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Ordinarily, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year award follows a simple script. It often serves as a form of apology. Sorry we got wrong your squad in our preseason predictions.

Theoretically, it's a clear-cut line: the coach who engineered the most dramatic resurgence is handed the prize. In reality, it fuels an yearly debate about preseason outlooks and whether we're genuinely rewarding superior leadership or just the most shocking shock.

But the current field is profoundly different. The pool of candidates is exceptionally deep. It has been the season of resurgences. The league has been chaotic, with reigning conference champions declining and recent strugglers ascending in unison. Under an normal season, a coach guiding the his team to the summit of the AFC would make him the clear favorite. Yet in this chaotic and thrilling year, he's competing with five other outstanding coaches.

This is how the ideal ballot could be structured.

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

Voters for Coach of the Year voters are fascinated by QBs. They always have. A certain coach in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. A third in 2022. If you fix a quarterback, you're well on your way to winning the award.

Ben Johnson didn't merely fixed his young quarterback; he's unleashed him. Given a proper ecosystem, the QB has been afforded the chance to showcase his otherworldly talent. Since Week 9, the Chicago offense rank number four in offensive Expected Points Added per play. That's not a brief surge – it's prolonged performance. With his guidance, the quarterback has become more confident, less careless, and has eagerly submitted to the scheme instead of improvising. It is an attack designed solely in the coach's vision: a physical ground attack, a heavy dose of play-action and a innovative aerial game that creates wide receiver receivers everywhere. Williams has taken advantage. And when easy reads weren't available, he's been able to create magic from broken plays.

The coach arrived to the Bears with a clear offensive blueprint. Almost every gamble – overhauling the offensive line, featuring the pass-catchers, turning the QB into a timing-based thrower – has succeeded. This is uncommon for a rookie skipper. And it's even more uncommon yet for a coach who walked into the organization with the level of expectations he did. For two straight cycles, he was the most sought-after candidate on the head coaching carousel. However when it comes to selecting a leader, there are zero guarantees. Somehow, Johnson has met expectations – and even surpassed them. He's proven not only to be a scheme wizard but the kind of culture builder that can inject new life into an organization.

In a typical year, he would be the runaway favorite. But this is not a normal season!

The area where Johnson's candidacy comes a bit unstuck is on the defensive side. The Bears presently rank 25th in defensive efficiency. They are relying on takeaways, and turnovers are famously unreliable. Defensive minds can stress ball disruption, but nobody can ensure it. He is on the list because the offensive production is real. He's ranked lower because variance is doing an outsized share of the defense's heavy lifting. With a couple breaks of the ball, the Bears would be several wins behind. It's been an exceptional transformation, and the core is in place for sustained success. However he falls just short in this ranking.

4) Liam Coen, Jacksonville Jaguars, Their Record

The Jaguars' coach is in a similar position to Johnson. He's a fellow rookie head coach who has masterminded a dramatic turnaround. Over the crucial final weeks of the season, he has his franchise quarterback playing the best all-around ball of his professional life. And he's also spearheaded the remaking of a defensive unit that now ranks fifth in the NFL in EPA per play.

What's more impressively, he has mastered the leadership aspects, which wasn't a given following his initial press conference introduction and some of his preseason decisions.

Coen took over the Jaguars with an uncommonly inexperienced staff. Unlike other coaches, who packed their staff with the perfect coaching cocktail of new ideas and veteran savvy, he trusted newbies. From the leader himself to coordinators to assistant coaches, the Jags are filled with rookies. That kind of approach is exciting in theory, but often collapses in reality – with other teams are a warning – because everyone is figuring out a their job in real-time. But he has pulled everyone and all elements into sync.

Following an initial strong start, there was a chance that the campaign would go off the track. A mid-year setback caused the team wobbling again. That's typically when leaders overcorrect. Coen did not. Instead, he simplified the approach. The offense stopped chasing explosive answers and started hunting sustainable ones. Coen recentered the offense around key players and the ground attack, and asked Lawrence to use his mobility more.

The outcomes are obvious. The Jags have won seven games consecutively and will be the AFC's number three playoff seed. He receives the tiniest deduction in the standings because he inherited a skilled roster, but he has demonstrated he can maximize that roster.

3) Mike Macdonald, His Team, 13-3

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

Moving on from a veteran, signing a new quarterback and pairing him with an new play-caller could have ended the season in the early weeks. Instead, it defined it. By the middle point of the year, the acquisition was an MVP contender. He has regressed after that hot streak, slipping to a lower rank in EPA per pass attempt over the latter part of the schedule, placing him just a single place ahead of other QBs.

Still