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Typically, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year honor follows a simple pattern. It often functions as a form of mea culpa. We regret we underestimated your squad in our pre-campaign projections.

In theory, it's a direct line: the coach who orchestrated the biggest turnaround is handed the award. However, it fuels an yearly argument about preseason outlooks and whether we're actually rewarding excellent leadership or merely the greatest shock.

But this year's competition is profoundly unique. The group of candidates is exceptionally deep. It has been the season of resurgences. The league has been messy, with recent division champions falling away and recent also-rans rising in unison. Under an normal season, Sean Payton guiding the Denver Broncos to the top of the conference would make him the stone-cold front-runner. But in this wild and entertaining season, he's facing multiple other exceptional candidates.

Here is how the hypothetical ballot should shake out.

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

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 fix a franchise QB, you're halfway home.

The Bears' head coach not only fixed Caleb Williams; he's unlocked him. Within an ideal ecosystem, the QB has been given the chance to demonstrate his special talent. Since midseason onward, the Bears rank fourth in offensive EPA per play. That's not a lucky run – it's sustained dominance. With Johnson, Williams has become more confident, less reckless, and has willingly surrendered to the system instead of freelancing. It is an offense built entirely in Johnson's image: a bully-ball ground attack, a consistent helping of play-action and a imaginative passing attack that creates wide-open targets consistently. Williams has thrived. And when clear throws haven't been available, he's been capable to create big plays out of nothing.

Johnson came to Chicago with a specific offensive vision. Almost each decision – rebuilding the trenches, featuring the pass-catchers, turning the QB into a timing-based passer – has succeeded. That's uncommon for a rookie skipper. And it's even more uncommon yet for a leader who entered the organization with the kind of hype he did. For consecutive straight offseasons, he was the hottest candidate on the coaching market. But when it comes to selecting a leader, there are zero guarantees. Remarkably, he has met expectations – and even surpassed them. He's demonstrated not just to be a scheme dork but the kind of culture builder that can breathe new life into an franchise.

In a typical year, he would be the overwhelming favorite. But this isn't a typical campaign!

The area where his candidacy comes slightly into trouble is on the defensive side. The Bears presently sit 25th in defensive success rate. They are living on turnovers, and takeaways are famously inconsistent. Coaches can emphasise creating turnovers, but no one can guarantee it. Johnson is on the list because the offensive production is legitimate. He's ranked lower because variance is doing too much of the defensive work. If not for a few breaks of the ball, the Bears would be several wins behind. It's been an exceptional transformation, and the foundation is established for long-term success. But he comes up short in this ranking.

4) Liam Coen, His Team, 12-4

The Jaguars' coach is in a similar position to Johnson. He's a fellow first-time head coach who has orchestrated a dramatic turnaround. During the stretch run of the year, he has his franchise quarterback playing the most complete overall football of his career. And he's also spearheaded the transformation of a defense that now ranks fifth in the NFL in Expected Points Added per play.

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

Coen walked into Jacksonville with an exceptionally raw coaching staff. In contrast to Johnson, who packed themselves with the ideal coaching blend of new ideas and experience, Coen bet on first-timers. Starting with the head coach on down to coordinators to assistant coaches, the Jaguars are stocked with first-timers. That kind of approach is exciting on paper, but frequently collapses in reality – with other teams are a warning – because everybody is figuring out a new job on the fly. Yet Coen has pulled everyone and all elements into sync.

After an early strong start, there was a chance that the campaign would go off the rails. A mid-year setback caused the team stumbling again. That's usually when leaders panic and change too much. Coen did not. Instead, he streamlined the approach. Jacksonville stopped pursuing home-run plays and started seeking consistent ones. The coach recentered the attack around his playmakers and the ground attack, and encouraged Lawrence to use his mobility more often.

The outcomes are evident. The Jags have won seven games consecutively and will be the AFC's No 3 playoff seed. He receives the slightest knock in the rankings because he inherited a talented roster, but he has proven he can maximize that roster.

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

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

Parting ways from a incumbent, signing a different quarterback and pairing him with an innovative offensive coordinator might have derailed the campaign in October. Rather, it made it. Through the mid point of the year, the acquisition was an Most Valuable Player front-runner. He has fallen away since that hot streak, slipping to 23rd in EPA per pass attempt over the latter part of the schedule, placing him only one spot ahead of peers.

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