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Typically, the NFL's Head Coach of the Year award follows a simple script. It often acts as a kind of apology. We regret we underestimated your franchise in our preseason forecasts.

In theory, it's a clear-cut trajectory: the skipper who oversaw the biggest resurgence wins the award. In reality, it sparks an annual argument about preseason outlooks and whether we're genuinely honoring superior leadership or just the greatest shock.

But this year's field is profoundly unique. The group of contenders is unusually strong. It has been the year of turnarounds. The league has been chaotic, with recent division champions fading and longtime also-rans rising collectively. Under an normal year, Sean Payton leading the his team to the summit of the AFC would make him the overwhelming favorite. But in this chaotic and fun season, he's up against several other elite candidates.

Here is how the hypothetical ballot ought to shake out.

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

Coach of the Year voters love signal-callers. History shows this. Sean McVay in 2017. Another in 2020. A third in 2022. When you transform a franchise QB, you're halfway home.

The Bears' head coach not only fixed Caleb Williams; he's freed him. Within an ideal system, Williams has been afforded the chance to demonstrate his rare ability. From Week 9, the Chicago offense rank fourth in offensive Expected Points Added per play. This isn't a brief surge – it's prolonged performance. Under his guidance, Williams has become increasingly confident, less reckless, and has willingly surrendered to the system instead of improvising. It is an offense built entirely in the coach's vision: a bully-ball ground attack, a consistent dose of play-action passes and a creative passing attack that springs wide-open targets everywhere. Williams has capitalized. And when openings haven't been available, he's been capable to spin magic out of broken plays.

The coach came to the Bears with a defined offensive blueprint. Virtually every decision – rebuilding the offensive line, featuring the tight ends, transforming the QB into a timing-based passer – has worked. This is rare for a first-year skipper. And it's rarer yet for a leader who walked into the building with the kind of expectations Johnson did. For two straight cycles, he was the hottest name on the head coaching market. However when it comes to selecting a leader, there are no sure things. Somehow, Johnson has met expectations – and even exceeded them. He's demonstrated not just to be a scheme dork but the type of leader that can inject new life into an organization.

During a ordinary year, he would be the overwhelming favorite. Yet the current is not a normal year!

The area where his candidacy comes a bit into trouble is on the defensive side. The Chicago defense currently rank in the bottom third in defensive efficiency. They are living on takeaways, and turnovers are notoriously fickle. Defensive minds can focus on creating turnovers, but no one can guarantee it. Johnson is on the ballot because the offensive production is sustainable. He's ranked lower because variance is doing an outsized share of the defensive work. If not for a couple bounces of the ball, the team would be several wins worse off. It's been an remarkable transformation, and the core is established for sustained winning. However he falls just short in this ranking.

4) Liam Coen, Jacksonville Jaguars, Their Record

The Jaguars' coach is in a comparable situation to his counterpart. He's a fellow rookie head coach who has masterminded a rapid turnaround. During the crucial final weeks of the year, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the finest all-around ball of his professional life. And he's also overseen the remaking of a defensive unit that now ranks number five in the league in EPA per play.

What's more notably, Coen has nailed the leadership aspects, which wasn't a certainty after his initial press conference appearances and some of his offseason moves.

Coen took over Jacksonville with an uncommonly raw staff. In contrast to Johnson, who surrounded their staff with the perfect staff cocktail of new ideas and experience, Coen trusted first-timers. Starting with the head coach himself to assistants to position coaches, the Jags are stocked with rookies. That type of setup is exciting in theory, but often fails in reality – with other teams are a cautionary tale – because everyone is learning a new job on the fly. But he has pulled the entire group and everything into sync.

After an early hot start, there was a chance that the campaign would veer off the rails. A mid-year setback had the Jags stumbling again. That's typically when leaders panic and change too much. He didn't. Rather, he simplified the approach. Jacksonville stopped pursuing explosive answers and started seeking reliable ones. Coen refocused the attack around his playmakers and the ground attack, and asked Lawrence to use his legs more.

The results are obvious. The Jaguars have won seven games in a row and will be the conference's No 3 playoff seed. He receives the slightest knock in the rankings because he inherited a skilled team, but he has demonstrated he can maximize that talent.

3) Mike Macdonald, Seattle Seahawks, Their Record

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

Moving on from a incumbent, bringing in a different quarterback and pairing him with an new offensive coordinator might have derailed the campaign in October. Instead, it defined it. By the middle point of the season, the new QB was an Most Valuable Player front-runner. He has cooled off after that hot streak, dropping to 23rd in EPA per dropback over the second half of the schedule, putting him only one place ahead of peers.

Still