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Usually, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year honor follows a simple script. It commonly functions as a form of mea culpa. We regret we misjudged your franchise in our preseason predictions.

Theoretically, it's a direct line: the skipper who oversaw the biggest turnaround is handed the prize. In reality, it fuels an yearly discussion about expectations and whether we're actually rewarding excellent leadership or simply the greatest upset.

But the latest race is distinctly unique. The list of nominees is remarkably talented. It has been the year of resurgences. The NFL has been unpredictable, with recent conference winners falling away and longtime underperformers ascending collectively. During an typical season, Sean Payton guiding the his team to the top of the conference would make him the clear front-runner. Yet in such a wild and fun season, he's facing five other elite coaches.

Here is how the hypothetical ballot ought to look.

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

Voters for Coach of the Year selectors adore quarterbacks. They always have. A certain coach in 2017. Another in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. When you fix a franchise QB, you're halfway to winning the award.

The Bears' head coach hasn't just fixed his young quarterback; he's unleashed him. Given a proper system, Williams has been given the opportunity to display his special talent. Since midseason onward, the Bears sit at fourth in offensive Expected Points Added per play. This isn't a brief surge – it's consistent excellence. Under Johnson, the quarterback has become increasingly confident, less careless, and has eagerly surrendered to the gameplan instead of freelancing. It is an offense built solely in the coach's vision: a bully-ball run game, a consistent dose of play-action and a innovative aerial game that springs wide receiver targets everywhere. Williams has capitalized. And when openings haven't been available, he's been capable to spin magic from nothing.

The coach arrived to the Bears with a specific offensive vision. Virtually every bet – overhauling the trenches, featuring the pass-catchers, transforming Williams into a timing-based thrower – has worked. That's uncommon for a rookie skipper. And it's rarer yet for a leader who entered the organization with the level of hype he did. For two straight cycles, he was the most sought-after candidate on the head coaching market. However when it comes to hiring a head coach, there are no guarantees. Remarkably, Johnson has met the hype – and even exceeded them. He's demonstrated not just to be a offensive dork but the type of culture builder that can inject fresh energy into an franchise.

In a typical year, he would be the runaway choice. Yet this is not a typical season!

Where Johnson's candidacy comes a bit unstuck is on the defensive side. The Chicago defense presently rank in the bottom third in defensive efficiency. They are relying on turnovers, and takeaways are famously fickle. Coaches can focus on ball disruption, but no one can guarantee it. He is on the ballot because the offense is real. He's ranked lower because variance is doing too much of the defense's work. If not for a couple breaks of the ball, the team would be two wins worse off. It's been an exceptional transformation, and the core is in place for long-term winning. But he falls just short in this ranking.

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

The Jaguars' coach is in a comparable position to Johnson. He's another rookie leader who has engineered a dramatic resurgence. Over the stretch run of the year, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the most complete all-around football 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 impressively, Coen has nailed the leadership aspects, which wasn't a certainty following his initial press conference introduction and some of his preseason moves.

Coen walked into Jacksonville with an exceptionally inexperienced coaching staff. Unlike other coaches, who packed their staff with the ideal staff blend of new ideas and veteran savvy, Coen trusted newbies. Starting with the head coach on down to assistants to assistant coaches, the Jags are stocked with rookies. That kind of approach is intriguing in theory, but frequently collapses in practice – as past failures are a warning – because everyone is figuring out a new job on the fly. But Coen has pulled everyone and all elements into sync.

Following an initial hot start, there was a possibility that the campaign would veer off the rails. A midseason setback had the Jags stumbling once more. That's typically when coaches overcorrect. Coen didn't. Instead, he simplified the approach. Jacksonville stopped pursuing home-run plays and started seeking consistent ones. Coen recentered the attack around key players and the ground attack, and asked his QB to use his legs more often.

The results are obvious. The Jags have won multiple games in a row and will be the AFC's number three playoff seed. Coen gets the tiniest knock in the rankings because he took over a talented team, but he has demonstrated he can get the most out of that talent.

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

Each Coach of the Year argument has a hinge decision. For the Seahawks coach, it was his QB move.

Parting ways from a incumbent, bringing in a different quarterback and partnering him with an innovative play-caller might have derailed the season in the early weeks. Rather, it shaped it. By the mid point of the year, the new QB was an Most Valuable Player front-runner. He has cooled off since that time, dropping to a lower rank in EPA per dropback over the second half of the season, putting him only a single spot ahead of other QBs.

Still