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Ordinarily, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year award adheres to a simple script. It frequently functions as a form of apology. We regret we misjudged your franchise in our preseason forecasts.

On paper, it's a clear-cut path: the skipper who engineered the biggest resurgence is handed the award. In practice, it sparks an yearly discussion about preseason outlooks and whether we're actually honoring excellent leadership or just the biggest shock.

Yet the current field is distinctly unique. The pool of candidates is remarkably deep. It has been the season of resurgences. The league has been messy, with reigning division winners fading and longtime strugglers rising in unison. In an normal season, Sean Payton guiding the his team to the summit of the AFC would make him the overwhelming favorite. But in this wild and entertaining year, he's up against several other exceptional candidates.

Below is how the hypothetical ballot ought to be structured.

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

Coach of the Year voters adore quarterbacks. This is a tradition. A certain coach in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. A third in 2022. Should you transform a quarterback, you're well on your way to winning the award.

Ben Johnson hasn't just fixed his young quarterback; he's unleashed him. Within an ideal ecosystem, the QB has been given the chance to display his special talent. Since midseason onward, the Bears sit at number four in offensive Expected Points Added per play. This isn't a hot streak – it's prolonged performance. With Johnson, the quarterback has become more confident, far less reckless, and has willingly surrendered to the scheme rather than going rogue. It is an offense built entirely in the coach's vision: a bully-ball run game, a heavy dose of play-action passes and a imaginative passing attack that frees wide-open receivers all over the field. Williams has thrived. And when easy reads weren't available, he's been able to conjure magic out of broken plays.

Johnson came to the Bears with a specific offensive blueprint. Virtually each gamble – rebuilding the offensive line, highlighting the pass-catchers, transforming Williams into a timing-based passer – has paid off. This is uncommon for a rookie head coach. And it's even more uncommon yet for a leader who entered the building with the immense expectations he did. For consecutive straight cycles, he was the hottest name on the coaching market. But when it comes to selecting a leader, there are zero sure things. Remarkably, he has lived up to the hype – and even exceeded them. He's proven not just to be a offensive genius but the type of leader that can breathe fresh energy into an franchise.

During a normal year, he would be the clear-cut favorite. But the current is not a typical season!

The area where his candidacy runs slightly into trouble is on defense. The Bears presently sit 25th in defensive success rate. They are relying on turnovers, and turnovers are famously inconsistent. Coaches can focus on ball disruption, but no one can guarantee it. He is on the list because the offensive production is legitimate. He's ranked lower because variance is doing an outsized share of the defensive work. With a couple breaks of the ball, the Bears would be several victories worse off. It's been an remarkable turnaround, and the core is established for sustained success. However he falls short in this ranking.

4) Liam Coen, His Team, Their Record

The Jaguars' coach is in a comparable position to his counterpart. He's another first-time leader who has masterminded a rapid resurgence. Over the crucial final weeks of the year, he has his franchise quarterback playing the finest all-around football of his career. And he's also overseen the transformation of a defensive unit that now sits at number five in the league in EPA per play.

What's more notably, Coen has excelled at the intangibles stuff, which was not a given following his initial public appearances and some of his preseason moves.

Coen took over Jacksonville with an exceptionally raw staff. In contrast to Johnson, who surrounded their staff with the perfect staff mix of youth and veteran savvy, he trusted first-timers. From the head coach on down to coordinators to position coaches, the Jags are filled with rookies. That type of setup is exciting in theory, but often fails in practice – as past failures are a warning – because everyone is learning a new job on the fly. But he has pulled everyone and all elements together.

Following an initial strong start, there was a risk that the campaign would veer off the rails. A midseason setback had the team stumbling once more. That's typically when coaches overcorrect. Coen didn't. Instead, he streamlined things. The offense stopped chasing explosive answers and started hunting sustainable ones. Coen refocused the attack around his playmakers and the ground attack, and asked his QB to use his legs more.

The results are obvious. The Jags have won multiple games consecutively and will be the AFC's number three seed. He receives the tiniest knock in the standings because he took over a talented roster, but he has proven he can maximize that roster.

3) Mike Macdonald, His Team, 13-3

Every Strong of the Year narrative has a hinge moment. For the Seahawks coach, it was his QB move.

Moving on from a incumbent, bringing in a new signal-caller and partnering him with an innovative play-caller could have derailed the campaign in October. Instead, it made it. By the mid point of the season, the acquisition was an Most Valuable Player candidate. He has regressed since that hot streak, slipping to a lower rank in EPA per pass attempt over the second half of the season, putting him just one place ahead of other QBs.

Still