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Typically, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year award follows a straightforward formula. It commonly acts as a kind of mea culpa. We regret we misjudged your team in our pre-campaign forecasts.

In theory, it's a clear-cut path: the coach who orchestrated the largest resurgence wins the award. In reality, it sparks an yearly argument about preseason outlooks and whether we're actually honoring superior leadership or merely the biggest upset.

But this year's field is fundamentally unique. The pool of contenders is unusually deep. It has been the season of comebacks. The league has been messy, with recent conference champions fading and longtime also-rans improving together. In an ordinary season, a coach leading the his team to the top of the conference would make him the stone-cold front-runner. Yet in this chaotic and entertaining season, he's facing five other outstanding candidates.

Below is how the ideal vote ought to look.

5) Ben Johnson, His Team, 11-5

Voters for Coach of the Year voters are fascinated by signal-callers. History shows this. A certain coach in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. If you transform a quarterback, you're well on your way home.

The Bears' head coach didn't merely corrected his young quarterback; he's freed him. In the right system, the QB has been afforded the chance to demonstrate his rare ability. Since midseason onward, the Bears rank number four in offensive Expected Points Added per play. This isn't a hot streak – it's prolonged performance. With his guidance, the quarterback has become more decisive, less reckless, and has willingly surrendered to the system instead of going rogue. It is an attack built entirely in the coach's vision: a physical run game, a heavy helping of play-action passes and a creative passing attack that springs wide-open receivers consistently. The QB has thrived. And when openings weren't available, he's been capable to spin big plays from broken plays.

The coach arrived to the Bears with a defined offensive vision. Virtually each gamble – rebuilding the offensive line, utilizing the tight ends, transforming Williams into a timing-based thrower – has paid off. That's rare for a rookie skipper. And it's rarer yet for a coach who walked into the organization with the level of hype Johnson did. For consecutive straight offseasons, he was the hottest candidate on the coaching carousel. However when it comes to selecting a leader, there are no sure things. Remarkably, Johnson has lived up to expectations – and even surpassed them. He's demonstrated not only to be a scheme dork but the type of leader that can inject fresh energy into an organization.

In a normal year, Johnson would be the overwhelming favorite. But this isn't a normal year!

The area where his case comes a bit unstuck is on defense. The Chicago defense presently rank in the bottom third in defensive success rate. They are surviving on turnovers, and turnovers are notoriously inconsistent. Coaches can emphasise creating turnovers, but no one can ensure it. He is on the ballot because the offense is real. He's ranked lower because luck is doing too much of the defensive work. With a few breaks of the ball, the Bears would be several wins behind. It's been an remarkable turnaround, and the foundation is in place for long-term success. But Johnson comes up just short here.

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

Coen is in a comparable spot to his counterpart. He's a fellow first-time head coach who has engineered a rapid resurgence. Over the crucial final weeks of the year, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the finest overall ball of his career. And he's also spearheaded the transformation of a defensive unit that now ranks number five in the NFL in EPA per play.

What's more impressively, he has nailed the off-field aspects, which was not a guarantee following his early press conference appearances and some of his offseason decisions.

The coach took over Jacksonville with an exceptionally inexperienced coaching staff. In contrast to Johnson, who packed themselves with the ideal staff blend of new ideas and experience, he bet on newbies. Starting with the head coach on down to coordinators to position coaches, the Jags are filled with rookies. That kind of setup is intriguing on paper, but frequently collapses in reality – with other teams are a warning – because everyone is learning a new job on the fly. Yet he has managed to bring the entire group and all elements into sync.

After an early strong start, there was a risk that the season would go off the track. A midseason setback caused the Jags stumbling once more. That's typically when leaders overcorrect. Coen didn't. Instead, he simplified the approach. Jacksonville stopped chasing home-run answers and started hunting consistent ones. The coach refocused the attack around his playmakers and the running game, and encouraged Lawrence to use his legs more.

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

3) Mike Macdonald, His Team, Their Record

Each Coach of the Year case has a pivotal moment. For the Seahawks coach, it was his QB choice.

Moving on from a incumbent, signing a new signal-caller and partnering him with an new play-caller might have derailed the season in the early weeks. Rather, it made it. By the mid point of the year, the new QB was an Most Valuable Player contender. He has fallen away after that hot streak, slipping to a lower rank in efficiency per dropback over the latter part of the season, placing him only a single spot ahead of peers.

Still