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Ordinarily, the NFL's Head Coach of the Year honor adheres to a simple script. It often serves as a form of apology. Our apologies we got wrong your team in our preseason predictions.

On paper, it's a direct path: the coach who engineered the largest turnaround receives the award. However, it fuels an yearly debate about preseason outlooks and whether we're genuinely rewarding superior coaching or just the biggest surprise.

However the current competition is profoundly unique. The group of nominees is unusually deep. It has been the campaign of resurgences. The league has been messy, with reigning division champions fading and longtime underperformers ascending in unison. In an typical season, Sean Payton leading the Denver Broncos to the top of the conference would make him the stone-cold favorite. But in such a chaotic and thrilling year, he's competing with multiple other outstanding candidates.

Below is how the hypothetical vote could shake out.

5) Ben Johnson, Chicago Bears, Their Record

Voters for Coach of the Year selectors adore signal-callers. They always have. Sean McVay in 2017. Another in 2020. A third in 2022. When you solve a quarterback, you're halfway to winning the award.

The Bears' head coach didn't merely corrected his young quarterback; he's unlocked him. In the right system, the QB has been afforded the chance to showcase his special ability. From Week 9, the Chicago offense sit at number four in offensive Expected Points Added per play. That's not a hot streak – it's prolonged dominance. Under his guidance, the quarterback has become more decisive, far less reckless, and has willingly submitted to the system instead of going rogue. It is an attack built solely in Johnson's vision: a physical run game, a consistent helping of play-action and a innovative aerial game that creates wide-open receivers everywhere. Williams has capitalized. And when openings weren't available, he's been capable to create magic from nothing.

Johnson came to the Bears with a specific offensive blueprint. Almost every bet – rebuilding the offensive line, utilizing the tight ends, transforming the QB into a rhythm passer – has worked. This is rare for a first-year head coach. And it's rarer yet for a leader who entered the organization with the level of expectations he did. For two straight cycles, he was the most sought-after candidate on the coaching market. But when it comes to selecting a leader, there are zero sure things. Somehow, Johnson has met expectations – and even surpassed them. He's demonstrated not only to be a scheme wizard but the kind of culture builder that can inject fresh energy into an franchise.

During a normal season, Johnson would be the runaway choice. But this is not a typical campaign!

Where Johnson's case comes a bit unstuck is on defense. The Chicago defense presently rank 25th in defensive efficiency. They are surviving on takeaways, and takeaways are famously fickle. Defensive minds can focus on creating turnovers, but no one can ensure it. Johnson is on the ballot because the offensive production is sustainable. He's not higher because luck is doing an outsized share of the defensive work. With a couple bounces of the ball, the Bears would be several victories worse off. It's been an exceptional transformation, and the foundation is established for sustained success. But he falls just short here.

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

Coen is in a similar position to his counterpart. He's another first-time leader who has masterminded a dramatic turnaround. Over the crucial final weeks of the year, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the most complete overall football of his professional life. And he's also spearheaded the transformation of a defensive unit that now sits at number five in the NFL in EPA per play.

Even more notably, Coen has mastered the leadership aspects, which wasn't a certainty following his early public introduction and some of his offseason decisions.

Coen took over Jacksonville with an exceptionally raw staff. Unlike Johnson, who packed their staff with the ideal coaching cocktail of youth and experience, Coen hired newbies. Starting with the leader himself to coordinators to assistant coaches, the Jaguars are filled with first-timers. That type of approach is intriguing on paper, but often fails in reality – as past failures are a cautionary tale – because everybody is learning a their job in real-time. But Coen has managed to bring everyone and everything together.

After an early hot start, there was a chance that the campaign would veer off the track. A midseason setback caused the team stumbling again. That's usually when leaders panic and change too much. He didn't. Instead, he simplified things. Jacksonville stopped pursuing explosive answers and started seeking reliable ones. The coach refocused the offense around his playmakers and the running game, and encouraged Lawrence to use his legs more.

The outcomes are evident. The Jags have won multiple games in a row and will be the AFC's No 3 seed. He gets the slightest deduction in the rankings because he took over a talented team, but he has demonstrated he can maximize that roster.

3) The Seattle Seahawks Coach, His Team, Their Record

Each Strong of the Year argument has a hinge moment. For the Seahawks coach, it was his quarterback decision.

Parting ways from a incumbent, bringing in a new signal-caller and partnering him with an innovative offensive coordinator could have derailed the season in October. Rather, it shaped it. Through the mid point of the year, the acquisition was an Most Valuable Player contender. He has fallen away after that time, slipping to 23rd in EPA per pass attempt over the second half of the season, putting him just a single place ahead of other QBs.

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