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Ordinarily, the NFL's Head Coach of the Year award follows a straightforward pattern. It commonly serves as a type of mea culpa. We regret we misjudged your team in our preseason predictions.

In theory, it's a clear-cut trajectory: the coach who engineered the most dramatic turnaround is handed the award. However, it fuels an yearly debate about expectations and whether we're truly honoring superior leadership or just the most shocking surprise.

But this year's competition is fundamentally unique. The list of contenders is exceptionally talented. It has been the year of comebacks. The NFL has been chaotic, with reigning division champions falling away and longtime strugglers improving in unison. During an normal season, a coach leading the Denver Broncos to the summit of the conference would make him the stone-cold favorite. But in this wild and thrilling season, he's facing several other outstanding coaches.

Here is how the ideal vote ought to shake out.

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

Voters for Coach of the Year voters are fascinated by quarterbacks. This is a tradition. A certain coach in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. If you fix a quarterback, you're halfway home.

The Bears' head coach hasn't just corrected his young quarterback; he's freed him. In the right ecosystem, the QB has been given the opportunity to demonstrate his otherworldly ability. From Week 9, the Chicago offense rank number four in offensive Expected Points Added per play. This isn't a hot streak – it's consistent dominance. Under his guidance, the quarterback has become more confident, less careless, and has willingly submitted to the system instead of improvising. It is an offense built solely in the coach's image: a bully-ball run game, a steady helping of play-action and a imaginative passing attack that frees wide receiver receivers consistently. The QB has thrived. And when easy reads weren't there, he's been able to create magic from nothing.

Johnson arrived to Chicago with a defined offensive blueprint. Virtually each decision – rebuilding the offensive line, highlighting the tight ends, transforming the QB into a timing-based passer – has succeeded. That's rare for a rookie head coach. And it's even more uncommon still for a coach who walked into the organization with the level of pressure Johnson did. For two straight cycles, he was the most sought-after candidate on the coaching carousel. But when it comes to selecting a leader, there are zero sure things. Remarkably, he has lived up to the hype – and even exceeded them. He's proven not just to be a offensive dork but the type of leader that can inject new life into an franchise.

During a normal season, Johnson would be the runaway choice. But this is not a normal campaign!

Where his case comes slightly unstuck is on defense. The Bears presently rank 25th in defensive efficiency. They are relying on turnovers, and takeaways are notoriously unreliable. Defensive minds can emphasise ball disruption, but nobody can guarantee it. Johnson is on the list because the offense is real. 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 wins worse off. It's been an exceptional transformation, and the foundation is in place for sustained success. But he comes up just short here.

4) Liam Coen, His Team, 12-4

The Jaguars' coach is in a comparable situation to his counterpart. He's another first-time head coach who has masterminded a dramatic resurgence. During the crucial final weeks of the season, he has his franchise quarterback playing the best all-around football of his career. And he's also spearheaded the transformation of a defensive unit that now sits at number five in the league in Expected Points Added per play.

Even more impressively, he has excelled at the intangibles stuff, which wasn't a guarantee following his initial press conference appearances and some of his preseason moves.

Coen took over Jacksonville with an exceptionally inexperienced staff. In contrast to other coaches, who packed their staff with the ideal coaching mix of new ideas and veteran savvy, he bet on first-timers. Starting with the head coach himself to assistants to position coaches, the Jaguars are filled with rookies. That type of setup is exciting on paper, but often collapses in reality – as past failures are a warning – because everybody is learning a their job on the fly. But he has pulled the entire group and everything together.

Following an initial strong start, there was a possibility that the season would veer off the rails. A mid-year collapse caused the team wobbling again. That's typically when leaders overcorrect. Coen did not. Rather, he simplified the approach. Jacksonville stopped chasing explosive answers and started seeking reliable ones. The coach recentered the attack around key players and the ground attack, and asked his QB to use his mobility more often.

The results are obvious. The Jaguars have won multiple games consecutively and will be the AFC's No 3 seed. He receives the tiniest deduction in the standings because he inherited a talented team, but he has proven he can maximize that talent.

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

Each Coach of the Year case has a defining decision. For Mike Macdonald, it was his quarterback decision.

Moving on from a veteran, bringing in a new signal-caller and partnering him with an new offensive coordinator might have derailed the season in October. Instead, it defined it. By the middle point of the season, the acquisition was an Most Valuable Player candidate. He has cooled off after that time, dropping to a lower rank in efficiency per pass attempt over the second half of the season, placing him just one place ahead of other QBs.

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