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Typically, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year award adheres to a simple pattern. It commonly acts as a kind of mea culpa. We regret we underestimated your squad in our preseason forecasts.

In theory, it's a direct trajectory: the coach who engineered the largest resurgence wins the prize. In reality, it fuels an annual argument about expectations and whether we're truly honoring superior coaching or simply the biggest shock.

But the current field is profoundly unique. The list of nominees is remarkably strong. It has been the campaign of resurgences. The NFL has been chaotic, with reigning conference winners fading and longtime underperformers improving in unison. In an normal year, a coach guiding the Denver Broncos to the top of the conference would make him the overwhelming favorite. Yet in this chaotic and fun season, he's up against multiple other exceptional coaches.

Here is how the ideal ballot ought to shake out.

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

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

Ben Johnson didn't merely fixed Caleb Williams; he's freed him. Within an ideal system, the QB has been afforded the opportunity to showcase his special ability. From midseason onward, the Chicago offense sit at fourth in offensive Expected Points Added per play. This isn't a brief surge – it's prolonged dominance. With his guidance, Williams has become increasingly decisive, far less careless, and has willingly submitted to the system rather than freelancing. It is an offense designed entirely in the coach's vision: a bully-ball ground attack, a consistent helping of play-action and a creative passing attack that frees wide receiver receivers everywhere. The QB has capitalized. And when easy reads haven't been available, he's been capable to spin magic out of broken plays.

Johnson came to the Bears with a specific offensive vision. Virtually each bet – overhauling the trenches, featuring the pass-catchers, turning Williams into a timing-based passer – 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 level of expectations Johnson did. For consecutive straight offseasons, he was the top name on the coaching market. But when it comes to selecting a head coach, there are no sure things. Somehow, Johnson has lived up to expectations – and even surpassed them. He's demonstrated not only to be a scheme dork but the kind of leader that can breathe fresh energy into an franchise.

During a normal season, he would be the runaway favorite. Yet the current is not a normal campaign!

Where his case comes slightly unstuck is on defense. The Bears currently sit 25th in defensive success rate. They are surviving on takeaways, and takeaways are notoriously fickle. Coaches can stress ball disruption, but nobody can guarantee it. Johnson is on the ballot because the offensive production is real. He's ranked lower because luck is doing too much of the defense's heavy lifting. With a couple bounces of the ball, the Bears would be several wins behind. It's been an remarkable turnaround, and the core is established for sustained winning. But he comes up short in this ranking.

4) The Jacksonville Jaguars Coach, Jacksonville Jaguars, Their Record

Coen is in a similar situation to his counterpart. He's a fellow first-time leader who has engineered a swift resurgence. During the crucial final weeks of the year, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the finest all-around ball of his career. And he's also spearheaded the overhaul of a defense that now ranks number five in the NFL in Expected Points Added per play.

Even more notably, he has nailed the leadership aspects, which was not a guarantee following his initial public appearances and some of his preseason decisions.

The coach walked into the Jaguars with an exceptionally raw staff. In contrast to Johnson, who surrounded themselves with the perfect coaching cocktail of new ideas and veteran savvy, Coen trusted first-timers. From the head coach on down to assistants to position coaches, the Jaguars are filled with rookies. That kind of approach is exciting in theory, but frequently fails in reality – as past failures are a cautionary tale – because everybody is learning a their job in real-time. Yet he has pulled the entire group and everything into sync.

Following an initial strong start, there was a possibility that the campaign would go off the rails. A midseason collapse caused the team stumbling once more. That's typically when leaders overcorrect. Coen did not. Instead, he streamlined things. The offense stopped chasing home-run plays and started hunting sustainable ones. Coen refocused the offense around his playmakers and the ground attack, and asked his QB to use his legs more.

The results are clear. The Jaguars have won multiple games in a row and will be the AFC's No 3 seed. He receives the tiniest deduction in the standings because he inherited a talented team, but he has proven he can get the most out of that roster.

3) Mike Macdonald, Seattle Seahawks, Their Record

Each Coach of the Year case has a hinge moment. For Mike Macdonald, it was his quarterback decision.

Parting ways from a veteran, signing a different signal-caller and partnering him with an new offensive coordinator could have ended the season in the early weeks. Instead, it made it. By the mid point of the year, the new QB was an Most Valuable Player front-runner. He has regressed after that time, dropping to a lower rank in efficiency per dropback over the second half of the season, putting him just a single place ahead of other QBs.

Still