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Ordinarily, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year award adheres to a straightforward script. It commonly acts as a kind of mea culpa. We regret we underestimated your team in our preseason predictions.

Theoretically, it's a direct line: the coach who orchestrated the biggest resurgence receives the prize. In practice, it fuels an yearly argument about preseason outlooks and whether we're truly honoring excellent leadership or merely the most shocking surprise.

But the current field is fundamentally different. The pool of nominees is unusually deep. It has been the year of comebacks. The NFL has been chaotic, with reigning conference champions declining and longtime also-rans ascending in unison. Under an ordinary year, a coach guiding the Denver Broncos to the top of the AFC would make him the clear favorite. Yet in such a turbulent and fun season, he's competing with multiple other exceptional candidates.

Below is how the hypothetical vote could look.

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

Coach of the Year voters love QBs. History shows this. Sean McVay in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. A third in 2022. If you fix a franchise QB, you're well on your way home.

Ben Johnson didn't merely corrected Caleb Williams; he's freed him. Within an ideal environment, the QB has been afforded the opportunity to display his otherworldly ability. Since Week 9, the Chicago offense sit at fourth in offensive Expected Points Added per play. That's not a hot streak – it's prolonged dominance. Under his guidance, Williams has become more confident, far less reckless, and has willingly submitted to the gameplan rather than going rogue. It is an attack constructed solely in the coach's vision: a bully-ball ground attack, a steady dose of play-action and a creative passing attack that springs wide receiver receivers everywhere. Williams has taken advantage. And when clear throws weren't available, he's been able to spin magic from nothing.

Johnson came to the Bears with a defined offensive vision. Almost every gamble – overhauling the offensive line, featuring the pass-catchers, turning Williams into a rhythm passer – has paid off. That's rare for a first-year skipper. And it's even more uncommon still for a leader who walked into the building with the immense pressure Johnson did. For two straight cycles, he was the hottest name on the coaching carousel. But when it comes to hiring a leader, there are zero guarantees. Remarkably, he has lived up to expectations – and even exceeded them. He's proven not only to be a scheme wizard but the type of culture builder that can breathe new life into an franchise.

During a normal season, he would be the overwhelming favorite. Yet this isn't a normal campaign!

Where Johnson's candidacy comes a bit unstuck is on the defensive side. The Bears presently sit 25th in defensive success rate. They are surviving on turnovers, and takeaways are notoriously unreliable. Coaches can stress ball disruption, but nobody can ensure it. He is on the list because the offense is real. He's ranked lower because luck is doing too much of the defense's work. If not for a few bounces of the ball, the Bears would be two wins worse off. It's been an exceptional transformation, and the core is in place for long-term success. But Johnson comes up short in this ranking.

4) Liam Coen, His Team, 12-4

Coen is in a comparable situation to his counterpart. He's a fellow first-time head coach who has engineered a rapid resurgence. Over the stretch run of the season, he has his franchise quarterback playing the most complete overall football of his career. And he's also overseen the transformation of a defensive unit that now sits at number five in the NFL in EPA per play.

Even more impressively, he has excelled at the leadership stuff, which was not a guarantee following his initial public appearances and some of his offseason decisions.

The coach walked into Jacksonville with an exceptionally inexperienced coaching staff. In contrast to Johnson, who packed their staff with the perfect staff blend of new ideas and experience, he hired first-timers. Starting with the leader himself to coordinators to assistant coaches, the Jags are stocked with rookies. That type of approach is exciting on paper, but frequently fails in practice – as past failures are a cautionary tale – because everybody is learning a their job on the fly. Yet Coen has pulled the entire group and everything into sync.

After an initial hot start, there was a risk that the season would go off the rails. A midseason collapse caused the team wobbling again. That's usually when coaches overcorrect. He did not. Rather, he streamlined the approach. The offense stopped pursuing explosive plays and started hunting consistent ones. Coen refocused the attack around key players and the running game, and asked his QB to use his legs more often.

The results are obvious. The Jags have won multiple games consecutively and will be the conference's number three playoff seed. Coen gets the slightest knock in the rankings because he inherited a skilled roster, but he has demonstrated he can maximize that talent.

3) Mike Macdonald, Seattle Seahawks, Their Record

Every Strong of the Year narrative has a pivotal moment. For Mike Macdonald, it was his QB move.

Moving on from a incumbent, signing a different quarterback and partnering him with an new offensive coordinator might have derailed the campaign in the early weeks. Instead, it made it. Through the mid point of the season, the acquisition was an MVP contender. He has regressed after that time, slipping to 23rd in EPA per pass attempt over the second half of the season, putting him just one place ahead of other QBs.

Still