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Ordinarily, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year award follows a straightforward pattern. It often functions as a type of apology. We regret we got wrong your franchise in our preseason predictions.

On paper, it's a clear-cut trajectory: the coach who orchestrated the most dramatic resurgence receives the award. In practice, it sparks an annual argument about expectations and whether we're actually rewarding excellent coaching or merely the greatest shock.

But the current race is distinctly unique. The list of contenders is exceptionally deep. It has been the year of turnarounds. The NFL has been chaotic, with recent division winners declining and recent strugglers rising collectively. In an typical season, a coach guiding the his team to the summit of the AFC would make him the overwhelming favorite. Yet in this turbulent and thrilling year, he's competing with several other outstanding candidates.

Here is how the ideal vote could look.

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

Voters for Coach of the Year voters adore quarterbacks. This is a tradition. Sean McVay in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. When you fix a franchise QB, you're halfway home.

The Bears' head coach didn't merely fixed Caleb Williams; he's unlocked him. In the right system, Williams has been afforded the opportunity to showcase his special ability. Since Week 9, the Chicago offense sit at number four in offensive EPA per play. That's not a brief surge – it's sustained performance. With Johnson, Williams has become more decisive, far less reckless, and has eagerly submitted to the scheme rather than going rogue. It is an attack designed entirely in Johnson's vision: a physical ground attack, a heavy helping of play-action and a imaginative passing attack that springs wide receiver targets everywhere. The QB has thrived. And when openings haven't been available, he's been able to create big plays from broken plays.

The coach arrived to the Bears with a defined offensive blueprint. Almost every gamble – rebuilding the trenches, featuring the tight ends, turning the QB into a rhythm passer – has succeeded. That's rare for a first-year skipper. And it's even more uncommon yet for a coach who walked into the building with the level of expectations Johnson did. For consecutive straight offseasons, he was the hottest name on the coaching market. But when it comes to hiring a leader, there are no guarantees. Remarkably, he has met the hype – and even surpassed them. He's demonstrated not just to be a offensive dork but the type of leader that can inject new life into an organization.

During a ordinary season, Johnson would be the clear-cut choice. Yet the current is not a normal campaign!

Where his case runs a bit unstuck is on the defensive side. The Bears presently rank in the bottom third in defensive efficiency. They are surviving on takeaways, and turnovers are notoriously inconsistent. Coaches can stress ball disruption, but nobody can guarantee it. Johnson is on the list because the offensive production is real. He's ranked lower because variance is doing too much of the defensive work. If not for a few bounces of the ball, the Bears would be several wins worse off. It's been an remarkable transformation, and the core is established for long-term success. However he falls just short in this ranking.

4) Liam Coen, His Team, 12-4

Coen is in a similar spot to his counterpart. He's another first-time leader who has engineered a swift resurgence. Over the stretch run of the season, he has his franchise quarterback playing the finest overall football of his professional life. And he's also overseen the transformation of a defensive unit that now ranks number five in the league in Expected Points Added per play.

What's more notably, he has excelled at the leadership stuff, which wasn't a guarantee following his early press conference appearances and some of his offseason moves.

Coen walked into Jacksonville with an exceptionally raw coaching staff. In contrast to Johnson, who packed themselves with the ideal staff blend of youth and veteran savvy, Coen trusted newbies. From the leader himself to assistants to assistant coaches, the Jags are filled with rookies. That type of setup is exciting on paper, but frequently collapses in reality – as past failures are a warning – because everybody is learning a new job on the fly. But Coen has managed to bring everyone and all elements together.

Following an early hot beginning, there was a chance that the season would go off the track. A midseason setback had the Jags wobbling again. That's typically when leaders panic and change too much. Coen did not. Rather, he streamlined things. Jacksonville stopped pursuing home-run answers and started hunting sustainable ones. The coach recentered the attack around key players and the running game, and encouraged his QB to use his legs more.

The results are evident. The Jaguars have won multiple games in a row and will be the AFC's number three seed. Coen gets the tiniest deduction in the standings because he took over a skilled team, but he has proven he can maximize that talent.

3) Mike Macdonald, His Team, Their Record

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

Moving on from a veteran, signing a new signal-caller and pairing him with an innovative offensive coordinator could have ended the season in October. Instead, it made it. Through the middle point of the season, the acquisition was an Most Valuable Player candidate. He has regressed after that time, dropping to 23rd in EPA per pass attempt over the latter part of the schedule, putting him just one place ahead of other QBs.

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