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Ordinarily, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year trophy adheres to a simple script. It often serves as a type of apology. Sorry we underestimated your franchise in our preseason projections.

In theory, it's a clear-cut line: the coach who engineered the most dramatic improvement receives the prize. In practice, it creates an annual debate about preseason outlooks and whether we're actually rewarding excellent coaching or merely the most shocking shock.

However the current field is fundamentally unique. The group of contenders is remarkably deep. It has been the year of resurgences. The league has been chaotic, with recent division winners declining and recent strugglers improving together. Under an normal season, a coach guiding the his team to the top of the AFC would make him the clear favorite. But in this wild and entertaining season, he's competing with multiple other exceptional coaches.

Here is how the hypothetical ballot should shake out.

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

Coach of the Year selectors love QBs. History shows this. Sean McVay in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. Should you transform a franchise QB, you're halfway home.

Ben Johnson didn't merely corrected Caleb Williams; he's unleashed him. Given a proper environment, Williams has been afforded the chance to display his otherworldly ability. Since midseason onward, the Chicago offense rank number four in offensive Expected Points Added per play. That's not a lucky run – it's sustained dominance. With Johnson, Williams has become increasingly confident, far less careless, and has eagerly surrendered to the gameplan rather than freelancing. It is an attack constructed entirely in the coach's image: a physical run game, a heavy dose of play-action passes and a creative passing attack that springs wide receiver receivers consistently. The QB has taken advantage. And when easy reads haven't been there, he's been capable to conjure magic out of nothing.

The coach arrived to the Bears with a defined offensive blueprint. Almost every bet – rebuilding the trenches, highlighting the tight ends, turning the QB into a rhythm passer – has succeeded. That's rare for a rookie head coach. And it's rarer still for a coach who entered the organization with the kind of pressure Johnson did. For two straight offseasons, he was the top candidate on the head coaching market. But when it comes to selecting a leader, there are zero guarantees. Somehow, Johnson has met expectations – and even exceeded them. He's proven not only to be a offensive genius but the type of leader that can breathe new life into an organization.

In a ordinary year, he would be the clear-cut choice. Yet the current is not a normal season!

The area where his case comes slightly into trouble is on the defensive side. The Bears currently sit in the bottom third in defensive success rate. They are relying on turnovers, and takeaways are notoriously fickle. Coaches can focus on creating turnovers, but no one can ensure it. Johnson is on the list because the offense is real. He's ranked lower because variance is doing too much of the defensive heavy lifting. With a few bounces of the ball, the team would be two victories worse off. It's been an exceptional turnaround, and the foundation is established for sustained winning. But he comes up just short in this ranking.

4) The Jacksonville Jaguars Coach, Jacksonville Jaguars, 12-4

The Jaguars' coach is in a comparable spot to his counterpart. He's another rookie leader who has masterminded a rapid resurgence. Over the crucial final weeks of the season, he has his franchise quarterback playing the finest overall football of his career. And he's also spearheaded the overhaul of a defense that now sits at fifth in the league in Expected Points Added per play.

Even more impressively, he has mastered the off-field stuff, which was not a guarantee following his early press conference appearances and some of his preseason moves.

Coen walked into the Jaguars with an exceptionally raw coaching staff. In contrast to other coaches, who surrounded their staff with the perfect coaching mix of youth and veteran savvy, he bet on first-timers. From the leader on down to assistants to assistant coaches, the Jags are stocked with rookies. That type of approach is exciting on paper, but often fails in reality – with other teams are a cautionary tale – because everybody is figuring out a new job on the fly. But Coen has pulled the entire group and everything together.

Following an initial hot start, there was a chance that the season would veer off the rails. A midseason collapse had the team wobbling once more. That's usually when leaders overcorrect. He didn't. Instead, he simplified things. The offense stopped chasing home-run plays and started hunting reliable ones. The coach recentered the offense around key players and the ground attack, and asked Lawrence to use his legs more often.

The outcomes are obvious. The Jags have won seven games in a row and will be the AFC's No 3 playoff seed. Coen gets the slightest deduction in the rankings because he took over a talented team, but he has proven he can get the most out of that roster.

3) Mike Macdonald, Seattle Seahawks, Their Record

Every Coach of the Year case has a pivotal decision. For Mike Macdonald, it was his quarterback choice.

Parting ways from a incumbent, bringing in a new signal-caller and pairing him with an innovative play-caller might have derailed the season in October. Rather, it defined 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, slipping to 23rd in EPA per pass attempt over the second half of the season, putting him just one place ahead of peers.

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