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Usually, the NFL's Head Coach of the Year trophy follows a simple script. It often serves as a form of mea culpa. We regret we underestimated your team in our pre-campaign forecasts.

Theoretically, it's a clear-cut trajectory: the skipper who engineered the biggest resurgence is handed the prize. In reality, it sparks an yearly discussion about preseason outlooks and whether we're truly honoring superior coaching or simply the biggest surprise.

However the current race is distinctly different. The group of candidates is unusually talented. It has been the campaign of comebacks. The league has been messy, with recent conference champions declining and longtime also-rans rising collectively. In an typical season, Sean Payton guiding the Denver Broncos to the top of the AFC would make him the stone-cold favorite. Yet in such a wild and fun year, he's competing with several other outstanding candidates.

Below is how the hypothetical vote should shake out.

5) Ben Johnson, His Team, 11-5

Voters for Coach of the Year voters adore QBs. History shows this. Sean McVay in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. A third in 2022. If you transform a franchise QB, you're halfway home.

The Bears' head coach hasn't just fixed his young quarterback; he's freed him. Given a proper ecosystem, Williams has been given the chance to display his special ability. From Week 9, the Chicago offense rank fourth in offensive Expected Points Added per play. This isn't a brief surge – it's sustained excellence. Under his guidance, Williams has become more decisive, less careless, and has eagerly submitted to the system rather than freelancing. It is an offense designed solely in Johnson's vision: a physical run game, a heavy dose of play-action passes and a innovative passing attack that creates wide receiver targets everywhere. Williams has capitalized. And when openings haven't been there, he's been capable to create big plays out of broken plays.

The coach came to Chicago with a defined offensive philosophy. Virtually every bet – rebuilding the trenches, highlighting the tight ends, transforming the QB into a rhythm passer – has succeeded. That's uncommon for a first-year skipper. And it's even more uncommon still for a coach who entered the building with the immense hype Johnson did. For two straight cycles, he was the hottest candidate on the coaching carousel. However when it comes to selecting a leader, there are zero guarantees. Remarkably, he has lived up to expectations – and even exceeded them. He's proven not just to be a offensive dork but the type of culture builder that can inject new life into an organization.

In a ordinary year, Johnson would be the overwhelming choice. But the current isn't a typical season!

The area where his candidacy comes a bit unstuck is on defense. The Chicago defense currently sit in the bottom third in defensive success rate. They are surviving on takeaways, and turnovers are famously inconsistent. Coaches can emphasise ball disruption, but nobody can guarantee it. Johnson is on the ballot because the offense is sustainable. He's not higher because variance is doing too much of the defensive work. With a couple bounces of the ball, the team would be several victories worse off. It's been an remarkable turnaround, and the foundation is established for sustained winning. But he comes up just short in this ranking.

4) The Jacksonville Jaguars Coach, His Team, 12-4

The Jaguars' coach is in a similar spot to his counterpart. He's a fellow rookie head coach who has engineered a swift resurgence. During the stretch run of the year, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the best overall football of his career. And he's also spearheaded the transformation of a defensive unit that now sits at fifth in the NFL in EPA per play.

What's more notably, he has mastered the intangibles aspects, which wasn't a given following his early public introduction and some of his offseason moves.

Coen walked into the Jaguars with an exceptionally inexperienced staff. In contrast to other coaches, who surrounded their staff with the perfect staff blend of new ideas and veteran savvy, Coen hired newbies. Starting with the head coach on down to coordinators to position coaches, the Jags are filled with first-timers. That kind of approach is exciting in theory, but often collapses in reality – with other teams are a warning – because everyone is figuring out a their job in real-time. But he has managed to bring everyone and all elements into sync.

Following an initial strong beginning, there was a risk that the campaign would veer off the rails. A mid-year setback caused the team stumbling again. That's typically when leaders overcorrect. He did not. Instead, he streamlined things. The offense stopped pursuing home-run answers and started hunting sustainable ones. Coen recentered the offense around his playmakers and the running game, and asked his QB to use his mobility more often.

The outcomes are obvious. The Jags have won seven games in a row and will be the conference's number three seed. Coen gets the slightest deduction in the standings because he inherited a talented team, but he has demonstrated he can maximize that roster.

3) Mike Macdonald, His Team, 13-3

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

Moving on from a veteran, bringing in a different signal-caller and partnering him with an new play-caller could have derailed the campaign in October. Rather, it defined it. By the mid point of the year, the new QB was an MVP contender. He has cooled off since that hot streak, dropping to 23rd in EPA per dropback over the second half of the schedule, putting him only one spot ahead of other QBs.

Still