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Ordinarily, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year trophy adheres to a straightforward pattern. It often functions as a form of mea culpa. Our apologies we got wrong your squad in our preseason predictions.

Theoretically, it's a direct trajectory: the skipper who engineered the largest improvement is handed the prize. In practice, it creates an yearly discussion about preseason outlooks and whether we're truly rewarding superior coaching or just the most shocking surprise.

But this year's competition is profoundly unique. The group of candidates is exceptionally talented. It has been the season of turnarounds. The league has been messy, with reigning conference champions fading and longtime also-rans improving collectively. In an typical year, a coach leading the his team to the top of the AFC would make him the overwhelming favorite. Yet in such a wild and fun season, he's up against five other exceptional candidates.

Here is how the ideal vote should look.

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

Voters for Coach of the Year selectors are fascinated by quarterbacks. They always have. A certain coach in 2017. Another in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. When you transform a quarterback, you're halfway home.

The Bears' head coach hasn't just corrected Caleb Williams; he's unlocked him. In the right system, Williams has been given the chance to display his special ability. From midseason onward, the Chicago offense sit at number four in offensive Expected Points Added per play. This isn't a brief surge – it's prolonged excellence. Under Johnson, the quarterback has become more confident, less reckless, and has eagerly submitted to the gameplan instead of improvising. It is an offense designed entirely in Johnson's image: a bully-ball run game, a heavy helping of play-action passes and a innovative aerial game that springs wide receiver targets all over the field. The QB has taken advantage. And when clear throws haven't been available, he's been able to spin magic from nothing.

The coach came to the Bears with a clear offensive vision. Virtually each gamble – overhauling the offensive line, highlighting the tight ends, turning Williams into a rhythm passer – has worked. That's rare for a first-year skipper. And it's rarer yet for a coach who walked into the building with the level of hype he did. For consecutive straight cycles, he was the top name on the coaching market. However when it comes to selecting a leader, there are zero sure things. Somehow, he has lived up to expectations – and even surpassed them. He's demonstrated not just to be a scheme wizard but the type of leader that can inject fresh energy into an organization.

During a typical year, he would be the overwhelming choice. Yet this isn't a normal season!

Where Johnson's case comes slightly into trouble is on defense. The Chicago defense presently rank in the bottom third in defensive success rate. They are surviving on turnovers, and takeaways are notoriously fickle. Coaches can focus on ball disruption, but nobody can guarantee it. He is on the ballot because the offensive production is legitimate. He's ranked lower because luck is doing an outsized share of the defensive heavy lifting. With a couple breaks of the ball, the Bears would be several wins worse off. It's been an remarkable transformation, and the core is in place for long-term winning. But he comes up short here.

4) Liam Coen, His Team, 12-4

The Jaguars' coach is in a comparable situation to his counterpart. He's another rookie leader who has orchestrated a rapid resurgence. During the stretch run of the year, he has his franchise quarterback playing the best all-around ball of his professional life. And he's also overseen the overhaul of a defense that now ranks fifth in the NFL in EPA per play.

Even more impressively, Coen has mastered the intangibles stuff, which was not a certainty following his early public appearances and some of his preseason moves.

The coach walked into Jacksonville with an uncommonly inexperienced staff. In contrast to other coaches, who surrounded themselves with the ideal staff mix of youth and experience, Coen hired first-timers. Starting with the leader on down to assistants to assistant coaches, the Jaguars are stocked with rookies. That type of setup is exciting in theory, but often fails in reality – with other teams are a warning – because everyone is learning a new job in real-time. Yet he has managed to bring the entire group and all elements into sync.

After an early hot beginning, there was a possibility that the season would veer off the track. A mid-year setback caused the Jags stumbling once more. That's usually when coaches panic and change too much. Coen did not. Rather, he simplified things. Jacksonville stopped chasing explosive answers and started seeking consistent ones. The coach refocused the offense around key players and the ground attack, and encouraged Lawrence to use his mobility more often.

The results are obvious. The Jags have won multiple games in a row and will be the conference's No 3 seed. He gets the slightest deduction in the standings because he inherited a talented roster, but he has demonstrated he can maximize that talent.

3) Mike Macdonald, His Team, 13-3

Each Strong of the Year narrative has a pivotal decision. For the Seahawks coach, it was his quarterback move.

Moving on from a incumbent, signing a new signal-caller and pairing him with an new play-caller might have ended the campaign in October. Instead, it shaped it. By the middle point of the year, the new QB was an Most Valuable Player contender. He has cooled off after that time, dropping to a lower rank in EPA per pass attempt over the latter part of the schedule, putting him just a single spot ahead of other QBs.

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