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Typically, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year honor adheres to a straightforward pattern. It often acts as a form of apology. Our apologies we got wrong your squad in our pre-campaign forecasts.

Theoretically, it's a direct path: the skipper who orchestrated the biggest turnaround is handed the award. In reality, it sparks an yearly argument about expectations and whether we're truly honoring excellent coaching or merely the greatest surprise.

Yet the latest field is distinctly unique. The list of contenders is exceptionally talented. It has been the campaign of comebacks. The league has been messy, with reigning conference winners fading and longtime underperformers improving collectively. During an typical season, a coach guiding the Denver Broncos to the top of the conference would make him the clear favorite. But in such a chaotic and fun season, he's up against multiple other outstanding coaches.

This is how the ideal vote should shake out.

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

Voters for Coach of the Year selectors adore QBs. History shows this. A certain coach in 2017. Another in 2020. A third in 2022. If you solve a franchise QB, you're halfway to winning the award.

The Bears' head coach didn't merely corrected Caleb Williams; he's unlocked him. In the right environment, Williams has been given the opportunity to display his rare ability. From Week 9, the Chicago offense rank number four in offensive Expected Points Added per play. That's not a hot streak – it's consistent performance. Under Johnson, Williams has become increasingly decisive, less reckless, and has willingly submitted to the gameplan instead of freelancing. It is an offense built entirely in the coach's image: a physical run game, a consistent dose of play-action and a imaginative aerial game that springs wide receiver receivers consistently. The QB has capitalized. And when openings haven't been there, he's been able to conjure big plays out of broken plays.

Johnson arrived to the Bears with a specific offensive blueprint. Virtually each bet – overhauling the trenches, utilizing the pass-catchers, turning Williams into a rhythm passer – has worked. That's rare for a rookie head coach. And it's rarer yet for a leader who entered the building with the level of pressure he did. For consecutive straight cycles, he was the top name on the head coaching market. But when it comes to selecting a leader, there are no guarantees. Somehow, Johnson has lived up to expectations – and even surpassed them. He's proven not only to be a offensive wizard but the kind of culture builder that can inject new life into an franchise.

During a ordinary season, Johnson would be the runaway favorite. But the current isn't a typical year!

The area where Johnson's candidacy comes a bit unstuck is on the defensive side. The Bears currently sit 25th in defensive efficiency. They are surviving on turnovers, and takeaways are famously inconsistent. Coaches can emphasise creating turnovers, but no one can ensure it. Johnson is on the ballot because the offense is real. He's not higher because luck is doing an outsized share of the defensive work. If not for a couple breaks of the ball, the team would be several victories worse off. It's been an remarkable turnaround, and the foundation is in place for sustained winning. However he comes up short here.

4) Liam Coen, Jacksonville Jaguars, 12-4

Coen is in a similar spot to his counterpart. He's a fellow rookie head coach who has masterminded a dramatic resurgence. Over the stretch run of the year, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the best all-around football of his career. And he's also overseen the transformation of a defense that now sits at number five in the NFL in Expected Points Added per play.

What's more notably, he has excelled at the off-field stuff, which wasn't a guarantee after his early press conference introduction and some of his preseason decisions.

Coen took over Jacksonville with an uncommonly raw staff. In contrast to Johnson, who packed themselves with the ideal coaching cocktail of new ideas and experience, Coen hired first-timers. Starting with the head coach on down to coordinators to position coaches, the Jaguars are filled with rookies. That kind of approach is exciting on paper, but frequently fails in practice – with other teams are a warning – because everybody is figuring out a their job on the fly. Yet Coen has pulled the entire group and everything into sync.

After an early hot start, there was a possibility that the season would veer off the rails. A midseason collapse had the Jags wobbling once more. That's typically when coaches panic and change too much. Coen did not. Rather, he streamlined the approach. The offense stopped chasing explosive answers and started seeking sustainable ones. Coen recentered the attack around his playmakers and the running game, and encouraged his QB to use his mobility more.

The outcomes are clear. The Jags have won seven games consecutively and will be the conference's number three playoff seed. He receives the slightest knock in the rankings because he took over a skilled team, but he has proven he can get the most out of that talent.

3) Mike Macdonald, His Team, 13-3

Each Coach of the Year case has a pivotal moment. For Mike Macdonald, it was his quarterback move.

Moving on from a incumbent, bringing in a new signal-caller and pairing him with an innovative play-caller might have ended the campaign in the early weeks. Rather, it made it. By the middle point of the season, the new QB was an Most Valuable Player front-runner. He has cooled off since that hot streak, slipping to a lower rank in EPA per dropback over the latter part of the season, putting him just a single place ahead of other QBs.

Still