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Ordinarily, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year award adheres to a simple script. It often functions as a type of apology. Our apologies we got wrong your squad in our pre-campaign predictions.

In theory, it's a clear-cut line: the skipper who orchestrated the biggest turnaround wins the award. In practice, it sparks an yearly discussion about preseason outlooks and whether we're truly rewarding superior coaching or simply the greatest shock.

Yet this year's competition is distinctly unique. The pool of contenders is remarkably deep. It has been the year of comebacks. The league has been chaotic, with reigning conference champions falling away and longtime underperformers improving in unison. Under an normal year, Sean Payton guiding the his team to the top of the conference would make him the stone-cold favorite. Yet in such a turbulent and entertaining season, he's facing multiple other exceptional candidates.

Here is how the ideal vote should shake out.

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

Coach of the Year selectors adore quarterbacks. They always have. A certain coach in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. A third in 2022. Should you transform a franchise QB, you're halfway to winning the award.

Ben Johnson hasn't just corrected Caleb Williams; he's freed him. Within an ideal ecosystem, Williams has been afforded the chance to display his rare ability. Since midseason onward, the Chicago offense rank number four in offensive Expected Points Added per play. That's not a lucky run – it's consistent dominance. With Johnson, Williams has become increasingly confident, far less careless, and has eagerly submitted to the gameplan rather than improvising. It is an offense designed solely in the coach's image: a physical run game, a steady dose of play-action passes and a imaginative aerial game that creates wide receiver targets consistently. Williams has taken advantage. And when easy reads haven't been available, he's been capable to conjure magic from nothing.

Johnson came to the Bears with a clear offensive blueprint. Virtually every gamble – overhauling the offensive line, featuring the pass-catchers, transforming the QB into a rhythm passer – has paid off. This is rare for a rookie skipper. And it's rarer yet for a coach who entered the building with the level of pressure Johnson did. For consecutive straight offseasons, he was the top name on the head coaching carousel. However when it comes to hiring a leader, there are no sure things. Remarkably, Johnson has met expectations – and even exceeded them. He's proven not just to be a offensive wizard but the kind of leader that can inject fresh energy into an organization.

In a ordinary year, Johnson would be the overwhelming choice. Yet this is not a normal year!

Where Johnson's case comes a bit into trouble is on defense. The Chicago defense presently sit in the bottom third in defensive efficiency. They are relying on takeaways, and takeaways are famously fickle. Coaches can stress creating turnovers, but no one can ensure it. Johnson is on the list because the offensive production is sustainable. He's not higher because luck is doing too much of the defense's work. If not for a few breaks of the ball, the Bears would be two wins worse off. It's been an remarkable transformation, and the core is in place for sustained success. But he falls just short in this ranking.

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

Coen is in a comparable situation to Johnson. He's another first-time head coach who has masterminded a rapid turnaround. Over the stretch run of the season, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the finest all-around football of his professional life. And he's also spearheaded the transformation of a defense that now ranks number five in the league in EPA per play.

Even more impressively, he has nailed the leadership aspects, which was not a guarantee after his initial public introduction and some of his preseason decisions.

Coen walked into the Jaguars with an exceptionally inexperienced staff. Unlike other coaches, who packed their staff with the perfect staff cocktail of new ideas and experience, he bet on newbies. Starting with the leader himself to coordinators to position coaches, the Jaguars are stocked with first-timers. That type of setup is intriguing on paper, but often fails in practice – as past failures are a cautionary tale – because everybody is figuring out a new job in real-time. Yet Coen has pulled the entire group and everything into sync.

After an early strong start, there was a possibility that the season would go off the track. A mid-year setback had the team wobbling once more. That's typically when leaders panic and change too much. He did not. Rather, he streamlined things. The offense stopped chasing explosive answers and started hunting sustainable ones. The coach recentered the attack around his playmakers and the running game, and asked Lawrence to use his mobility more.

The results are evident. The Jags have won multiple games consecutively and will be the conference's number three seed. Coen receives the tiniest knock in the rankings because he inherited a talented roster, but he has proven he can maximize that talent.

3) Mike Macdonald, His Team, Their Record

Each Coach of the Year narrative has a defining decision. For Mike Macdonald, it was his QB move.

Moving on from a incumbent, bringing in a new signal-caller and pairing him with an innovative play-caller might have derailed the season in the early weeks. Instead, it shaped it. Through the mid point of the season, the acquisition was an Most Valuable Player contender. He has regressed after that hot streak, slipping to a lower rank in EPA per dropback over the second half of the season, placing him just a single spot ahead of peers.

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