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Usually, the NFL's Head Coach of the Year award adheres to a simple formula. It commonly functions as a type of mea culpa. Our apologies we misjudged your franchise in our preseason projections.

On paper, it's a direct path: the coach who engineered the biggest improvement wins the award. In reality, it fuels an annual discussion about expectations and whether we're genuinely honoring excellent coaching or just the biggest shock.

But the current competition is fundamentally unique. The pool of contenders is unusually talented. It has been the year of resurgences. The NFL has been chaotic, with recent conference champions falling away and recent strugglers improving collectively. In an normal season, a coach leading the Denver Broncos to the summit of the AFC would make him the stone-cold front-runner. Yet in this turbulent and thrilling season, he's up against multiple other outstanding candidates.

This is how the ideal vote ought to shake out.

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

Voters for Coach of the Year selectors love signal-callers. This is a tradition. Sean McVay in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. When you fix a quarterback, you're halfway to winning the award.

The Bears' head coach didn't merely fixed Caleb Williams; he's freed him. In the right environment, the QB has been given the opportunity to demonstrate his otherworldly ability. Since midseason onward, the Chicago offense sit at fourth in offensive Expected Points Added per play. This isn't a hot streak – it's sustained performance. Under Johnson, the quarterback has become increasingly decisive, less careless, and has eagerly submitted to the scheme rather than going rogue. It is an attack designed entirely in the coach's vision: a bully-ball run game, a heavy dose of play-action passes and a innovative passing attack that frees wide receiver targets all over the field. Williams has capitalized. And when easy reads haven't been there, he's been capable to create magic out of nothing.

Johnson came to the Bears with a specific offensive philosophy. Almost each gamble – rebuilding the offensive line, utilizing the pass-catchers, turning the QB into a rhythm thrower – has succeeded. This is uncommon for a rookie skipper. And it's rarer still for a leader who walked into the building with the immense hype he did. For two straight cycles, he was the most sought-after candidate on the head coaching carousel. But when it comes to hiring a head coach, there are no sure things. Somehow, Johnson has lived up to the hype – and even exceeded them. He's proven not only to be a scheme genius but the kind of culture builder that can inject fresh energy into an organization.

During a normal year, he would be the runaway choice. But the current isn't a normal campaign!

Where Johnson's case runs a bit into trouble 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 fickle. Defensive minds can emphasise ball disruption, but no one can ensure it. He is on the list because the offensive production is sustainable. He's ranked lower because variance is doing an outsized share of the defense's heavy lifting. With a few breaks of the ball, the Bears would be two victories behind. It's been an exceptional turnaround, and the foundation is established for sustained success. But he comes up just short in this ranking.

4) Liam Coen, His Team, 12-4

The Jaguars' coach is in a similar position to his counterpart. He's a fellow first-time head coach who has engineered a dramatic turnaround. Over the stretch run of the season, he has his franchise quarterback playing the most complete all-around ball of his career. And he's also overseen the transformation of a defensive unit that now ranks number five in the NFL in Expected Points Added per play.

What's more notably, he has mastered the intangibles stuff, which was not a given following his initial press conference introduction and some of his preseason moves.

Coen walked into the Jaguars with an exceptionally inexperienced staff. Unlike other coaches, who surrounded their staff with the ideal coaching cocktail of new ideas and veteran savvy, he bet on newbies. From the leader himself to coordinators to position coaches, the Jaguars are filled with first-timers. That type of setup is exciting on paper, but often fails in practice – with other teams are a cautionary tale – because everyone is figuring out a new job on the fly. But Coen has pulled everyone and everything together.

Following an early strong beginning, there was a possibility that the season would veer off the track. A mid-year collapse had the team wobbling once more. That's typically when leaders overcorrect. He did not. Instead, he simplified things. Jacksonville stopped chasing explosive answers and started seeking reliable ones. The coach recentered the offense around his playmakers and the ground attack, and asked Lawrence to use his mobility more often.

The outcomes are clear. The Jaguars have won multiple games consecutively and will be the AFC's number three playoff seed. Coen receives the tiniest knock in the rankings because he inherited a skilled roster, but he has demonstrated he can maximize that roster.

3) Mike Macdonald, His Team, 13-3

Every Coach of the Year narrative has a defining moment. For the Seahawks coach, it was his quarterback move.

Parting ways from a veteran, bringing in a new signal-caller and partnering him with an new offensive coordinator might have ended the campaign in the early weeks. Rather, it defined it. Through the mid point of the season, the new QB was an Most Valuable Player contender. He has regressed after that hot streak, slipping to a lower rank in EPA per dropback over the second half of the schedule, placing him only one spot ahead of peers.

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