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Ordinarily, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year award adheres to a straightforward pattern. It frequently serves as a form of apology. Sorry we underestimated your squad in our pre-campaign projections.

Theoretically, it's a direct path: the coach who orchestrated the largest turnaround receives the prize. However, it sparks an yearly argument about expectations and whether we're genuinely honoring excellent leadership or simply the biggest upset.

Yet this year's competition is distinctly unique. The pool of candidates is exceptionally deep. It has been the season of comebacks. The league has been unpredictable, with reigning division champions fading and recent underperformers improving together. In an normal year, a coach guiding the his team to the top of the conference would make him the stone-cold favorite. Yet in such a chaotic and entertaining season, he's competing with multiple other exceptional coaches.

Here is how the hypothetical vote should be structured.

5) Ben Johnson, Chicago Bears, Their Record

Coach of the Year voters adore quarterbacks. This is a tradition. Sean McVay in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. A third in 2022. Should you solve a franchise QB, you're well on your way home.

The Bears' head coach didn't merely corrected Caleb Williams; he's unleashed him. In the right environment, the QB has been given the chance to display his rare talent. From midseason onward, the Chicago offense rank number four in offensive Expected Points Added per play. This isn't a brief surge – it's prolonged performance. With his guidance, Williams has become increasingly confident, less careless, and has willingly surrendered to the gameplan instead of going rogue. It is an offense built solely in Johnson's image: a bully-ball run game, a steady helping of play-action passes and a imaginative passing attack that frees wide-open targets consistently. The QB has thrived. And when openings weren't available, he's been able to spin magic out of nothing.

Johnson came to the Bears with a defined offensive blueprint. Virtually each decision – overhauling the offensive line, highlighting the tight ends, turning Williams into a timing-based passer – has worked. That's rare for a rookie head coach. And it's even more uncommon yet for a coach who walked into the organization with the level of pressure Johnson did. For consecutive straight cycles, he was the top name 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 only to be a scheme genius but the type of leader that can inject fresh energy into an franchise.

In a ordinary year, Johnson would be the overwhelming favorite. But this is not a normal season!

Where Johnson's candidacy runs a bit unstuck is on defense. The Chicago defense currently sit in the bottom third in defensive efficiency. They are relying on takeaways, and takeaways are notoriously inconsistent. Coaches can stress creating turnovers, but nobody can guarantee it. Johnson is on the ballot because the offensive production is sustainable. He's ranked lower because luck is doing an outsized share of the defensive work. If not for a few breaks of the ball, the Bears would be several wins worse off. It's been an exceptional turnaround, and the core is in place for sustained winning. However he falls just short here.

4) Liam Coen, His Team, 12-4

The Jaguars' coach is in a similar position to his counterpart. He's another first-time leader who has engineered a dramatic resurgence. Over the crucial final weeks of the season, he has his franchise quarterback playing the finest overall football of his professional life. And he's also overseen the remaking of a defensive unit that now ranks number five in the NFL in Expected Points Added per play.

Even more impressively, he has mastered the leadership stuff, which wasn't a guarantee after his early press conference appearances and some of his preseason decisions.

The coach took over the Jaguars with an exceptionally inexperienced staff. Unlike other coaches, who packed their staff with the perfect staff blend of youth and experience, he trusted newbies. Starting with the leader himself to coordinators to assistant coaches, the Jaguars are stocked with first-timers. That kind of setup is exciting on paper, but often fails in reality – with other teams are a warning – because everyone is figuring out a their job in real-time. Yet he has managed to bring everyone and all elements together.

Following an initial strong beginning, there was a possibility that the season would veer off the track. A midseason collapse caused the Jags stumbling again. That's typically when leaders overcorrect. He didn't. Instead, he streamlined the approach. Jacksonville stopped pursuing explosive answers and started seeking reliable ones. The coach recentered the offense around his playmakers and the running game, and encouraged his QB to use his legs more.

The results are clear. The Jaguars have won seven games in a row and will be the AFC's number three seed. He receives the slightest deduction in the rankings because he took over a talented roster, but he has proven he can maximize that talent.

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

Each Strong of the Year narrative has a pivotal moment. For the Seahawks coach, it was his quarterback move.

Moving on from a incumbent, bringing in a new signal-caller and pairing him with an new offensive coordinator could have ended the season in October. Instead, it made it. By the middle point of the year, the new QB was an Most Valuable Player candidate. He has fallen away since that time, slipping to 23rd in EPA per dropback over the latter part of the season, putting him only a single place ahead of other QBs.

Still