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Usually, the NFL's Head Coach of the Year honor follows a simple pattern. It often acts as a form of mea culpa. Sorry we underestimated your franchise in our pre-campaign projections.

Theoretically, it's a direct path: the coach who oversaw the largest resurgence is handed the prize. In reality, it creates an yearly debate about expectations and whether we're truly honoring excellent coaching or merely the biggest surprise.

But the current race is fundamentally different. The group of candidates is exceptionally strong. It has been the year of comebacks. The NFL has been messy, with reigning conference winners declining and recent also-rans rising together. During an ordinary season, a coach guiding the his team to the summit of the conference would make him the clear front-runner. Yet in such a chaotic and thrilling season, he's competing with multiple other exceptional coaches.

This is how the hypothetical ballot could be structured.

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

Coach of the Year voters love signal-callers. This is a tradition. Sean McVay in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. If you solve a franchise QB, you're halfway to winning the award.

Ben Johnson not only corrected Caleb Williams; he's freed him. Within an ideal ecosystem, the QB has been afforded the opportunity to demonstrate his rare talent. Since Week 9, the Bears rank fourth in offensive Expected Points Added per play. That's not a brief surge – it's sustained dominance. With Johnson, Williams has become more decisive, less careless, and has willingly submitted to the scheme rather than improvising. It is an offense built entirely in the coach's vision: a bully-ball ground attack, a heavy helping of play-action passes and a imaginative passing attack that springs wide receiver receivers consistently. Williams has thrived. And when openings haven't been available, he's been capable to spin magic out of broken plays.

Johnson came to the Bears with a specific offensive vision. Almost every gamble – overhauling the offensive line, utilizing the pass-catchers, turning Williams into a rhythm passer – has succeeded. This is rare for a rookie skipper. And it's even more uncommon still for a coach who walked into the organization with the immense expectations Johnson did. For two straight offseasons, he was the most sought-after name on the head coaching market. However when it comes to hiring a head coach, there are no sure things. Somehow, Johnson has met expectations – and even surpassed them. He's demonstrated not only to be a scheme genius but the kind of culture builder that can breathe fresh energy into an franchise.

During a ordinary season, Johnson would be the runaway favorite. Yet the current is not a typical season!

Where his candidacy comes a bit into trouble is on the defensive side. The Bears currently rank 25th in defensive efficiency. They are living on takeaways, and takeaways are famously fickle. Defensive minds can focus on ball disruption, but nobody can guarantee it. Johnson is on the list because the offense is legitimate. He's not higher because variance is doing too much of the defense's heavy lifting. With a few bounces of the ball, the Bears would be two victories worse off. It's been an remarkable transformation, and the core is in place for sustained winning. But Johnson falls just short in this ranking.

4) Liam Coen, His Team, Their Record

Coen is in a comparable situation to Johnson. He's a fellow first-time leader who has orchestrated a rapid turnaround. Over the crucial final weeks of the year, he has his franchise quarterback playing the finest all-around ball of his career. And he's also overseen the transformation of a defense that now ranks number five in the league in Expected Points Added per play.

What's more notably, Coen has excelled at the off-field stuff, which was not a given after his initial press conference appearances and some of his offseason decisions.

The coach walked into Jacksonville with an uncommonly inexperienced coaching staff. Unlike Johnson, who surrounded themselves with the ideal staff blend of youth and experience, he hired newbies. Starting with the head coach himself to assistants to position coaches, the Jaguars are filled with rookies. That kind of setup is intriguing in theory, but often fails in reality – with other teams are a warning – because everybody is learning a new job in real-time. But he has pulled everyone and all elements together.

Following an early strong start, there was a possibility that the season would go off the rails. A mid-year collapse had the Jags wobbling again. That's usually when leaders overcorrect. He didn't. Rather, he streamlined things. The offense stopped chasing explosive plays and started seeking sustainable ones. The coach recentered the attack around key players and the ground attack, and asked Lawrence to use his legs more.

The outcomes are clear. The Jags have won seven games consecutively and will be the conference's number three playoff seed. He receives the tiniest knock in the standings because he inherited a skilled roster, but he has demonstrated he can maximize that talent.

3) Mike Macdonald, His Team, 13-3

Every Coach of the Year narrative has a hinge moment. For Mike Macdonald, it was his quarterback move.

Parting ways from a veteran, bringing in a different signal-caller and partnering him with an innovative offensive coordinator could have ended the season in October. Instead, it shaped it. By the middle point of the year, the new QB was an Most Valuable Player front-runner. He has fallen away since that time, dropping to a lower rank in EPA per dropback over the second half of the season, putting him only a single place ahead of peers.

Still