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Usually, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year honor adheres to a straightforward script. It commonly functions as a form of apology. Our apologies we underestimated your team in our preseason projections.

On paper, it's a clear-cut line: the coach who orchestrated the most dramatic turnaround wins the award. In reality, it creates an yearly discussion about preseason outlooks and whether we're genuinely honoring excellent coaching or merely the most shocking upset.

However the latest competition is profoundly different. The list of nominees is unusually talented. It has been the year of comebacks. The league has been chaotic, with reigning conference winners declining and recent underperformers rising collectively. In an ordinary year, a coach leading the his team to the summit of the AFC would make him the stone-cold favorite. But in this chaotic and fun season, he's up against five other elite candidates.

Here is how the ideal vote ought to be structured.

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

Coach of the Year selectors are fascinated by QBs. They always have. Sean McVay in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. A third in 2022. When you fix a quarterback, you're well on your way to winning the award.

The Bears' head coach didn't merely fixed Caleb Williams; he's freed him. In the right system, Williams has been given the chance to display his otherworldly ability. From Week 9, the Chicago offense rank number four in offensive Expected Points Added per play. This isn't a lucky run – it's sustained performance. Under Johnson, Williams has become increasingly confident, less reckless, and has eagerly submitted to the system rather than improvising. It is an attack built entirely in Johnson's image: a bully-ball ground attack, a consistent helping of play-action passes and a creative passing attack that springs wide-open targets everywhere. Williams has thrived. And when clear throws haven't been available, he's been capable to spin magic out of broken plays.

Johnson came to Chicago with a defined offensive vision. Virtually each decision – rebuilding the offensive line, featuring the pass-catchers, turning the QB into a rhythm thrower – has paid off. This is rare for a rookie head coach. And it's rarer yet for a coach who walked into the building with the level of hype he did. For consecutive straight cycles, he was the hottest name on the head coaching market. But when it comes to hiring a head coach, there are no sure things. Somehow, Johnson has met expectations – and even surpassed them. He's proven not only to be a offensive wizard but the type of culture builder that can breathe new life into an organization.

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

Where Johnson's case runs slightly unstuck is on defense. The Chicago defense presently rank in the bottom third in defensive success rate. They are surviving on turnovers, and takeaways are notoriously inconsistent. Coaches can focus on creating turnovers, but nobody can ensure it. He is on the list because the offense is real. He's not higher because variance is doing an outsized share of the defensive heavy lifting. With a few bounces 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. But he falls short in this ranking.

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

Coen is in a similar spot to Johnson. He's another first-time head coach who has orchestrated a rapid turnaround. Over the crucial final weeks of the year, he has his franchise quarterback playing the finest overall football of his professional life. And he's also overseen the overhaul of a defense that now ranks fifth in the league in Expected Points Added per play.

Even more impressively, Coen has nailed the off-field stuff, which was not a guarantee following his initial public appearances and some of his preseason moves.

Coen took over the Jaguars with an exceptionally raw coaching staff. Unlike Johnson, who packed their staff with the perfect coaching blend of youth and veteran savvy, he trusted first-timers. Starting with the leader himself to coordinators to position coaches, the Jags are stocked with rookies. That kind of approach is exciting on paper, but often fails in reality – as past failures are a cautionary tale – because everybody is figuring out a new job on the fly. Yet Coen has pulled the entire group and all elements together.

After an early strong start, there was a chance that the campaign would veer off the track. A mid-year collapse had the Jags stumbling once more. That's typically when coaches panic and change too much. He didn't. Instead, he simplified things. Jacksonville stopped pursuing home-run answers and started seeking reliable ones. Coen refocused the attack around his playmakers and the running game, and encouraged his QB to use his legs more often.

The results are evident. The Jags have won seven games in a row and will be the AFC's No 3 playoff seed. He gets the tiniest deduction in the standings because he inherited a skilled team, but he has demonstrated he can get the most out of that roster.

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

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

Moving on from a veteran, bringing in a different quarterback and partnering him with an innovative offensive coordinator could have derailed the season in October. Rather, it made it. By the mid point of the season, the new QB was an MVP front-runner. He has cooled off after that time, dropping to 23rd in efficiency per pass attempt over the second half of the season, putting him just one place ahead of peers.

Still