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Usually, the NFL's Head Coach of the Year honor adheres to a simple script. It commonly serves as a type of apology. We regret we underestimated your team in our preseason projections.

On paper, it's a clear-cut path: the coach who engineered the biggest resurgence wins the prize. However, it creates an yearly debate about expectations and whether we're actually honoring superior leadership or simply the greatest shock.

Yet this year's field is distinctly different. The list of nominees is exceptionally talented. It has been the campaign of resurgences. The NFL has been messy, with recent division champions fading and longtime underperformers improving together. In an normal year, a coach guiding the his team to the summit of the AFC would make him the clear front-runner. But in such a wild and fun year, he's competing with five other elite coaches.

Below is how the hypothetical vote could be structured.

5) Ben Johnson, Chicago Bears, 11-5

Voters for Coach of the Year voters love quarterbacks. They always have. A certain coach in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. Should you transform a franchise QB, you're halfway to winning the award.

Ben Johnson not only corrected his young quarterback; he's freed him. In the right ecosystem, Williams has been given the chance to showcase his rare talent. From Week 9, the Chicago offense rank number four in offensive Expected Points Added per play. This isn't a brief surge – it's prolonged dominance. With Johnson, the quarterback has become more decisive, far less reckless, and has eagerly surrendered to the gameplan instead of improvising. It is an attack constructed solely in the coach's image: a physical run game, a consistent helping of play-action passes and a imaginative aerial game that creates wide-open targets all over the field. Williams has taken advantage. And when clear throws haven't been there, he's been able to create magic out of broken plays.

Johnson came to Chicago with a clear offensive blueprint. Almost each gamble – rebuilding the offensive line, highlighting the pass-catchers, transforming the QB into a rhythm thrower – has paid off. This is uncommon for a rookie head coach. And it's rarer still for a coach who entered the organization with the kind of hype Johnson did. For two straight cycles, he was the most sought-after name on the coaching carousel. However when it comes to hiring a head coach, there are zero sure things. Remarkably, he has lived up to expectations – and even exceeded them. He's proven not only to be a offensive genius but the kind of leader that can breathe fresh energy into an organization.

During a ordinary season, Johnson would be the clear-cut favorite. Yet the current is not a normal campaign!

The area where Johnson's candidacy comes a bit unstuck is on defense. The Bears presently sit 25th in defensive efficiency. They are surviving on takeaways, and takeaways are notoriously unreliable. Defensive minds can stress creating turnovers, but no one can guarantee it. Johnson is on the ballot because the offensive production is sustainable. He's not higher because variance is doing an outsized share of the defensive work. If not for a couple breaks of the ball, the Bears would be two victories worse off. It's been an remarkable transformation, and the core is established for long-term success. But Johnson comes up just short here.

4) Liam Coen, Jacksonville Jaguars, Their Record

Coen is in a comparable situation to his counterpart. He's a fellow first-time leader who has orchestrated a dramatic resurgence. During the stretch run of the year, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the finest overall football of his professional life. And he's also spearheaded the remaking of a defense that now sits at number five in the NFL in EPA per play.

What's more notably, Coen has excelled at the leadership stuff, which wasn't a certainty following his initial press conference appearances and some of his preseason decisions.

The coach took over Jacksonville with an exceptionally raw coaching staff. In contrast to Johnson, who packed themselves with the ideal staff mix of youth and veteran savvy, Coen hired newbies. Starting with the leader himself to coordinators to assistant coaches, the Jaguars are filled with first-timers. That type of setup is intriguing on paper, but frequently fails in practice – with other teams are a warning – because everybody is figuring out a their job on the fly. Yet he has pulled the entire group and all elements together.

After an initial strong start, there was a possibility that the season would veer off the rails. A mid-year setback caused the team wobbling again. That's typically when coaches overcorrect. He didn't. Rather, he simplified things. Jacksonville stopped chasing explosive answers and started seeking reliable ones. The coach recentered the offense around key players and the ground attack, and asked Lawrence to use his mobility more often.

The results are clear. The Jaguars have won seven games consecutively and will be the conference's No 3 playoff seed. Coen receives the tiniest knock in the standings because he inherited a talented team, but he has demonstrated he can maximize that roster.

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

Every Coach of the Year narrative has a pivotal decision. For the Seahawks coach, it was his quarterback choice.

Parting ways from a veteran, bringing in a new signal-caller and pairing him with an new offensive coordinator could have ended the campaign in October. Rather, it made it. By the mid point of the season, the acquisition was an MVP candidate. He has cooled off since that hot streak, slipping to 23rd in efficiency per pass attempt over the latter part of the season, placing him just a single spot ahead of peers.

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