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Typically, the NFL's Head Coach of the Year award adheres to a straightforward pattern. It often functions as a form of mea culpa. We regret we got wrong your squad in our preseason projections.

In theory, it's a clear-cut trajectory: the coach who oversaw the largest improvement receives the prize. However, it fuels an yearly argument about expectations and whether we're actually rewarding superior leadership or just the greatest shock.

Yet this year's field is profoundly unique. The group of contenders is remarkably strong. It has been the year of comebacks. The league has been chaotic, with recent conference winners fading and longtime strugglers rising in unison. During an normal year, a coach leading the Denver Broncos to the summit of the AFC would make him the stone-cold favorite. Yet in such a turbulent and thrilling season, he's facing multiple other exceptional candidates.

Here is how the ideal vote ought to look.

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

Voters for Coach of the Year voters love signal-callers. This is a tradition. A certain coach in 2017. Another in 2020. A third in 2022. When you transform a quarterback, you're halfway home.

Ben Johnson didn't merely fixed Caleb Williams; he's unleashed him. Within an ideal system, the QB has been given the opportunity to showcase his special ability. From Week 9, the Bears rank fourth in offensive EPA per play. This isn't a brief surge – it's prolonged excellence. Under his guidance, Williams has become more decisive, far less careless, and has willingly submitted to the system rather than going rogue. It is an attack designed solely in the coach's image: a physical run game, a consistent helping of play-action passes and a imaginative aerial game that frees wide receiver targets all over the field. Williams has taken advantage. And when easy reads weren't there, he's been able to create big plays from nothing.

The coach arrived to the Bears with a defined offensive vision. Almost every gamble – rebuilding the offensive line, featuring the tight ends, turning Williams into a rhythm passer – has succeeded. That's uncommon for a rookie head coach. And it's rarer yet for a leader who entered the building with the immense hype he did. For consecutive straight cycles, he was the most sought-after name on the coaching market. But when it comes to selecting a head coach, there are no guarantees. Remarkably, Johnson has met expectations – and even exceeded them. He's demonstrated not just to be a scheme genius but the kind of leader that can inject fresh energy into an organization.

During a ordinary season, Johnson would be the runaway favorite. Yet this is not a typical campaign!

The area where his case runs a bit unstuck is on the defensive side. The Bears currently rank 25th in defensive efficiency. They are living on turnovers, and takeaways are notoriously fickle. Coaches can focus on ball disruption, but nobody can ensure it. He is on the list because the offense is legitimate. He's not higher because luck is doing too much of the defense's heavy lifting. With a couple bounces of the ball, the team would be several wins behind. It's been an exceptional transformation, and the core is established for sustained winning. However Johnson falls just short here.

4) The Jacksonville Jaguars Coach, His Team, Their Record

The Jaguars' coach is in a comparable position to his counterpart. He's another rookie head coach who has orchestrated a rapid turnaround. Over the crucial final weeks of the year, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the finest all-around football of his professional life. And he's also spearheaded the overhaul of a defensive unit that now ranks fifth in the league in Expected Points Added per play.

What's more impressively, Coen has excelled at the intangibles aspects, which was not a certainty after his early press conference appearances and some of his offseason decisions.

Coen took over Jacksonville with an exceptionally inexperienced staff. Unlike other coaches, who packed themselves with the ideal coaching mix of youth and veteran savvy, he hired first-timers. From the leader on down to coordinators to position coaches, the Jaguars are stocked with first-timers. That type of setup is intriguing on paper, but frequently fails in reality – as past failures are a warning – because everybody is figuring out a their job on the fly. But Coen has managed to bring everyone and all elements into sync.

Following an early strong beginning, there was a possibility that the season would go off the track. A mid-year setback had the Jags stumbling again. That's typically when coaches overcorrect. He did not. Rather, he simplified the approach. Jacksonville stopped chasing explosive plays and started hunting sustainable ones. Coen refocused the offense around key players and the ground attack, and encouraged his QB to use his mobility more.

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

3) The Seattle Seahawks Coach, His Team, 13-3

Every Strong of the Year case has a hinge decision. For the Seahawks coach, it was his quarterback choice.

Parting ways from a incumbent, signing a different signal-caller and partnering him with an new offensive coordinator could have ended the campaign in October. Rather, it shaped it. By the mid point of the year, the new QB was an MVP contender. He has fallen away after that hot streak, slipping to a lower rank in efficiency per pass attempt over the second half of the schedule, putting him just a single place ahead of peers.

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