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Typically, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year honor follows a simple script. It often serves as a type of mea culpa. We regret we got wrong your franchise in our pre-campaign predictions.

In theory, it's a direct path: the coach who oversaw the biggest turnaround wins the award. In reality, it fuels an annual argument about expectations and whether we're genuinely rewarding superior coaching or just the most shocking surprise.

Yet this year's competition is profoundly different. The pool of candidates is remarkably strong. It has been the year of turnarounds. The league has been messy, with recent division champions falling away and recent strugglers ascending in unison. In an normal season, a coach leading the Denver Broncos to the top of the AFC would make him the stone-cold favorite. Yet in this chaotic and thrilling year, he's up against several other exceptional candidates.

Below is how the ideal vote could look.

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

Coach of the Year selectors are fascinated by QBs. They always have. A certain coach in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. A third in 2022. Should you solve a franchise QB, you're well on your way to winning the award.

The Bears' head coach hasn't just corrected Caleb Williams; he's unleashed him. Within an ideal environment, the QB has been given the opportunity to demonstrate his rare ability. From Week 9, the Bears sit at number four in offensive EPA per play. That's not a hot streak – it's sustained excellence. Under Johnson, Williams has become increasingly decisive, less careless, and has eagerly submitted to the system instead of going rogue. It is an attack built entirely in Johnson's vision: a bully-ball run game, a heavy helping of play-action and a creative aerial game that creates wide receiver targets consistently. The QB has taken advantage. And when openings weren't available, he's been capable to spin big plays out of broken plays.

The coach came to the Bears with a clear offensive philosophy. Virtually each decision – overhauling the trenches, utilizing the pass-catchers, turning Williams into a rhythm thrower – has succeeded. That's rare for a first-year skipper. And it's rarer still for a leader who entered the organization with the immense expectations he did. For two straight offseasons, he was the hottest name on the head coaching market. However when it comes to selecting a head coach, there are no sure things. Remarkably, Johnson has lived up to the hype – and even surpassed them. He's proven not only to be a scheme wizard but the type of leader that can inject new life into an franchise.

During a typical season, he would be the overwhelming favorite. Yet the current is not a typical campaign!

The area where Johnson's candidacy runs slightly into trouble is on the defensive side. The Chicago defense presently sit in the bottom third in defensive success rate. They are surviving on takeaways, and takeaways are famously unreliable. Coaches can stress ball disruption, but nobody can ensure it. Johnson is on the list because the offense is real. He's not higher because variance is doing too much of the defensive work. If not for a couple breaks of the ball, the team would be several victories behind. It's been an remarkable turnaround, and the foundation is in place for sustained winning. However he falls just short here.

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

The Jaguars' coach is in a comparable spot to his counterpart. He's a fellow rookie leader who has engineered a swift turnaround. During the crucial final weeks of the year, he has his franchise quarterback playing the finest all-around ball of his professional life. And he's also spearheaded the remaking of a defense that now ranks fifth in the NFL in Expected Points Added per play.

What's more impressively, Coen has nailed the intangibles aspects, which was not a certainty after his early public appearances and some of his preseason decisions.

Coen walked into Jacksonville with an uncommonly raw coaching staff. Unlike Johnson, who surrounded their staff with the perfect coaching blend of youth and experience, Coen hired first-timers. Starting with the leader on down to coordinators to assistant coaches, the Jaguars are filled with first-timers. That type of setup is intriguing in theory, but often fails in practice – with other teams are a cautionary tale – because everyone is learning a new job in real-time. But Coen has managed to bring the entire group and everything together.

After an early strong beginning, there was a chance that the season would veer off the rails. A midseason collapse had the Jags wobbling again. That's usually when leaders panic and change too much. Coen didn't. Rather, he simplified things. Jacksonville stopped pursuing explosive answers and started seeking consistent ones. The coach recentered the offense around his playmakers and the running game, and asked Lawrence to use his legs more often.

The results are evident. The Jags have won seven games in a row and will be the conference's No 3 playoff seed. He gets the tiniest deduction in the rankings because he inherited a skilled roster, but he has demonstrated he can get the most out of that roster.

3) Mike Macdonald, His Team, Their Record

Each Coach of the Year narrative has a pivotal moment. For Mike Macdonald, it was his quarterback move.

Parting ways from a incumbent, signing a new signal-caller and partnering him with an innovative offensive coordinator could have ended the campaign in the early weeks. Rather, it made it. By the mid point of the season, the acquisition was an MVP candidate. He has regressed after that time, dropping to 23rd in efficiency per dropback over the second half of the season, placing him only one place ahead of other QBs.

Still