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Ordinarily, the NFL's Head Coach of the Year award adheres to a simple pattern. It often serves as a kind of apology. Our apologies we underestimated your team in our pre-campaign forecasts.

On paper, it's a direct path: the skipper who orchestrated the most dramatic improvement is handed the award. In reality, it creates an yearly argument about expectations and whether we're genuinely rewarding excellent leadership or simply the biggest upset.

Yet the latest competition is fundamentally unique. The group of contenders is unusually talented. It has been the season of resurgences. The NFL has been chaotic, with reigning division winners falling away and recent also-rans improving together. During an typical season, a coach leading the Denver Broncos to the top of the conference would make him the clear front-runner. Yet in this wild and thrilling year, he's facing five other elite coaches.

This is how the ideal vote should shake out.

5) The Chicago Bears Coach, Chicago Bears, Their Record

Voters for Coach of the Year selectors are fascinated by signal-callers. They always have. A certain coach in 2017. Another in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. Should you solve a quarterback, you're well on your way home.

Ben Johnson hasn't just corrected Caleb Williams; he's unlocked him. Within an ideal system, Williams has been afforded the opportunity to demonstrate his special ability. Since midseason onward, the Bears sit at number four in offensive Expected Points Added per play. That's not a lucky run – it's sustained dominance. Under his guidance, Williams has become more confident, less careless, and has eagerly surrendered to the gameplan instead of improvising. It is an offense designed solely in the coach's image: a bully-ball run game, a steady helping of play-action passes and a imaginative passing attack that frees wide-open targets all over the field. Williams has thrived. And when openings haven't been available, he's been able to spin big plays from nothing.

The coach came to Chicago with a specific offensive philosophy. Virtually each gamble – rebuilding the offensive line, utilizing the pass-catchers, transforming Williams into a timing-based thrower – has paid off. This is uncommon for a rookie skipper. And it's rarer yet for a coach who walked into the organization with the immense hype Johnson did. For two straight offseasons, he was the top candidate on the head coaching market. However when it comes to hiring a head coach, there are zero guarantees. Remarkably, he has lived up to expectations – and even surpassed them. He's demonstrated not only to be a scheme wizard but the type of culture builder that can breathe fresh energy into an franchise.

During a ordinary season, he would be the clear-cut choice. Yet this is not a normal campaign!

Where Johnson's candidacy comes slightly unstuck is on defense. The Bears currently rank 25th in defensive success rate. They are living on takeaways, and turnovers are notoriously unreliable. Defensive minds can emphasise ball disruption, but no one can guarantee it. He is on the list because the offensive production is legitimate. He's not higher because luck is doing too much of the defense's heavy lifting. With a few bounces of the ball, the Bears would be several wins behind. It's been an remarkable turnaround, and the foundation is established for long-term winning. However Johnson comes up short in this ranking.

4) Liam Coen, Jacksonville Jaguars, Their Record

Coen is in a comparable situation to his counterpart. He's another rookie leader who has orchestrated a swift turnaround. Over the crucial final weeks of the season, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the best all-around ball of his career. And he's also overseen the transformation of a defensive unit that now ranks number five in the NFL in Expected Points Added per play.

Even more impressively, Coen has nailed the off-field aspects, which was not a given following his early public introduction and some of his preseason decisions.

The coach took over the Jaguars with an exceptionally raw coaching staff. In contrast to other coaches, who surrounded themselves with the ideal staff mix of new ideas and experience, Coen bet on newbies. From the head coach on down to assistants to assistant coaches, the Jags are filled with first-timers. That kind of approach is exciting 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. But he has pulled everyone and all elements into sync.

Following an early strong start, there was a risk that the campaign would veer off the rails. A midseason collapse caused the team wobbling once more. That's usually when leaders overcorrect. He didn't. Instead, he streamlined the approach. Jacksonville stopped pursuing home-run answers and started hunting reliable ones. Coen refocused the offense around key players and the running game, and encouraged his QB to use his mobility more.

The outcomes are obvious. The Jaguars have won multiple games in a row and will be the AFC's No 3 playoff seed. He receives the tiniest deduction in the rankings because he inherited a skilled roster, but he has demonstrated he can maximize that roster.

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

Every Coach of the Year narrative has a defining decision. For the Seahawks coach, it was his QB choice.

Moving on from a veteran, bringing in a different quarterback and partnering him with an new offensive coordinator might have ended the season in the early weeks. Instead, it shaped it. By the middle point of the season, the acquisition was an MVP candidate. He has cooled off after that hot streak, dropping to a lower rank in EPA per dropback over the latter part of the schedule, putting him only one spot ahead of other QBs.

Still