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Usually, the NFL's Head Coach of the Year honor adheres to a simple script. It often serves as a kind of mea culpa. We regret we misjudged your squad in our preseason forecasts.

On paper, it's a clear-cut trajectory: the coach who oversaw the largest resurgence receives the prize. In reality, it sparks an yearly discussion about expectations and whether we're truly rewarding superior coaching or merely the greatest surprise.

However this year's field is distinctly unique. The list of candidates is unusually deep. It has been the campaign of comebacks. The league has been messy, with reigning conference champions fading and longtime underperformers rising together. Under an ordinary season, a coach leading the his team to the summit of the conference would make him the overwhelming front-runner. But in such a turbulent and fun season, he's competing with five other exceptional coaches.

Here is how the ideal ballot should look.

5) Ben Johnson, His Team, 11-5

Voters for Coach of the Year selectors are fascinated by QBs. History shows this. A certain coach in 2017. Another in 2020. A third in 2022. When you fix a quarterback, you're halfway to winning the award.

The Bears' head coach not only corrected Caleb Williams; he's unlocked him. Within an ideal environment, Williams has been afforded the chance to showcase his special talent. From Week 9, the Bears sit at fourth in offensive EPA per play. That's not a hot streak – it's consistent dominance. With his guidance, the quarterback has become more confident, less reckless, and has eagerly surrendered to the scheme rather than improvising. It is an attack constructed solely in the coach's vision: a bully-ball ground attack, a consistent helping of play-action passes and a innovative passing attack that creates wide receiver receivers everywhere. Williams has capitalized. And when easy reads weren't there, he's been able to spin magic from broken plays.

Johnson came to the Bears with a defined offensive vision. Virtually every decision – rebuilding the trenches, utilizing the pass-catchers, transforming Williams into a rhythm passer – has paid off. This is rare for a rookie head coach. And it's even more uncommon yet for a leader who walked into the building with the kind of expectations he did. For consecutive straight offseasons, he was the top candidate on the head coaching market. But when it comes to hiring a head coach, there are zero guarantees. Somehow, Johnson has met expectations – and even exceeded them. He's demonstrated not just to be a scheme dork but the kind of culture builder that can inject new life into an franchise.

In a normal year, he would be the runaway choice. But this isn't a normal year!

Where Johnson's candidacy runs a bit unstuck is on the defensive side. The Chicago defense presently rank in the bottom third in defensive efficiency. They are living on takeaways, and turnovers are famously unreliable. Coaches can stress ball disruption, but nobody can ensure it. He is on the list because the offense is real. He's not higher because variance is doing too much of the defense's work. With a couple bounces of the ball, the Bears would be two wins behind. It's been an remarkable transformation, and the foundation is in place for sustained success. However Johnson comes up short here.

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

The Jaguars' coach is in a similar spot to Johnson. He's another rookie leader who has engineered a rapid resurgence. Over the crucial final weeks of the season, he has his franchise quarterback playing the most complete all-around ball of his professional life. And he's also overseen the overhaul of a defensive unit that now ranks number five in the NFL in EPA per play.

What's more impressively, he has excelled at the off-field aspects, which was not a given following his initial public appearances and some of his preseason moves.

Coen walked into the Jaguars with an exceptionally inexperienced coaching staff. In contrast to Johnson, who surrounded themselves with the perfect staff blend of new ideas and experience, he trusted first-timers. Starting with the head coach on down to coordinators to position coaches, the Jaguars are filled with rookies. That type of approach is exciting in theory, but frequently collapses in practice – as past failures are a warning – because everybody is figuring out a new job in real-time. But Coen has managed to bring the entire group and all elements together.

Following an early hot start, there was a possibility that the season would veer off the track. A midseason collapse caused the Jags stumbling once more. That's usually when coaches overcorrect. He didn't. Instead, he streamlined the approach. Jacksonville stopped chasing explosive plays and started hunting reliable ones. The coach refocused the offense around his playmakers and the running game, and asked Lawrence to use his legs more often.

The results are obvious. The Jaguars have won multiple games in a row and will be the conference's number three playoff seed. He gets the tiniest deduction in the rankings because he inherited a skilled team, but he has proven he can maximize that roster.

3) Mike Macdonald, His Team, Their Record

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

Moving on from a incumbent, signing a different quarterback and pairing him with an innovative play-caller could have derailed the campaign in the early weeks. Rather, it defined it. Through the mid point of the year, the acquisition was an Most Valuable Player candidate. He has cooled off since that hot streak, slipping to 23rd in EPA per dropback over the latter part of the schedule, putting him just one spot ahead of peers.

Still