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Ordinarily, the NFL's Head Coach of the Year honor adheres to a straightforward pattern. It frequently acts as a kind of apology. Sorry we misjudged your squad in our pre-campaign predictions.

Theoretically, it's a clear-cut line: the coach who oversaw the most dramatic resurgence wins the prize. However, it creates an annual discussion about preseason outlooks and whether we're genuinely rewarding excellent coaching or merely the biggest surprise.

But the current field is profoundly different. The list of contenders is unusually deep. It has been the campaign of resurgences. The NFL has been unpredictable, with recent division winners falling away and longtime underperformers improving in unison. In an normal year, a coach guiding the his team to the summit of the conference would make him the overwhelming front-runner. But in this wild and fun year, he's facing five other outstanding candidates.

Below is how the ideal vote ought to look.

5) Ben Johnson, Chicago Bears, 11-5

Voters for Coach of the Year voters love QBs. They always have. A certain coach in 2017. Another in 2020. A third in 2022. When you solve a quarterback, you're well on your way to winning the award.

The Bears' head coach not only fixed Caleb Williams; he's unleashed him. Within an ideal environment, the QB has been given the chance to display his special talent. Since Week 9, the Bears sit at fourth in offensive EPA per play. This isn't a hot streak – it's prolonged dominance. With his guidance, Williams has become increasingly decisive, less reckless, and has willingly submitted to the scheme rather than improvising. It is an attack designed solely in the coach's image: a physical ground attack, a steady helping of play-action and a imaginative passing attack that frees wide-open targets everywhere. Williams has thrived. And when openings weren't there, he's been able to conjure magic from nothing.

Johnson arrived to the Bears with a defined offensive vision. Almost every bet – rebuilding the offensive line, highlighting the tight ends, turning Williams into a timing-based thrower – has paid off. That's uncommon for a first-year head coach. And it's rarer yet for a leader who walked into the organization with the level of pressure Johnson did. For two straight offseasons, he was the hottest candidate on the head coaching carousel. But when it comes to selecting a leader, there are no sure things. Somehow, Johnson has met expectations – and even exceeded them. He's proven not only to be a offensive wizard but the kind of leader that can inject new life into an organization.

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

The area where his case runs slightly into trouble is on defense. The Chicago defense currently rank 25th in defensive efficiency. They are surviving on turnovers, and takeaways are notoriously fickle. Defensive minds can focus on ball disruption, but nobody can ensure it. He is on the list because the offensive production is legitimate. He's not higher because luck is doing an outsized share of the defense's work. If not for a few bounces of the ball, the Bears would be two wins behind. It's been an remarkable turnaround, and the core is in place for long-term winning. But he falls just short here.

4) Liam Coen, Jacksonville Jaguars, 12-4

The Jaguars' coach is in a comparable situation to Johnson. He's another rookie head coach who has masterminded a rapid resurgence. Over the stretch run of the season, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the finest all-around football of his professional life. And he's also spearheaded the transformation of a defense that now ranks fifth in the league in EPA per play.

What's more notably, Coen has nailed the intangibles stuff, which was not a guarantee following his early press conference introduction and some of his offseason moves.

The coach took over the Jaguars with an exceptionally inexperienced staff. Unlike Johnson, who surrounded themselves with the perfect coaching mix of youth and experience, he hired newbies. From the head coach himself to coordinators to position coaches, the Jaguars are filled with rookies. That type of setup is intriguing on paper, but frequently fails in practice – as past failures are a cautionary tale – because everyone is learning a their job on the fly. But Coen has managed to bring everyone and everything into sync.

After an initial hot start, there was a possibility that the season would veer off the track. A mid-year setback had the Jags wobbling again. That's typically when coaches panic and change too much. Coen did not. Rather, he streamlined things. The offense stopped chasing home-run answers and started hunting consistent ones. The coach refocused the attack around his playmakers and the running game, and encouraged his QB to use his mobility more.

The outcomes are evident. The Jags have won multiple games in a row and will be the AFC's number three seed. He gets the slightest deduction in the standings because he took over a skilled roster, but he has demonstrated he can maximize that roster.

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

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

Moving on from a veteran, bringing in a different signal-caller and pairing him with an innovative play-caller could have ended the campaign in the early weeks. Instead, it defined it. Through the mid point of the season, the new QB was an Most Valuable Player contender. He has regressed after that time, dropping to a lower rank in efficiency per pass attempt over the latter part of the schedule, putting him just one place ahead of other QBs.

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