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Ordinarily, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year award adheres to a straightforward pattern. It often acts as a kind of mea culpa. We regret we got wrong your franchise in our preseason projections.

Theoretically, it's a direct path: the coach who orchestrated the largest improvement is handed the prize. However, it creates an yearly discussion about expectations and whether we're actually honoring superior leadership or merely the most shocking surprise.

But this year's field is profoundly different. The list of nominees is remarkably strong. It has been the season of comebacks. The NFL has been chaotic, with recent division champions falling away and recent strugglers ascending in unison. Under an typical year, a coach leading the Denver Broncos to the summit of the AFC would make him the clear front-runner. Yet in such a wild and thrilling season, he's competing with several other exceptional candidates.

Here is how the ideal vote should be structured.

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

Voters for Coach of the Year voters are fascinated by quarterbacks. They always have. A certain coach in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. A third in 2022. If you solve a quarterback, you're well on your way home.

Ben Johnson hasn't just fixed his young quarterback; he's freed him. In the right system, the QB has been given the chance to display his rare talent. From midseason onward, the Chicago offense sit at number four in offensive EPA per play. That's not a brief surge – it's prolonged dominance. Under his guidance, Williams has become more confident, far less reckless, and has eagerly surrendered to the system instead of freelancing. It is an offense constructed solely in Johnson's vision: a physical run game, a consistent dose of play-action passes and a innovative passing attack that frees wide receiver targets consistently. The QB has taken advantage. And when openings haven't been available, he's been capable to spin magic from nothing.

Johnson arrived to Chicago with a specific offensive blueprint. Virtually every bet – overhauling the offensive line, highlighting the tight ends, transforming Williams into a rhythm thrower – has worked. This is uncommon for a rookie head coach. And it's rarer still for a coach who walked into the building with the level of hype he did. For consecutive straight offseasons, he was the top name on the head coaching market. However when it comes to hiring a head coach, there are no guarantees. Remarkably, he has met expectations – and even surpassed them. He's proven not just to be a scheme wizard but the type of culture builder that can inject new life into an franchise.

In a normal season, he would be the runaway choice. Yet the current is not a typical season!

The area where his case runs slightly unstuck is on the defensive side. The Chicago defense currently sit in the bottom third in defensive efficiency. They are living on takeaways, and turnovers are notoriously fickle. Defensive minds can focus on ball disruption, but no one can ensure it. He is on the list because the offense is legitimate. He's ranked lower because luck is doing too much of the defense's work. With a couple breaks of the ball, the Bears would be several wins behind. It's been an exceptional turnaround, and the foundation is established for sustained success. But he comes up short in this ranking.

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

The Jaguars' coach is in a similar spot to his counterpart. He's a fellow first-time head coach who has masterminded a swift resurgence. Over the crucial final weeks of the year, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the finest all-around 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.

What's more notably, Coen has nailed the off-field aspects, which was not a certainty after his initial press conference appearances and some of his offseason moves.

Coen walked into Jacksonville with an exceptionally inexperienced staff. Unlike Johnson, who packed themselves with the perfect coaching blend of new ideas and experience, Coen trusted first-timers. Starting with the head coach himself to assistants to position coaches, the Jaguars are stocked with first-timers. That type of setup is exciting in theory, but often collapses in reality – with other teams are a warning – because everyone is figuring out a new job in real-time. But Coen has managed to bring everyone and all elements into sync.

Following an early hot beginning, there was a possibility that the season would go off the track. A mid-year setback had the team wobbling once more. That's typically when leaders overcorrect. Coen didn't. Instead, he simplified the approach. Jacksonville stopped pursuing explosive plays and started hunting reliable ones. Coen recentered the offense around key players and the running game, and encouraged Lawrence to use his legs more.

The results are obvious. The Jaguars have won seven games in a row and will be the AFC's No 3 seed. Coen gets the slightest deduction in the standings because he took over a skilled roster, but he has proven he can maximize that roster.

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

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

Parting ways from a incumbent, signing a new quarterback and partnering him with an new play-caller might have derailed the campaign in the early weeks. Rather, it defined it. By the mid point of the season, the new QB was an Most Valuable Player front-runner. He has cooled off since that hot streak, slipping to 23rd in efficiency per dropback over the second half of the season, putting him only one spot ahead of other QBs.

Still