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Typically, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year award follows a simple script. It commonly serves as a kind of apology. Sorry we got wrong your franchise in our pre-campaign forecasts.

On paper, it's a direct line: the coach who oversaw the largest improvement wins the prize. However, it fuels an yearly discussion about expectations and whether we're truly rewarding superior leadership or simply the greatest upset.

But the current competition is profoundly different. The pool of candidates is exceptionally strong. It has been the year of resurgences. The NFL has been chaotic, with reigning conference winners fading and recent underperformers rising collectively. In an typical season, a coach guiding the his team to the top of the conference would make him the stone-cold favorite. Yet in this wild and fun year, he's facing multiple other outstanding coaches.

Here is how the ideal vote should look.

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

Coach of the Year voters adore signal-callers. History shows this. A certain coach in 2017. Another in 2020. A third in 2022. If you transform a quarterback, you're halfway to winning the award.

Ben Johnson hasn't just corrected his young quarterback; he's unleashed him. Given a proper ecosystem, Williams has been given the chance to display his special talent. Since midseason onward, the Chicago offense sit at number four in offensive EPA per play. This isn't a brief surge – it's consistent performance. Under Johnson, the quarterback has become increasingly confident, less reckless, and has willingly submitted to the gameplan rather than freelancing. It is an offense built solely in Johnson's vision: a physical ground attack, a heavy dose of play-action and a creative aerial game that springs wide receiver receivers everywhere. Williams has taken advantage. And when openings haven't been there, he's been able to conjure big plays out of broken plays.

Johnson came to the Bears with a clear offensive vision. Almost every gamble – rebuilding the trenches, featuring the pass-catchers, transforming the QB into a timing-based thrower – has worked. This is uncommon for a first-year skipper. And it's even more uncommon yet for a leader who walked into the organization with the kind of expectations he did. For two straight cycles, he was the most sought-after candidate on the coaching carousel. However when it comes to hiring a leader, there are zero guarantees. Remarkably, Johnson has met the hype – and even surpassed them. He's proven not only to be a scheme dork but the kind of leader that can breathe new life into an franchise.

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

The area where his candidacy comes a bit into trouble is on defense. The Bears presently sit 25th in defensive efficiency. They are living on turnovers, and takeaways are notoriously unreliable. Defensive minds can stress creating turnovers, but no one can ensure it. Johnson is on the ballot because the offensive production is legitimate. He's ranked lower because variance is doing an outsized share of the defensive work. If not for a few breaks of the ball, the Bears would be two victories behind. It's been an exceptional transformation, and the core is in place for long-term winning. But he comes up short in this ranking.

4) Liam Coen, His Team, Their Record

Coen is in a comparable situation to his counterpart. He's another rookie leader who has orchestrated a rapid turnaround. Over the stretch run of the year, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the best all-around ball of his career. And he's also spearheaded the overhaul of a defensive unit that now sits at fifth in the league in EPA per play.

What's more notably, Coen has nailed the off-field aspects, which wasn't a given after his initial press conference appearances and some of his preseason moves.

The coach took over Jacksonville with an uncommonly raw staff. In contrast to other coaches, who surrounded their staff with the ideal staff cocktail of youth and experience, he trusted newbies. From the head coach on down to assistants to position coaches, the Jaguars are stocked with rookies. That type of setup is exciting in theory, but often collapses in practice – as past failures are a warning – because everyone is figuring out a new job in real-time. But Coen has managed to bring the entire group and all elements together.

After an early strong start, there was a chance that the season would go off the track. A midseason setback had the team wobbling again. That's usually when leaders overcorrect. He didn't. Rather, he streamlined the approach. The offense stopped chasing home-run plays and started seeking reliable ones. The coach refocused the attack around key players and the running game, and asked his QB 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 No 3 playoff seed. Coen gets the tiniest knock in the rankings because he took over a talented roster, but he has proven he can get the most out of that roster.

3) Mike Macdonald, His Team, Their Record

Each Strong of the Year argument has a hinge decision. For Mike Macdonald, it was his quarterback move.

Parting ways from a incumbent, bringing in a different quarterback and pairing him with an innovative play-caller might have derailed the campaign in the early weeks. Instead, it shaped it. Through the mid point of the year, the new QB was an MVP front-runner. He has cooled off after that hot streak, slipping to a lower rank in EPA per dropback over the latter part of the schedule, placing him just one spot ahead of other QBs.

Still