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Usually, the NFL's Head Coach of the Year honor adheres to a straightforward pattern. It frequently acts as a form of apology. Sorry we misjudged your squad in our preseason forecasts.

Theoretically, it's a direct trajectory: the coach who oversaw the largest turnaround wins the award. In reality, it creates an yearly discussion about expectations and whether we're truly rewarding superior leadership or merely the greatest shock.

Yet this year's competition is distinctly unique. The pool of nominees is exceptionally talented. It has been the season of resurgences. The league has been messy, with reigning division champions falling away and longtime underperformers rising collectively. During an normal year, Sean Payton leading the his team to the top of the AFC would make him the clear favorite. But in such a chaotic and fun season, he's facing five other exceptional coaches.

Below is how the hypothetical vote should shake out.

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

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

The Bears' head coach didn't merely fixed Caleb Williams; he's unleashed him. In the right system, Williams has been given the chance to showcase his otherworldly ability. Since midseason onward, the Bears rank number four in offensive Expected Points Added per play. This isn't a lucky run – it's sustained dominance. Under his guidance, the quarterback has become more confident, far less reckless, and has eagerly submitted to the system rather than improvising. It is an offense built solely in the coach's image: a physical ground attack, a heavy dose of play-action passes and a innovative passing attack that springs wide-open targets consistently. Williams has thrived. And when openings weren't there, he's been capable to conjure big plays from broken plays.

The coach came to the Bears with a clear offensive philosophy. Virtually each decision – overhauling the trenches, utilizing the tight ends, transforming Williams into a timing-based thrower – has succeeded. That's rare for a rookie skipper. And it's even more uncommon still for a leader who walked into the building with the immense pressure he did. For consecutive straight offseasons, he was the hottest candidate on the coaching carousel. But when it comes to hiring a leader, there are no guarantees. Remarkably, he has met expectations – and even surpassed them. He's proven not only to be a scheme dork but the type of culture builder that can breathe fresh energy into an franchise.

During a normal season, Johnson would be the runaway favorite. But this is not a normal season!

Where Johnson's candidacy comes slightly into trouble is on defense. The Chicago defense currently rank in the bottom third in defensive success rate. They are surviving on turnovers, and takeaways are notoriously fickle. Defensive minds can stress creating turnovers, but no one can guarantee it. He is on the ballot because the offensive production is real. He's ranked lower because variance is doing an outsized share of the defensive work. If not for a couple breaks of the ball, the team would be several wins behind. It's been an remarkable turnaround, and the foundation is established for sustained winning. However he comes up short here.

4) Liam Coen, Jacksonville Jaguars, Their Record

The Jaguars' coach is in a similar situation to his counterpart. He's another rookie leader who has engineered a dramatic resurgence. Over the stretch run of the season, he has his franchise quarterback playing the most complete all-around football of his career. And he's also spearheaded the transformation of a defensive unit that now sits at number five in the NFL in EPA per play.

What's more impressively, Coen has excelled at the off-field stuff, which was not a guarantee following his early public introduction and some of his preseason decisions.

The coach walked into Jacksonville with an uncommonly raw staff. Unlike other coaches, who surrounded their staff with the ideal staff blend of new ideas and veteran savvy, Coen trusted newbies. Starting with the leader himself to coordinators to assistant coaches, the Jags are filled with first-timers. That type of approach is exciting in theory, but frequently collapses in reality – with other teams are a warning – because everybody is learning a their job in real-time. Yet Coen has pulled everyone and all elements into sync.

After an initial strong beginning, there was a chance that the campaign would veer off the rails. A midseason collapse caused the team wobbling once more. That's typically when coaches overcorrect. Coen did not. Rather, he simplified things. The offense stopped pursuing home-run plays and started hunting reliable ones. Coen recentered the offense around his playmakers and the ground attack, and encouraged Lawrence to use his legs more often.

The results are clear. The Jaguars have won multiple games consecutively and will be the conference's No 3 playoff seed. He gets the tiniest deduction in the rankings because he took over a skilled team, but he has proven he can get the most out of that roster.

3) The Seattle Seahawks Coach, His Team, Their Record

Each Coach of the Year case has a defining decision. For the Seahawks coach, it was his quarterback move.

Moving on from a incumbent, bringing in a new quarterback and partnering him with an new play-caller might have ended the season in October. Rather, it shaped it. Through the mid point of the year, the acquisition was an Most Valuable Player front-runner. He has cooled off after that hot streak, slipping to a lower rank in EPA per pass attempt over the second half of the season, placing him just a single spot ahead of other QBs.

Still