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Usually, the NFL's Head Coach of the Year award adheres to a straightforward script. It often functions as a kind of apology. Our apologies we misjudged your franchise in our pre-campaign forecasts.

In theory, it's a clear-cut path: the skipper who engineered the most dramatic turnaround receives the prize. In practice, it sparks an annual discussion about expectations and whether we're actually honoring superior coaching or merely the greatest upset.

But the current competition is distinctly different. The group of contenders is exceptionally strong. It has been the campaign of resurgences. The league has been chaotic, with reigning conference winners declining and recent also-rans ascending collectively. Under an normal season, a coach guiding the Denver Broncos to the summit of the AFC would make him the clear front-runner. Yet in such a wild and entertaining season, he's competing with multiple other elite coaches.

Here is how the ideal ballot should shake out.

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

Voters for Coach of the Year voters adore signal-callers. This is a tradition. Sean McVay in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. When you transform a quarterback, you're halfway to winning the award.

The Bears' head coach didn't merely corrected Caleb Williams; he's unlocked him. In the right system, the QB has been afforded the opportunity to showcase his otherworldly ability. Since midseason onward, the Chicago offense sit at fourth in offensive Expected Points Added per play. This isn't a hot streak – it's consistent performance. With Johnson, Williams has become increasingly confident, far less careless, and has willingly submitted to the gameplan instead of freelancing. It is an attack constructed solely in Johnson's vision: a bully-ball ground attack, a steady helping of play-action passes and a creative aerial game that creates wide-open receivers consistently. The QB has taken advantage. And when clear throws haven't been available, he's been capable to spin big plays out of nothing.

Johnson came to Chicago with a clear offensive blueprint. Almost each decision – rebuilding the trenches, highlighting the tight ends, transforming the QB into a timing-based passer – has succeeded. That's uncommon for a rookie skipper. And it's even more uncommon still for a coach who walked into the organization with the immense hype Johnson did. For consecutive straight offseasons, he was the top candidate on the coaching carousel. However when it comes to hiring a leader, there are zero guarantees. Somehow, Johnson has met expectations – and even exceeded them. He's proven not only to be a scheme dork but the kind of leader that can inject new life into an franchise.

During a normal year, Johnson would be the runaway choice. Yet this isn't a typical campaign!

The area where his case comes slightly unstuck is on defense. The Chicago defense currently sit in the bottom third in defensive success rate. They are surviving on turnovers, and takeaways are notoriously fickle. Coaches can emphasise ball disruption, but nobody can ensure it. He is on the list because the offensive production is real. He's not higher because variance is doing too much of the defensive work. If not for a few breaks of the ball, the Bears would be two wins worse off. It's been an remarkable turnaround, and the core is in place for long-term success. But he falls just short here.

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

The Jaguars' coach is in a similar situation to his counterpart. He's a fellow first-time head coach who has masterminded a dramatic resurgence. During the crucial final weeks of the year, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the best all-around football of his career. And he's also spearheaded the transformation of a defensive unit that now ranks fifth in the NFL in Expected Points Added per play.

What's more impressively, he has mastered the leadership stuff, which was not a guarantee following his early press conference introduction and some of his offseason decisions.

Coen walked into the Jaguars with an uncommonly inexperienced staff. In contrast to Johnson, who surrounded themselves with the perfect staff cocktail of new ideas and veteran savvy, Coen trusted newbies. From the head coach on down to coordinators to position coaches, the Jags are stocked with rookies. That type of approach is exciting on paper, but frequently fails in reality – as past failures are a cautionary tale – because everybody is learning a their job on the fly. But Coen has managed to bring everyone and everything into sync.

Following an initial hot start, there was a chance that the campaign would veer off the track. A midseason collapse had the Jags wobbling once more. That's usually when coaches panic and change too much. Coen did not. Instead, he streamlined the approach. Jacksonville stopped pursuing explosive plays and started hunting reliable ones. The coach recentered the attack around his playmakers and the ground attack, and encouraged Lawrence to use his legs more often.

The results are clear. The Jaguars have won seven games consecutively and will be the conference's number three seed. Coen receives the slightest deduction in the standings because he inherited a talented team, but he has demonstrated he can maximize that talent.

3) Mike Macdonald, His Team, 13-3

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

Moving on from a incumbent, signing a new quarterback and pairing him with an new offensive coordinator could have ended the season in the early weeks. Rather, it shaped it. By the mid point of the year, the new QB was an MVP front-runner. He has regressed since that hot streak, slipping to a lower rank in EPA per dropback over the latter part of the schedule, putting him only a single place ahead of other QBs.

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