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Ordinarily, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year award adheres to a straightforward script. It commonly acts as a type of mea culpa. Our apologies we got wrong your franchise in our pre-campaign predictions.

On paper, it's a clear-cut line: the skipper who oversaw the biggest improvement receives the award. However, it sparks an yearly debate about preseason outlooks and whether we're actually rewarding superior leadership or just the most shocking upset.

But this year's field is distinctly different. The pool of nominees is unusually strong. It has been the campaign of resurgences. The league has been messy, with recent conference champions declining and longtime underperformers rising collectively. Under an normal year, Sean Payton leading the Denver Broncos to the top of the conference would make him the overwhelming favorite. Yet in such a chaotic and entertaining year, he's up against five other outstanding coaches.

Below is how the ideal vote ought to shake out.

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

Coach of the Year selectors are fascinated by QBs. They always have. A certain coach in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. A third in 2022. If you fix a franchise QB, you're well on your way to winning the award.

The Bears' head coach didn't merely corrected Caleb Williams; he's unlocked him. Given a proper environment, the QB has been afforded the opportunity to showcase his special talent. Since Week 9, the Bears rank number four in offensive EPA per play. This isn't a brief surge – it's sustained excellence. With his guidance, the quarterback has become increasingly confident, less careless, and has eagerly surrendered to the scheme rather than freelancing. It is an attack designed solely in Johnson's vision: a bully-ball ground attack, a consistent helping of play-action passes and a imaginative passing attack that springs wide receiver receivers all over the field. Williams has capitalized. And when easy reads haven't been there, he's been able to spin big plays out of nothing.

Johnson came to the Bears with a defined offensive vision. Almost each bet – rebuilding the offensive line, featuring the tight ends, transforming Williams into a timing-based passer – has paid off. This is rare for a rookie skipper. And it's rarer yet for a leader who entered the building with the level of expectations he did. For consecutive straight cycles, he was the top candidate on the head coaching market. But when it comes to selecting a head coach, there are zero sure things. Somehow, Johnson has met expectations – and even exceeded them. He's proven not only to be a scheme dork but the type of culture builder that can breathe new life into an franchise.

In a normal season, Johnson would be the clear-cut choice. But this isn't a normal campaign!

Where Johnson's candidacy runs a bit unstuck is on defense. The Chicago defense presently sit in the bottom third in defensive success rate. They are relying on takeaways, and turnovers are notoriously inconsistent. Defensive minds can focus on ball disruption, but no one can guarantee it. He is on the list because the offense is sustainable. He's ranked lower because variance is doing too much of the defense's heavy lifting. If not for a couple bounces of the ball, the Bears would be two wins behind. It's been an exceptional transformation, and the core is in place for long-term winning. However he comes up just short here.

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

Coen is in a similar position to Johnson. He's a fellow first-time head coach who has engineered a rapid turnaround. During the crucial final weeks of the season, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the most complete all-around ball of his professional life. And he's also overseen the remaking of a defense that now sits at number five in the NFL in Expected Points Added per play.

What's more notably, Coen has excelled at the intangibles stuff, which was not a given following his initial press conference appearances and some of his preseason moves.

The coach took over Jacksonville with an exceptionally raw staff. In contrast to Johnson, who surrounded themselves with the ideal coaching cocktail of youth and veteran savvy, Coen trusted first-timers. From the head coach himself to assistants to position coaches, the Jaguars are stocked with rookies. That type of approach is intriguing in theory, but frequently collapses in reality – as past failures are a warning – because everyone is figuring out a their job in real-time. But Coen has managed to bring everyone and everything into sync.

After an initial strong beginning, there was a possibility that the season would veer off the track. A midseason collapse had the Jags stumbling once more. That's typically when coaches overcorrect. Coen didn't. Instead, he simplified things. The offense stopped chasing home-run plays and started hunting sustainable ones. The coach recentered the attack around key players and the ground attack, and asked his QB to use his legs more.

The outcomes are evident. The Jags have won multiple games consecutively and will be the conference's No 3 playoff seed. Coen gets the slightest deduction in the standings because he inherited a skilled roster, but he has demonstrated he can maximize that roster.

3) Mike Macdonald, Seattle Seahawks, 13-3

Each Coach of the Year case has a pivotal decision. For Mike Macdonald, it was his QB decision.

Moving on from a incumbent, signing a new quarterback and pairing him with an new play-caller could have derailed the campaign in the early weeks. Instead, it shaped it. By the middle point of the year, the acquisition was an Most Valuable Player front-runner. He has fallen away since that time, slipping to 23rd in EPA per dropback over the latter part of the schedule, putting him only a single place ahead of peers.

Still