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Typically, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year trophy adheres to a simple script. It commonly functions as a kind of apology. We regret we got wrong your squad in our preseason forecasts.

In theory, it's a direct line: the skipper who engineered the most dramatic resurgence is handed the award. In practice, it creates an annual debate about preseason outlooks and whether we're genuinely rewarding excellent leadership or just the most shocking upset.

However the current field is profoundly different. The list of candidates is remarkably strong. It has been the campaign of comebacks. The league has been unpredictable, with recent division winners fading and recent also-rans rising in unison. Under an normal season, a coach guiding the Denver Broncos to the top of the conference would make him the clear front-runner. Yet in such a turbulent and thrilling year, he's facing multiple other outstanding candidates.

Below is how the ideal ballot ought to look.

5) The Chicago Bears Coach, His Team, Their Record

Coach of the Year selectors love quarterbacks. They always have. Sean McVay in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. A third in 2022. Should you solve a quarterback, you're halfway home.

Ben Johnson didn't merely fixed his young quarterback; he's unleashed him. Given a proper environment, the QB has been given the chance to demonstrate his rare ability. From midseason onward, the Bears sit at number four in offensive EPA per play. That's not a lucky run – it's prolonged performance. With his guidance, the quarterback has become increasingly confident, far less careless, and has eagerly submitted to the scheme instead of going rogue. It is an offense built solely in the coach's image: a bully-ball ground attack, a consistent dose of play-action passes and a imaginative aerial game that creates wide-open receivers consistently. The QB has thrived. And when clear throws haven't been available, he's been able to create big plays out of nothing.

Johnson came to Chicago with a defined offensive vision. Almost each bet – rebuilding the trenches, utilizing the pass-catchers, turning Williams into a timing-based passer – has succeeded. This is rare for a rookie head coach. And it's rarer still for a coach who entered the organization with the kind of expectations Johnson did. For two straight cycles, he was the most sought-after name on the head coaching carousel. But when it comes to hiring a leader, there are zero sure things. Remarkably, he has met expectations – and even exceeded them. He's proven not just to be a offensive genius but the type of leader that can inject fresh energy into an franchise.

In a ordinary season, he would be the overwhelming choice. But the current is not a normal year!

The area where Johnson's candidacy runs a bit unstuck is on defense. The Bears presently sit in the bottom third in defensive success rate. They are surviving on takeaways, and turnovers are famously unreliable. Defensive minds can focus on creating turnovers, but no one can ensure it. He is on the ballot because the offense is real. He's ranked lower because variance is doing an outsized share of the defense's work. With a few bounces of the ball, the Bears would be two wins behind. It's been an remarkable transformation, and the core is in place for sustained success. But Johnson comes up short in this ranking.

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

Coen is in a similar position to his counterpart. He's a fellow first-time leader who has engineered a swift resurgence. Over the crucial final weeks of the season, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the finest all-around football of his career. And he's also spearheaded the transformation of a defense that now sits at fifth in the NFL in EPA per play.

What's more impressively, Coen has nailed the intangibles aspects, which was not a guarantee after his initial press conference introduction and some of his offseason moves.

Coen walked into the Jaguars with an exceptionally inexperienced coaching staff. Unlike Johnson, who packed their staff with the ideal staff mix of youth and veteran savvy, he bet on first-timers. Starting with the head coach himself to coordinators to position coaches, the Jags are filled with first-timers. That kind of setup is exciting in theory, but often collapses in reality – with other teams are a warning – because everybody is figuring out a new job on the fly. But Coen has pulled the entire group and everything together.

Following an initial strong start, there was a risk that the campaign would go off the track. A mid-year collapse had the Jags wobbling again. That's typically when coaches overcorrect. He didn't. Instead, he simplified the approach. Jacksonville stopped chasing home-run answers and started hunting reliable ones. The coach refocused the offense around key players and the running game, and asked Lawrence to use his mobility more often.

The outcomes are clear. The Jags have won multiple games consecutively and will be the conference's number three seed. He gets the tiniest knock in the rankings because he took over a skilled team, but he has proven he can maximize that talent.

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

Each Coach of the Year narrative has a pivotal decision. For the Seahawks coach, it was his QB decision.

Parting ways from a veteran, signing a new signal-caller and partnering him with an innovative offensive coordinator could have derailed the season in the early weeks. Instead, it made it. By the mid point of the year, the acquisition was an Most Valuable Player contender. He has cooled off after that hot streak, slipping to 23rd in efficiency per pass attempt over the latter part of the season, putting him only a single spot ahead of other QBs.

Still