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Ordinarily, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year honor follows a straightforward script. It commonly functions as a kind of apology. Our apologies we underestimated your franchise in our pre-campaign predictions.

Theoretically, it's a direct path: the skipper who orchestrated the most dramatic turnaround wins the prize. In practice, it fuels an annual argument about preseason outlooks and whether we're actually honoring superior leadership or just the most shocking surprise.

Yet the latest competition is fundamentally different. The list of nominees is remarkably deep. It has been the campaign of resurgences. The NFL has been unpredictable, with recent conference winners declining and recent strugglers improving in unison. In an typical year, a coach leading the his team to the top of the AFC would make him the overwhelming front-runner. But in such a turbulent and thrilling year, he's competing with multiple other exceptional coaches.

Below is how the ideal ballot should shake out.

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

Coach of the Year selectors adore signal-callers. This is a tradition. Sean McVay in 2017. Another in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. Should you solve a franchise QB, you're well on your way home.

Ben Johnson not only fixed Caleb Williams; he's freed him. In the right environment, Williams has been given the opportunity to demonstrate his special ability. From midseason onward, the Bears sit at fourth in offensive Expected Points Added per play. That's not a brief surge – it's prolonged excellence. Under his guidance, the quarterback has become increasingly confident, far less reckless, and has willingly submitted to the system instead of improvising. It is an attack designed entirely in the coach's vision: a physical ground attack, a consistent dose of play-action passes and a imaginative aerial game that creates wide-open receivers everywhere. The QB has taken advantage. And when clear throws haven't been available, he's been able to spin magic out of nothing.

The coach came to Chicago with a specific offensive philosophy. Almost each decision – overhauling the trenches, featuring the pass-catchers, turning the QB into a timing-based passer – has paid off. This is rare for a first-year skipper. And it's even more uncommon still for a coach who entered the organization with the level of pressure he did. For consecutive straight offseasons, he was the most sought-after candidate on the head coaching carousel. But when it comes to hiring a leader, there are no guarantees. Somehow, Johnson has lived up to the hype – and even exceeded them. He's proven not just to be a offensive genius but the kind of culture builder that can inject fresh energy into an franchise.

During a ordinary year, Johnson would be the clear-cut choice. Yet this is not a typical season!

The area where Johnson's candidacy comes a bit unstuck is on defense. The Chicago defense currently sit 25th in defensive success rate. They are living on turnovers, and takeaways are famously unreliable. Defensive minds can focus on ball disruption, but nobody can guarantee it. Johnson is on the list because the offensive production is real. He's not higher because variance is doing an outsized share of the defense's 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 sustained winning. However Johnson falls just short in this ranking.

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

The Jaguars' coach is in a comparable spot to Johnson. He's a fellow rookie leader who has masterminded a dramatic turnaround. Over the crucial final weeks of the season, he has his franchise quarterback playing the best overall 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.

Even more notably, he has mastered the off-field stuff, which was not a certainty after his initial press conference introduction and some of his preseason moves.

The coach took over Jacksonville with an exceptionally inexperienced coaching staff. Unlike Johnson, who surrounded their staff with the ideal coaching mix of youth and experience, he bet on first-timers. From the head coach himself to coordinators to assistant coaches, the Jags are filled with rookies. That kind of approach is exciting in theory, but often collapses in practice – as past failures are a warning – because everyone is learning a new job in real-time. Yet he has pulled everyone and all elements together.

Following an initial hot beginning, there was a chance that the campaign would veer off the rails. A mid-year setback caused the team wobbling again. That's usually when leaders panic and change too much. He didn't. Instead, he streamlined the approach. Jacksonville stopped chasing explosive plays and started seeking sustainable ones. Coen recentered the attack around his playmakers and the running game, and asked Lawrence to use his legs more.

The results are obvious. The Jags have won multiple games in a row and will be the conference's No 3 seed. He gets the tiniest knock in the rankings because he took over a talented roster, but he has demonstrated he can get the most out of that talent.

3) The Seattle Seahawks Coach, His Team, 13-3

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

Moving on from a veteran, signing a different signal-caller and partnering him with an innovative play-caller might have derailed the season in October. Instead, it defined it. Through the mid point of the year, the new QB was an Most Valuable Player front-runner. He has regressed since that hot streak, dropping to 23rd in efficiency per dropback over the latter part of the season, placing him only one place ahead of peers.

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