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Ordinarily, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year award adheres to a straightforward script. It often acts as a kind of apology. We regret we misjudged your team in our preseason forecasts.

In theory, it's a direct path: the skipper who engineered the biggest resurgence receives the award. However, it fuels an annual argument about preseason outlooks and whether we're genuinely rewarding superior coaching or just the most shocking upset.

However this year's competition is fundamentally different. The list of contenders is unusually talented. It has been the year of resurgences. The league has been unpredictable, with reigning division winners declining and longtime underperformers ascending collectively. In an ordinary season, Sean Payton guiding the Denver Broncos to the summit of the AFC would make him the clear front-runner. But in such a wild and entertaining season, he's facing multiple other exceptional coaches.

This is how the ideal vote ought to look.

5) Ben Johnson, Chicago Bears, Their Record

Voters for Coach of the Year selectors love quarterbacks. They always have. A certain coach in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. When you solve a franchise QB, you're well on your way to winning the award.

Ben Johnson didn't merely fixed his young quarterback; he's unlocked him. Given a proper environment, the QB has been given the chance to demonstrate his rare ability. From midseason onward, the Bears sit at fourth in offensive Expected Points Added per play. This isn't a hot streak – it's consistent performance. Under Johnson, the quarterback has become more decisive, far less careless, and has willingly submitted to the scheme instead of freelancing. It is an attack designed solely in Johnson's vision: a bully-ball ground attack, a steady dose of play-action passes and a imaginative passing attack that springs wide receiver receivers all over the field. The QB has thrived. And when openings haven't been available, he's been capable to create big plays out of nothing.

Johnson arrived to the Bears with a defined offensive philosophy. Almost every bet – overhauling the offensive line, featuring the pass-catchers, turning the QB into a rhythm passer – has paid off. That's uncommon for a first-year head coach. And it's even more uncommon still for a leader who entered the organization with the immense pressure he did. For consecutive straight offseasons, he was the most sought-after candidate on the head coaching carousel. However when it comes to selecting a head coach, there are no sure things. Remarkably, Johnson has met expectations – and even exceeded them. He's proven not just to be a scheme genius but the type of culture builder that can inject new life into an organization.

In a normal year, Johnson would be the overwhelming favorite. Yet the current is not a typical season!

Where Johnson's candidacy comes slightly unstuck is on defense. The Bears currently rank 25th in defensive success rate. They are relying on turnovers, and takeaways are famously inconsistent. Defensive minds can stress creating turnovers, but nobody can guarantee it. Johnson is on the ballot because the offense is legitimate. He's not higher because variance is doing an outsized share of the defense's heavy lifting. With a few breaks of the ball, the team would be several victories worse off. It's been an remarkable turnaround, and the foundation is in place for long-term success. However he falls just short here.

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

Coen is in a comparable situation to his counterpart. He's another rookie leader who has masterminded a swift resurgence. During the crucial final weeks of the year, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the best overall ball of his professional life. And he's also overseen the overhaul of a defense that now sits at fifth in the league in Expected Points Added per play.

What's more notably, he has mastered the off-field stuff, which was not a certainty after his early public appearances and some of his offseason moves.

The coach took over the Jaguars with an exceptionally inexperienced coaching staff. Unlike other coaches, who surrounded their staff with the perfect coaching blend of youth and experience, Coen bet on newbies. Starting with the head coach himself to assistants to position coaches, the Jaguars are stocked with rookies. That kind of approach is exciting in theory, but often collapses in reality – as past failures are a warning – because everybody is learning a their job on the fly. But he has managed to bring everyone and everything into sync.

Following an initial hot start, there was a chance that the season would go off the rails. A mid-year collapse had the team stumbling again. That's usually when coaches overcorrect. Coen didn't. Instead, he simplified the approach. Jacksonville stopped pursuing home-run plays and started hunting sustainable ones. The coach refocused the offense around his playmakers and the running game, and asked Lawrence to use his legs more often.

The results are clear. The Jaguars have won multiple games in a row and will be the AFC's No 3 seed. He receives the slightest knock in the standings because he inherited a skilled roster, but he has demonstrated he can maximize that talent.

3) Mike Macdonald, His Team, Their Record

Each Coach of the Year argument has a pivotal moment. For Mike Macdonald, it was his quarterback decision.

Moving on from a incumbent, signing a different quarterback and pairing him with an new play-caller might have ended the season in the early weeks. Instead, it made it. Through the mid point of the year, the acquisition was an Most Valuable Player contender. He has regressed since that hot streak, slipping to a lower rank in efficiency per dropback over the latter part of the schedule, placing him only a single place ahead of peers.

Still