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Ordinarily, the NFL's Head Coach of the Year trophy adheres to a straightforward script. It commonly serves as a form of apology. Our apologies we underestimated your squad in our preseason forecasts.

In theory, it's a clear-cut trajectory: the coach who oversaw the most dramatic improvement is handed the prize. In reality, it creates an annual argument about preseason outlooks and whether we're truly honoring superior leadership or simply the biggest shock.

Yet the latest race is distinctly unique. The pool of contenders is remarkably talented. It has been the year of comebacks. The NFL has been messy, with recent conference winners declining and longtime strugglers ascending in unison. During an normal season, a coach guiding the his team to the summit of the conference would make him the overwhelming front-runner. Yet in such a wild and entertaining season, he's competing with five other elite coaches.

Below is how the hypothetical ballot should be structured.

5) Ben Johnson, Chicago Bears, 11-5

Coach of the Year voters adore quarterbacks. History shows this. Sean McVay in 2017. Another in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. If you solve a franchise QB, you're halfway to winning the award.

The Bears' head coach not only fixed his young quarterback; he's freed him. Within an ideal system, the QB has been given the opportunity to demonstrate his special talent. From midseason onward, the Bears rank fourth in offensive Expected Points Added per play. That's not a lucky run – it's sustained dominance. Under Johnson, Williams has become more decisive, far less reckless, and has eagerly surrendered to the system instead of freelancing. It is an offense built solely in Johnson's image: a physical ground attack, a consistent helping of play-action and a innovative passing attack that creates wide-open targets everywhere. Williams has taken advantage. And when easy reads weren't available, he's been capable to spin magic out of broken plays.

The coach came to the Bears with a defined offensive vision. Almost each bet – overhauling the offensive line, featuring the pass-catchers, turning Williams into a timing-based thrower – has succeeded. That's rare for a rookie skipper. And it's even more uncommon yet for a coach who walked into the building with the level of expectations Johnson did. For consecutive straight offseasons, he was the top candidate on the coaching market. But when it comes to hiring a head coach, there are no guarantees. Somehow, he has lived up to the hype – and even surpassed them. He's proven not only to be a scheme genius but the type of culture builder that can inject new life into an franchise.

In a ordinary season, he would be the runaway favorite. Yet this isn't a normal season!

The area where his candidacy comes slightly into trouble is on the defensive side. The Bears currently sit 25th in defensive success rate. They are relying on takeaways, and takeaways are notoriously fickle. Defensive minds can emphasise ball disruption, but no one can guarantee it. He is on the list because the offense is legitimate. He's ranked lower because luck is doing too much of the defense's heavy lifting. With a couple breaks of the ball, the Bears would be several wins behind. It's been an remarkable turnaround, and the foundation is in place for sustained success. However Johnson comes up short in this ranking.

4) Liam Coen, Jacksonville Jaguars, Their Record

Coen is in a similar spot to his counterpart. He's a fellow first-time leader who has engineered a dramatic turnaround. Over the stretch run of the season, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the best all-around football of his professional life. And he's also spearheaded the overhaul of a defense that now ranks fifth in the NFL in EPA per play.

What's more notably, he has nailed the leadership aspects, which wasn't a given following his early public appearances and some of his offseason decisions.

Coen took over Jacksonville with an exceptionally raw coaching staff. Unlike Johnson, who packed themselves with the ideal staff cocktail of new ideas and experience, he trusted newbies. Starting with the leader himself to coordinators to assistant coaches, the Jags are filled with rookies. That type of approach is intriguing on paper, but frequently collapses in reality – with other teams are a warning – because everyone is learning a their job on the fly. But Coen has managed to bring the entire group and all elements into sync.

After an early strong beginning, there was a risk that the season would go off the track. A mid-year collapse had the team stumbling again. That's typically when leaders overcorrect. Coen didn't. Rather, he streamlined things. The offense stopped chasing explosive answers and started hunting sustainable ones. Coen recentered the attack around his playmakers and the ground attack, and asked his QB to use his mobility more often.

The results are obvious. The Jaguars have won seven games consecutively and will be the AFC's No 3 playoff seed. Coen gets the tiniest deduction 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, Their Record

Every Strong of the Year argument has a defining moment. For the Seahawks coach, it was his QB move.

Moving on from a veteran, signing a different quarterback and partnering him with an innovative offensive coordinator might have derailed the campaign in the early weeks. Rather, it defined it. By the middle point of the year, the new QB was an MVP candidate. He has cooled off after that hot streak, slipping to 23rd in EPA per dropback over the second half of the season, placing him only a single place ahead of peers.

Still