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Ordinarily, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year honor adheres to a straightforward script. It often serves as a kind of apology. We regret we underestimated your franchise in our preseason predictions.

In theory, it's a direct trajectory: the coach who oversaw the largest resurgence receives the award. In practice, it fuels an annual argument about expectations and whether we're genuinely honoring excellent coaching or merely the biggest surprise.

But the current competition is fundamentally unique. The list of nominees is remarkably talented. It has been the year of turnarounds. The NFL has been unpredictable, with recent division winners fading and recent underperformers rising in unison. In an normal season, a coach guiding the his team to the top of the conference would make him the clear favorite. But in such a chaotic and fun year, he's competing with several other outstanding coaches.

Below is how the hypothetical vote could look.

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

Voters for Coach of the Year selectors love quarterbacks. This is a tradition. A certain coach in 2017. Another in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. When you transform a franchise QB, you're halfway home.

Ben Johnson hasn't just corrected his young quarterback; he's unlocked him. Given a proper ecosystem, Williams has been afforded the opportunity to display his otherworldly ability. From Week 9, the Bears sit at fourth in offensive Expected Points Added per play. That's not a brief surge – it's sustained performance. With Johnson, the quarterback has become more confident, far less careless, and has eagerly submitted to the gameplan instead of going rogue. It is an attack built solely in Johnson's vision: a physical ground attack, a steady dose of play-action passes and a creative aerial game that creates wide receiver targets all over the field. Williams has thrived. And when openings weren't there, he's been able to conjure big plays from nothing.

The coach arrived to Chicago with a specific offensive philosophy. Almost every decision – overhauling the trenches, utilizing the tight ends, transforming the QB into a rhythm thrower – has succeeded. This is uncommon for a first-year skipper. And it's rarer still for a leader who entered the organization with the kind of pressure he did. For consecutive straight offseasons, he was the most sought-after candidate on the coaching carousel. But when it comes to selecting a head coach, there are zero sure things. Remarkably, Johnson has met expectations – and even exceeded them. He's proven not just to be a scheme wizard but the kind of culture builder that can inject new life into an franchise.

In a normal year, Johnson would be the clear-cut choice. Yet this is not a normal year!

Where Johnson's candidacy runs slightly unstuck is on the defensive side. The Bears presently sit 25th in defensive success rate. They are surviving on turnovers, and turnovers are notoriously inconsistent. Defensive minds can focus on ball disruption, but no one can ensure it. Johnson is on the list because the offensive production is sustainable. He's ranked lower because luck is doing an outsized share of the defense's work. If not for a couple breaks of the ball, the team would be two victories worse off. It's been an exceptional turnaround, and the core is in place for long-term winning. But he comes up short here.

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

The Jaguars' coach is in a similar situation to his counterpart. He's another rookie head coach who has orchestrated a dramatic resurgence. Over the stretch run of the year, he has his franchise quarterback playing the most complete overall football of his career. And he's also overseen the remaking of a defense that now sits at fifth in the NFL in Expected Points Added per play.

What's more impressively, Coen has nailed the off-field aspects, which wasn't a guarantee after his early press conference appearances and some of his preseason moves.

Coen walked into Jacksonville with an exceptionally inexperienced staff. In contrast to other coaches, who packed themselves with the ideal staff cocktail of youth and experience, Coen bet on newbies. Starting with the leader on down to coordinators to assistant coaches, the Jags are stocked with rookies. That type of approach is exciting on paper, but frequently collapses in practice – as past failures are a warning – because everybody is figuring out a new job in real-time. But Coen has managed to bring the entire group and everything together.

Following an early strong beginning, there was a chance that the campaign would veer off the track. A midseason setback caused the team wobbling again. That's typically when leaders panic and change too much. Coen did not. Rather, he streamlined the approach. Jacksonville stopped chasing explosive plays and started seeking consistent ones. The coach refocused the offense around his playmakers and the ground attack, and encouraged his QB to use his legs more.

The outcomes are obvious. The Jags have won multiple games consecutively and will be the AFC's No 3 seed. He receives the tiniest deduction in the rankings because he took over a talented roster, but he has demonstrated he can maximize that talent.

3) Mike Macdonald, His Team, 13-3

Every Strong of the Year case has a pivotal moment. For Mike Macdonald, it was his QB decision.

Parting ways from a veteran, signing a new signal-caller and partnering him with an new play-caller could have derailed the season in October. Instead, it shaped it. Through the mid point of the year, the acquisition was an Most Valuable Player candidate. He has regressed since that time, dropping to a lower rank in efficiency per dropback over the latter part of the season, placing him just one spot ahead of other QBs.

Still