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Ordinarily, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year honor adheres to a straightforward pattern. It frequently serves as a type of mea culpa. Our apologies we got wrong your franchise in our preseason predictions.

On paper, it's a clear-cut line: the coach who oversaw the biggest resurgence wins the award. In practice, it sparks an yearly debate about expectations and whether we're genuinely honoring superior leadership or merely the most shocking surprise.

But the latest field is distinctly different. The pool of nominees is unusually talented. It has been the season of comebacks. The league has been unpredictable, with reigning conference champions falling away and longtime underperformers improving in unison. Under an typical year, Sean Payton leading the his team to the summit of the AFC would make him the clear favorite. Yet in such a chaotic and thrilling year, he's facing five other elite coaches.

This is how the hypothetical ballot ought to be structured.

5) Ben Johnson, Chicago Bears, Their Record

Voters for Coach of the Year selectors adore signal-callers. They always have. A certain coach in 2017. Another in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. When you solve a quarterback, you're well on your way to winning the award.

The Bears' head coach not only corrected his young quarterback; he's unlocked him. In the right ecosystem, Williams has been afforded the chance to demonstrate his otherworldly talent. Since midseason onward, the Chicago offense rank number four in offensive Expected Points Added per play. This isn't a brief surge – it's prolonged dominance. With Johnson, Williams has become increasingly decisive, far less reckless, and has eagerly surrendered to the system instead of freelancing. It is an offense designed entirely in Johnson's image: a bully-ball run game, a heavy dose of play-action passes and a innovative aerial game that springs wide receiver targets everywhere. The QB has capitalized. And when clear throws weren't there, he's been capable to conjure magic from nothing.

The coach arrived to Chicago with a clear offensive vision. Almost every bet – rebuilding the offensive line, utilizing the tight ends, transforming the QB into a timing-based passer – has paid off. This is uncommon for a first-year skipper. And it's rarer still for a coach who entered the organization with the kind of hype Johnson did. For consecutive straight offseasons, he was the top candidate on the coaching market. But when it comes to selecting a head coach, there are no sure things. Remarkably, he has met the hype – and even surpassed them. He's proven not just to be a offensive wizard but the type of leader that can breathe new life into an franchise.

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

Where his candidacy comes slightly into trouble is on the defensive side. The Bears currently sit 25th in defensive success rate. They are surviving on takeaways, and turnovers are notoriously unreliable. Coaches can stress creating turnovers, but nobody can ensure it. Johnson is on the list because the offense is sustainable. He's ranked lower because variance is doing an outsized share of the defense's work. If not for a couple breaks of the ball, the team would be two victories behind. It's been an remarkable turnaround, and the core is in place for sustained success. However he falls just short here.

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

The Jaguars' coach is in a similar position to Johnson. He's a fellow rookie leader who has orchestrated a dramatic turnaround. Over the crucial final weeks of the year, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the best all-around football of his career. And he's also overseen the transformation of a defense that now ranks number five in the league in EPA per play.

Even more notably, Coen has nailed the off-field aspects, which was not a certainty following his initial public appearances and some of his preseason decisions.

The coach took over the Jaguars with an exceptionally inexperienced staff. In contrast to Johnson, who surrounded their staff with the ideal staff mix of youth and experience, he bet on newbies. Starting with the leader himself to assistants to position coaches, the Jaguars are stocked with first-timers. That kind of approach is intriguing in theory, but frequently fails in reality – with other teams are a warning – because everybody is learning a new job on the fly. But Coen has managed to bring the entire group and everything together.

Following an early strong beginning, there was a chance that the campaign would go off the track. A mid-year collapse had the Jags wobbling once more. That's usually when coaches panic and change too much. Coen didn't. Instead, he streamlined the approach. Jacksonville stopped pursuing home-run answers and started hunting reliable ones. Coen refocused the attack around key players and the running game, and encouraged Lawrence to use his mobility more often.

The results are evident. The Jaguars have won multiple games in a row and will be the AFC's number three seed. He gets the slightest deduction in the standings because he took over a skilled roster, but he has demonstrated he can get the most out of that roster.

3) Mike Macdonald, His Team, 13-3

Every Strong of the Year argument has a hinge decision. For Mike Macdonald, it was his QB choice.

Parting ways from a veteran, bringing in a different quarterback and pairing him with an new offensive coordinator might have derailed the season in October. Rather, it defined it. By the mid point of the season, the acquisition was an Most Valuable Player contender. He has cooled off after that time, dropping to 23rd in EPA per pass attempt over the latter part of the schedule, placing him only a single spot ahead of peers.

Still