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Typically, the NFL's Head Coach of the Year honor adheres to a simple pattern. It frequently functions as a kind of apology. We regret we misjudged your franchise in our pre-campaign forecasts.

Theoretically, it's a direct path: the coach who oversaw the largest improvement wins the award. However, it fuels an annual discussion about preseason outlooks and whether we're actually honoring superior coaching or merely the greatest shock.

However this year's field is fundamentally different. The list of contenders is unusually deep. It has been the season of comebacks. The league has been chaotic, with reigning conference winners falling away and recent underperformers improving collectively. Under an normal year, a coach guiding the his team to the summit of the AFC would make him the stone-cold front-runner. But in such a chaotic and entertaining year, he's competing with multiple other elite candidates.

Below is how the ideal ballot could look.

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

Voters for Coach of the Year voters are fascinated by signal-callers. This is a tradition. Sean McVay in 2017. Another in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. Should you solve a franchise QB, you're well on your way home.

The Bears' head coach not only corrected his young quarterback; he's unleashed him. Within an ideal system, Williams has been afforded the chance to showcase his otherworldly ability. Since midseason onward, the Chicago offense rank number four in offensive Expected Points Added per play. This isn't a brief surge – it's prolonged performance. Under Johnson, Williams has become more decisive, far less careless, and has eagerly surrendered to the gameplan rather than freelancing. It is an offense designed solely in Johnson's vision: a bully-ball ground attack, a consistent dose of play-action and a innovative passing attack that creates wide receiver targets all over the field. The QB has capitalized. And when easy reads weren't available, he's been capable to spin big plays out of broken plays.

Johnson came to Chicago with a defined offensive philosophy. Virtually every decision – overhauling the offensive line, highlighting the tight ends, turning Williams into a timing-based passer – has paid off. That's rare for a rookie head coach. And it's even more uncommon yet for a coach who entered the organization with the immense expectations Johnson did. For consecutive straight offseasons, he was the top candidate on the head coaching market. However when it comes to hiring a head coach, there are zero guarantees. Somehow, he has lived up to expectations – and even exceeded them. He's demonstrated not only to be a offensive dork but the kind of culture builder that can inject new life into an franchise.

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

Where Johnson's case comes slightly unstuck is on defense. The Chicago defense presently sit 25th in defensive efficiency. They are surviving on turnovers, and takeaways are famously inconsistent. Defensive minds can focus on creating turnovers, but no one can guarantee it. Johnson is on the ballot because the offense is real. He's not higher because luck is doing an outsized share of the defensive work. If not for a couple bounces of the ball, the team would be two wins worse off. It's been an remarkable turnaround, and the core is in place for long-term success. But he falls short in this ranking.

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

Coen is in a similar spot to Johnson. He's another first-time head coach who has engineered a rapid resurgence. During the crucial final weeks of the season, he has his franchise quarterback playing the finest all-around football of his professional life. And he's also overseen the remaking of a defensive unit that now ranks fifth in the NFL in EPA per play.

Even more impressively, Coen has nailed the intangibles aspects, which was not a guarantee following his initial press conference appearances and some of his offseason decisions.

Coen walked into the Jaguars with an uncommonly inexperienced coaching staff. Unlike other coaches, who packed their staff with the perfect staff blend of youth and experience, Coen bet on newbies. Starting with the leader on down to coordinators to assistant coaches, the Jaguars are stocked with rookies. That kind of setup is exciting in theory, but frequently collapses in reality – as past failures are a warning – because everybody is figuring out a their job in real-time. Yet he has managed to bring everyone and everything into sync.

After an early strong start, there was a possibility that the season would go off the track. A midseason setback had the team stumbling again. That's usually when leaders panic and change too much. Coen did not. Instead, he streamlined things. The offense stopped chasing explosive plays and started hunting consistent ones. The coach recentered the offense around his playmakers and the ground attack, and asked his QB to use his legs more.

The results are obvious. The Jaguars have won multiple games in a row and will be the AFC's No 3 playoff seed. Coen receives the tiniest knock in the rankings because he inherited a talented team, 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 defining decision. For Mike Macdonald, it was his QB move.

Moving on from a veteran, signing a new quarterback and pairing him with an new play-caller might have derailed the season in October. Instead, it shaped it. Through the mid point of the season, the new QB was an Most Valuable Player contender. He has regressed after that time, slipping to a lower rank in efficiency per pass attempt over the second half of the schedule, placing him only a single spot ahead of other QBs.

Still