, the acquisition was an MVP front-runner. He has cooled off after that hot streak, slipping to 23rd in EPA per dropback over the second half of the schedule, placing him only one place ahead of peers.

Still