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Usually, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year honor adheres to a simple script. It often serves as a type of apology. Our apologies we misjudged your team in our pre-campaign forecasts.

In theory, it's a clear-cut line: the skipper who engineered the biggest improvement is handed the award. In practice, it sparks an annual debate about expectations and whether we're actually honoring excellent leadership or merely the most shocking upset.

But this year's field is distinctly different. The group of candidates is exceptionally deep. It has been the campaign of comebacks. The league has been unpredictable, with recent conference champions falling away and recent underperformers ascending in unison. During an typical year, a coach guiding the Denver Broncos to the top of the AFC would make him the stone-cold favorite. But in this wild and thrilling year, he's facing multiple other elite coaches.

Below is how the hypothetical ballot ought to shake out.

5) Ben Johnson, His Team, Their Record

Coach of the Year selectors adore quarterbacks. History shows this. A certain coach in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. If you transform a quarterback, you're well on your way to winning the award.

The Bears' head coach not only fixed Caleb Williams; he's unleashed him. Given a proper system, the QB has been afforded the opportunity to showcase his otherworldly ability. Since midseason onward, the Bears sit at number four in offensive EPA per play. This isn't a hot streak – it's consistent excellence. Under his guidance, Williams has become more decisive, far less careless, and has eagerly submitted to the system instead of freelancing. It is an offense constructed solely in the coach's image: a bully-ball ground attack, a consistent dose of play-action passes and a imaginative passing attack that creates wide receiver receivers consistently. Williams has capitalized. And when clear throws weren't there, he's been able to spin big plays out of nothing.

Johnson came to the Bears with a defined offensive vision. Virtually every decision – overhauling the trenches, featuring the tight ends, transforming the QB into a timing-based passer – has worked. That's uncommon for a first-year skipper. And it's rarer yet for a leader who entered the organization with the kind of hype he did. For two straight offseasons, he was the hottest candidate on the head coaching carousel. But when it comes to selecting a leader, there are zero guarantees. Somehow, he has met the hype – and even surpassed them. He's proven not only to be a offensive genius but the type of culture builder that can breathe fresh energy into an franchise.

During a typical season, he would be the clear-cut favorite. Yet the current is not a typical season!

Where Johnson's case runs slightly unstuck is on the defensive side. The Bears currently rank 25th in defensive success rate. They are surviving on takeaways, and takeaways are notoriously fickle. Defensive minds can stress ball disruption, but no one can guarantee it. Johnson is on the ballot because the offense is legitimate. He's not higher because variance is doing too much of the defense's 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 foundation is in place for long-term success. But Johnson comes up just short here.

4) Liam Coen, His Team, 12-4

Coen is in a comparable position to his counterpart. He's another rookie leader who has masterminded a swift turnaround. Over the crucial final weeks of the year, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the most complete overall football of his career. And he's also spearheaded the remaking of a defense that now sits at number five in the NFL in Expected Points Added per play.

Even more notably, he has excelled at the intangibles aspects, which wasn't a certainty after his early public introduction and some of his offseason decisions.

The coach took over the Jaguars with an exceptionally inexperienced coaching staff. Unlike Johnson, who surrounded themselves with the perfect staff blend of new ideas and experience, Coen bet on newbies. Starting with the leader himself to coordinators to assistant coaches, the Jags are filled with first-timers. That type of setup is exciting on paper, but often fails in reality – with other teams are a cautionary tale – because everyone is learning a their job on the fly. But he has managed to bring everyone and all elements into sync.

Following an early hot beginning, there was a chance that the campaign would veer off the rails. A midseason setback caused the Jags wobbling once more. That's usually when leaders panic and change too much. He did not. Rather, he streamlined things. The offense stopped chasing explosive answers and started hunting reliable ones. The coach refocused the offense around his playmakers and the ground attack, and encouraged Lawrence to use his legs more.

The results are evident. The Jags have won seven games consecutively and will be the AFC's number three seed. He receives the tiniest knock in the rankings because he inherited a skilled team, but he has demonstrated he can get the most out of that talent.

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

Every Coach of the Year argument has a hinge moment. For the Seahawks coach, it was his quarterback move.

Parting ways from a veteran, signing a new quarterback and pairing him with an innovative offensive coordinator might have derailed the season in October. Rather, it defined it. Through the middle point of the season, the acquisition was an Most Valuable Player contender. 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, putting him only a single spot ahead of other QBs.

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