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Usually, the NFL's Head Coach of the Year honor follows a simple pattern. It often functions as a type of mea culpa. We regret we underestimated your team in our preseason predictions.

Theoretically, it's a clear-cut path: the skipper who orchestrated the most dramatic turnaround wins the prize. However, it creates an yearly debate about expectations and whether we're truly honoring superior coaching or merely the most shocking shock.

But the latest field is profoundly different. The pool of contenders is remarkably deep. It has been the year of resurgences. The NFL has been chaotic, with reigning conference winners fading and recent also-rans improving in unison. Under an normal season, a coach leading the Denver Broncos to the summit of the conference would make him the stone-cold front-runner. But in this turbulent and fun year, he's facing multiple other elite candidates.

Below is how the hypothetical ballot should be structured.

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

Coach of the Year selectors are fascinated by signal-callers. History shows this. A certain coach in 2017. Another in 2020. A third in 2022. If you solve a quarterback, you're halfway to winning the award.

Ben Johnson hasn't just corrected his young quarterback; he's freed him. Within an ideal ecosystem, the QB has been given the opportunity to showcase his otherworldly talent. From midseason onward, the Chicago offense sit at fourth in offensive EPA per play. That's not a hot streak – it's prolonged dominance. With his guidance, Williams has become increasingly decisive, less careless, and has willingly submitted to the gameplan rather than freelancing. It is an offense built entirely in the coach's vision: a bully-ball run game, a heavy helping of play-action passes and a creative passing attack that creates wide-open targets consistently. Williams has capitalized. And when clear throws haven't been there, he's been able to create magic out of broken plays.

Johnson came to Chicago with a clear offensive vision. Almost every decision – overhauling the trenches, featuring the pass-catchers, transforming Williams into a timing-based thrower – has paid off. This is uncommon for a first-year skipper. And it's rarer yet for a leader who walked into the organization with the kind of expectations Johnson did. For consecutive straight cycles, he was the most sought-after candidate on the head coaching market. However when it comes to selecting a leader, there are zero sure things. Remarkably, Johnson has lived up to the hype – and even surpassed them. He's demonstrated not just to be a scheme dork but the kind of culture builder that can breathe new life into an franchise.

During a ordinary year, he would be the clear-cut favorite. Yet the current is not a normal season!

The area where Johnson's case comes a bit unstuck is on the defensive side. The Bears presently rank 25th in defensive success rate. They are surviving on turnovers, and turnovers are notoriously fickle. Coaches can emphasise creating turnovers, but nobody can ensure it. He is on the ballot because the offensive production is legitimate. He's not higher because variance is doing an outsized share of the defense's work. With a couple breaks of the ball, the team would be two wins behind. It's been an exceptional turnaround, and the core is established for sustained success. But he falls short here.

4) The Jacksonville Jaguars Coach, Jacksonville Jaguars, 12-4

Coen is in a similar situation to Johnson. He's a fellow rookie leader who has masterminded a rapid resurgence. Over the crucial final weeks of the year, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the best overall ball of his career. And he's also spearheaded the remaking of a defense that now ranks number five in the NFL in EPA per play.

Even more impressively, Coen has mastered the leadership aspects, which wasn't a guarantee after his early press conference introduction and some of his offseason decisions.

The coach took over Jacksonville with an exceptionally raw coaching staff. Unlike other coaches, who surrounded themselves with the perfect staff blend of youth and veteran savvy, he hired first-timers. From the head coach on down to assistants to assistant coaches, the Jaguars are filled with rookies. That type of setup is exciting in theory, but frequently collapses in reality – as past failures are a warning – because everybody is figuring out a new job in real-time. Yet Coen has pulled the entire group and everything together.

After an initial hot start, there was a possibility that the campaign would go off the rails. A mid-year setback had the Jags stumbling again. That's usually when leaders panic and change too much. Coen didn't. Instead, he streamlined the approach. The offense stopped pursuing home-run plays and started hunting consistent ones. Coen recentered the offense 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 AFC's No 3 seed. Coen receives the tiniest knock 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, Their Record

Each Coach of the Year narrative has a pivotal decision. For Mike Macdonald, it was his quarterback choice.

Parting ways from a incumbent, bringing in a new signal-caller and pairing him with an new offensive coordinator might have ended the campaign in October. Instead, it shaped it. Through the mid point of the year, the acquisition was an Most Valuable Player front-runner. He has fallen away since that hot streak, dropping to 23rd in efficiency per pass attempt over the latter part of the schedule, placing him only a single spot ahead of peers.

Still