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Usually, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year trophy adheres to a straightforward script. It frequently serves as a form of apology. Sorry we got wrong your team in our preseason predictions.

On paper, it's a clear-cut path: the coach who engineered the biggest resurgence is handed the award. In practice, it sparks an annual discussion about preseason outlooks and whether we're truly rewarding superior coaching or simply the greatest surprise.

Yet the current race is fundamentally different. The group of nominees is unusually deep. It has been the season of comebacks. The league has been messy, with reigning conference champions declining and longtime underperformers improving in unison. In an ordinary season, a coach guiding the Denver Broncos to the top of the conference would make him the overwhelming front-runner. Yet in such a wild and entertaining season, he's facing several other outstanding candidates.

Here is how the hypothetical vote should be structured.

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

Voters for Coach of the Year voters adore signal-callers. This is a tradition. A certain coach in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. If you solve a quarterback, you're halfway to winning the award.

The Bears' head coach hasn't just corrected Caleb Williams; he's freed him. Within an ideal system, the QB has been afforded the chance to showcase his otherworldly ability. Since midseason onward, the Bears rank number four in offensive EPA per play. This isn't a lucky run – it's prolonged excellence. With Johnson, Williams has become more decisive, less reckless, and has willingly surrendered to the gameplan instead of improvising. It is an offense designed entirely in the coach's vision: a physical run game, a steady dose of play-action and a imaginative passing attack that creates wide receiver targets everywhere. Williams has taken advantage. And when easy reads weren't there, he's been able to spin magic out of broken plays.

The coach came to Chicago with a clear offensive philosophy. Virtually each decision – rebuilding the trenches, featuring the pass-catchers, transforming the QB into a timing-based passer – has worked. This is rare for a rookie head coach. And it's even more uncommon yet for a leader who entered the organization with the kind of hype he did. For consecutive straight offseasons, he was the most sought-after candidate on the coaching market. But when it comes to selecting a head coach, there are zero sure things. Somehow, he has lived up to the hype – and even exceeded them. He's demonstrated not only to be a scheme wizard but the kind of culture builder that can inject fresh energy into an franchise.

In a ordinary season, Johnson would be the runaway choice. Yet the current is not a typical campaign!

The area where Johnson's candidacy comes a bit into trouble is on defense. The Chicago defense presently rank in the bottom third in defensive efficiency. They are living on turnovers, and takeaways are notoriously fickle. Coaches can emphasise creating turnovers, but no one can guarantee it. Johnson is on the list because the offense is real. He's ranked lower because luck is doing too much of the defensive heavy lifting. With a couple breaks of the ball, the team would be two victories behind. It's been an exceptional turnaround, and the foundation is established for long-term winning. But Johnson falls just short here.

4) Liam Coen, Jacksonville Jaguars, Their Record

Coen is in a similar spot to Johnson. He's a fellow rookie head coach who has engineered a dramatic turnaround. During 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 remaking of a defensive unit that now ranks number five in the league in Expected Points Added per play.

What's more notably, Coen has mastered the leadership aspects, which wasn't a guarantee following his initial public introduction and some of his offseason moves.

The coach took over the Jaguars with an uncommonly inexperienced coaching staff. In contrast to other coaches, who packed their staff with the perfect coaching mix of youth and experience, Coen bet on first-timers. Starting with the head coach on down to assistants to position coaches, the Jaguars are filled with first-timers. That kind of approach is exciting in theory, but frequently fails in practice – as past failures are a cautionary tale – because everybody is learning a their job on the fly. But Coen has managed to bring the entire group and everything together.

After an initial strong beginning, there was a chance that the campaign would veer off the rails. A midseason setback had the team stumbling once more. That's usually when coaches overcorrect. He did not. Instead, he simplified the approach. Jacksonville stopped pursuing explosive plays and started hunting sustainable ones. The coach refocused the attack around key players and the running game, and asked Lawrence to use his legs more.

The outcomes are clear. The Jaguars have won seven games consecutively and will be the AFC's number three playoff seed. He gets the tiniest knock in the standings because he took over a skilled team, but he has demonstrated he can maximize that talent.

3) The Seattle Seahawks Coach, His Team, Their Record

Every Strong of the Year narrative has a defining moment. For the Seahawks coach, it was his QB decision.

Moving on from a veteran, signing a new signal-caller and pairing him with an new offensive coordinator could have derailed the season in the early weeks. Instead, it shaped it. Through the mid point of the year, the acquisition was an Most Valuable Player candidate. He has fallen away since that time, dropping to 23rd in EPA per pass attempt over the second half of the schedule, placing him only a single spot ahead of other QBs.

Still