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Ordinarily, the NFL's Head Coach of the Year trophy adheres to a straightforward pattern. It frequently acts as a form of apology. Our apologies we underestimated your squad in our pre-campaign predictions.

In theory, it's a clear-cut path: the coach who orchestrated the most dramatic turnaround wins the award. However, it fuels an annual argument about preseason outlooks and whether we're truly rewarding superior coaching or simply the biggest upset.

But the latest field is distinctly different. The list of contenders is exceptionally deep. It has been the year of comebacks. The NFL has been messy, with recent division champions declining and longtime also-rans improving together. In an normal season, a coach guiding the his team to the summit of the AFC would make him the stone-cold front-runner. Yet in such a turbulent and thrilling year, he's competing with several other exceptional coaches.

This is how the hypothetical vote should 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. A third in 2022. When you transform a franchise QB, you're well on your way to winning the award.

Ben Johnson not only corrected Caleb Williams; he's unlocked him. In the right ecosystem, Williams has been given the opportunity to demonstrate his special talent. Since midseason onward, the Bears rank fourth in offensive Expected Points Added per play. This isn't a brief surge – it's prolonged performance. With his guidance, Williams has become increasingly confident, less careless, and has eagerly surrendered to the gameplan instead of improvising. It is an attack designed solely in Johnson's vision: a bully-ball run game, a steady helping of play-action passes and a innovative aerial game that creates wide-open targets all over the field. Williams has taken advantage. And when clear throws haven't been there, he's been able to create big plays out of nothing.

The coach came to Chicago with a clear offensive blueprint. Virtually each decision – rebuilding the trenches, utilizing the pass-catchers, transforming the QB into a timing-based passer – has succeeded. This is uncommon for a rookie head coach. And it's even more uncommon still for a coach who walked into the building with the kind of hype he 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 guarantees. Remarkably, Johnson has met the hype – and even surpassed them. He's proven not only to be a offensive dork but the type of leader that can breathe fresh energy into an franchise.

In a typical year, he would be the runaway choice. Yet this isn't a typical season!

Where his case runs a bit into trouble is on the defensive side. The Chicago defense presently sit 25th in defensive efficiency. They are living on turnovers, and takeaways are famously unreliable. Coaches can focus on creating turnovers, but no one can ensure it. He is on the ballot because the offensive production is sustainable. He's ranked lower because variance is doing too much of the defense's work. With a few bounces of the ball, the team would be two wins behind. It's been an remarkable transformation, and the core is established for sustained success. But Johnson comes up just short in this ranking.

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

Coen is in a similar position to Johnson. He's a fellow first-time head coach who has orchestrated a dramatic turnaround. Over the stretch run of the season, he has his franchise quarterback playing the finest overall ball of his professional life. And he's also spearheaded the remaking of a defense that now ranks fifth in the league in Expected Points Added per play.

What's more notably, Coen has mastered the leadership stuff, which was not a guarantee following his early public introduction and some of his preseason moves.

The coach took over the Jaguars with an exceptionally raw staff. Unlike Johnson, who packed their staff with the ideal staff blend of new ideas and experience, he trusted first-timers. Starting with the head coach himself to assistants to assistant coaches, the Jags are filled with first-timers. That type of setup is exciting on paper, but often collapses in practice – as past failures are a cautionary tale – because everyone is figuring out a their job on the fly. But Coen has pulled the entire group and everything into sync.

Following an initial strong start, there was a possibility that the campaign would go off the rails. A mid-year setback caused the Jags wobbling again. That's typically when coaches panic and change too much. Coen did not. Instead, he streamlined the approach. Jacksonville stopped chasing explosive plays and started hunting sustainable ones. The coach refocused the attack around his playmakers and the running game, and encouraged his QB to use his legs more often.

The results are obvious. The Jags have won multiple games in a row and will be the AFC's No 3 playoff seed. Coen gets the slightest deduction in the standings because he took over a skilled team, but he has proven he can maximize that roster.

3) Mike Macdonald, His Team, 13-3

Every Strong of the Year narrative has a pivotal moment. For the Seahawks coach, it was his quarterback decision.

Parting ways from a incumbent, bringing in a different signal-caller and pairing him with an new offensive coordinator might have derailed the campaign in the early weeks. Rather, it shaped it. Through the middle point of the year, the new QB was an MVP front-runner. He has regressed since that time, dropping to 23rd in EPA per dropback over the second half of the season, placing him just one spot ahead of peers.

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