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Usually, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year honor adheres to a simple pattern. It commonly acts as a type of apology. We regret we got wrong your team in our pre-campaign forecasts.

Theoretically, it's a clear-cut line: the skipper who orchestrated the most dramatic resurgence receives the award. In practice, it fuels an yearly debate about preseason outlooks and whether we're truly honoring superior coaching or just the greatest surprise.

However the latest race is fundamentally different. The list of nominees is unusually deep. It has been the campaign of comebacks. The NFL has been messy, with recent conference winners fading and recent underperformers rising together. In an normal season, a coach guiding the Denver Broncos to the summit of the conference would make him the clear front-runner. Yet in such a chaotic and entertaining season, he's up against multiple other exceptional candidates.

Below is how the ideal ballot ought to be structured.

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

Voters for Coach of the Year selectors adore signal-callers. History shows this. A certain coach in 2017. Another in 2020. A third in 2022. Should you fix a quarterback, you're well on your way to winning the award.

The Bears' head coach not only fixed his young quarterback; he's unlocked him. In the right environment, Williams has been given the chance to showcase his special ability. From midseason onward, the Bears rank number four in offensive Expected Points Added per play. That's not a hot streak – it's consistent performance. With his guidance, Williams has become increasingly decisive, far less careless, and has willingly surrendered to the gameplan rather than freelancing. It is an attack built solely in Johnson's vision: a bully-ball run game, a heavy dose of play-action passes and a creative aerial game that creates wide-open targets all over the field. Williams has capitalized. And when clear throws weren't available, he's been able to spin big plays from broken plays.

Johnson came to the Bears with a clear offensive philosophy. Virtually each decision – overhauling the trenches, highlighting the pass-catchers, transforming the QB into a timing-based thrower – has succeeded. This is uncommon for a rookie head coach. And it's even more uncommon still for a leader who walked into the building with the immense pressure he did. For consecutive straight cycles, he was the hottest name on the head coaching carousel. However when it comes to selecting a head coach, there are no guarantees. Somehow, Johnson has lived up to expectations – and even exceeded them. He's demonstrated not just to be a scheme wizard but the type of culture builder that can inject fresh energy into an organization.

In a ordinary season, he would be the clear-cut choice. Yet the current isn't a normal year!

The area where Johnson's candidacy runs slightly into trouble is on the defensive side. The Bears currently sit in the bottom third in defensive efficiency. They are relying on turnovers, and turnovers are famously inconsistent. Defensive minds can stress creating turnovers, but no one can guarantee it. He is on the ballot because the offense is legitimate. He's ranked lower because variance is doing too much of the defensive work. If not for a couple bounces of the ball, the team would be two victories behind. It's been an exceptional transformation, and the foundation is established for long-term success. But he falls just short here.

4) Liam Coen, His Team, 12-4

Coen is in a similar spot to his counterpart. He's a fellow first-time head coach who has masterminded a dramatic resurgence. Over the crucial final weeks of the season, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the most complete overall football of his professional life. And he's also overseen the overhaul of a defensive unit that now sits at number five in the NFL in Expected Points Added per play.

What's more impressively, Coen has nailed the intangibles stuff, which was not a given after his early public appearances and some of his offseason decisions.

The coach took over Jacksonville with an uncommonly raw coaching staff. In contrast to Johnson, who surrounded their staff with the perfect staff cocktail of new ideas and experience, Coen hired newbies. From the leader himself to coordinators to position coaches, the Jags are stocked with rookies. That kind of setup is exciting in theory, but frequently fails in reality – as past failures are a cautionary tale – because everybody is learning a new job in real-time. But he has pulled the entire group and everything into sync.

Following an early strong start, there was a risk that the campaign would veer off the rails. A mid-year collapse caused the Jags wobbling once more. That's typically when leaders overcorrect. He didn't. Rather, he streamlined things. Jacksonville stopped chasing home-run answers and started seeking consistent ones. The coach refocused the attack around his playmakers and the ground attack, and asked Lawrence to use his legs more often.

The outcomes are clear. The Jaguars have won multiple games in a row and will be the AFC's number three seed. He receives the tiniest knock in the rankings because he took over a talented team, but he has demonstrated he can maximize that roster.

3) Mike Macdonald, Seattle Seahawks, Their Record

Every Coach of the Year argument has a defining moment. For the Seahawks coach, it was his QB decision.

Parting ways from a veteran, signing a different signal-caller and partnering him with an new offensive coordinator might have ended the season in the early weeks. Instead, it defined it. Through the middle point of the season, the acquisition was an Most Valuable Player front-runner. He has regressed after that time, dropping to 23rd in efficiency per pass attempt over the latter part of the schedule, placing him only a single place ahead of other QBs.

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