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Ordinarily, the NFL's Head Coach of the Year trophy follows a simple script. It commonly functions as a kind of apology. Our apologies we got wrong your franchise in our preseason predictions.

In theory, it's a direct path: the skipper who oversaw the most dramatic resurgence is handed the prize. In reality, it creates an annual discussion about expectations and whether we're truly rewarding superior leadership or merely the biggest upset.

However the latest competition is distinctly unique. The group of nominees is unusually deep. It has been the campaign of resurgences. The league has been chaotic, with recent division champions falling away and longtime strugglers ascending together. In an normal season, Sean Payton guiding the his team to the top of the AFC would make him the overwhelming front-runner. Yet in such a chaotic and thrilling season, he's competing with several other exceptional candidates.

This is how the hypothetical vote should shake out.

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

Voters for Coach of the Year voters are fascinated by QBs. They always have. A certain coach in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. When you solve a quarterback, you're halfway home.

Ben Johnson not only fixed Caleb Williams; he's freed him. In the right system, the QB has been afforded the opportunity to showcase his otherworldly talent. Since Week 9, the Chicago offense sit at number four in offensive EPA per play. That's not a lucky run – it's prolonged performance. With Johnson, Williams has become more confident, far less reckless, and has willingly submitted to the scheme instead of improvising. It is an attack constructed solely in the coach's vision: a physical ground attack, a steady helping of play-action and a innovative passing attack that creates wide receiver receivers all over the field. The QB has taken advantage. And when easy reads haven't been available, he's been capable to spin big plays out of nothing.

Johnson came to the Bears with a defined offensive blueprint. Almost every decision – overhauling the offensive line, utilizing the pass-catchers, turning the QB into a timing-based thrower – has succeeded. That's rare for a first-year skipper. And it's rarer still for a coach who entered the organization with the immense expectations Johnson did. For consecutive straight cycles, he was the hottest candidate on the coaching market. But when it comes to selecting a leader, there are no guarantees. Remarkably, he has met the hype – and even exceeded them. He's proven not just to be a offensive wizard but the kind of leader that can inject new life into an franchise.

In a normal season, Johnson would be the runaway favorite. Yet this is not a normal campaign!

Where Johnson's candidacy runs a bit into trouble is on the defensive side. The Bears currently sit 25th in defensive success rate. They are surviving on turnovers, and turnovers are famously unreliable. Defensive minds can stress ball disruption, but no one can guarantee it. Johnson is on the ballot because the offense is sustainable. He's not higher because variance is doing too much of the defensive heavy lifting. With a few bounces of the ball, the Bears would be several victories worse off. It's been an exceptional turnaround, and the core is established for sustained winning. However Johnson comes up just short here.

4) Liam Coen, Jacksonville Jaguars, Their Record

Coen is in a similar position to his counterpart. He's another rookie leader who has masterminded a rapid turnaround. Over the stretch run of the year, he has his franchise quarterback playing the best overall football of his professional life. And he's also overseen the transformation of a defense that now ranks fifth in the league in EPA per play.

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

The coach took over the Jaguars with an exceptionally raw staff. In contrast to Johnson, who surrounded their staff with the perfect staff cocktail of new ideas and experience, Coen trusted first-timers. From the head coach himself to assistants to assistant coaches, the Jaguars are filled with rookies. That type of setup is intriguing in theory, but often collapses in reality – as past failures are a warning – because everybody is figuring out a new job on the fly. But he has pulled the entire group and all elements together.

Following an initial hot beginning, there was a possibility that the campaign would veer off the track. A mid-year collapse had the team stumbling once more. That's typically when leaders panic and change too much. Coen did not. Instead, he simplified things. The offense stopped chasing home-run answers and started hunting consistent ones. The coach recentered the attack around key players and the ground attack, and encouraged his QB to use his mobility more often.

The results are evident. The Jaguars have won multiple games in a row and will be the AFC's No 3 playoff seed. He gets the tiniest deduction in the standings because he took over a skilled team, but he has demonstrated he can maximize that roster.

3) Mike Macdonald, His Team, Their Record

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

Parting ways from a incumbent, signing a new quarterback and partnering him with an innovative offensive coordinator might have derailed the season in the early weeks. Rather, it made it. By the middle point of the year, the new QB was an Most Valuable Player front-runner. He has cooled off after that time, dropping to a lower rank in EPA per pass attempt over the second half of the schedule, placing him only one spot ahead of other QBs.

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