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Typically, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year trophy follows a straightforward script. It frequently serves as a kind of mea culpa. Sorry we got wrong your franchise in our pre-campaign projections.

In theory, it's a clear-cut trajectory: the skipper who orchestrated the largest resurgence receives the prize. In reality, it sparks an annual discussion about expectations and whether we're truly honoring superior coaching or merely the greatest surprise.

But the latest race is fundamentally unique. The list of contenders is unusually talented. It has been the season of resurgences. The league has been unpredictable, with reigning division champions declining and recent underperformers ascending in unison. During an typical season, a coach leading the his team to the summit of the AFC would make him the stone-cold front-runner. Yet in such a chaotic and entertaining year, he's competing with several other exceptional candidates.

This is how the hypothetical ballot could look.

5) Ben Johnson, Chicago Bears, 11-5

Coach of the Year voters love quarterbacks. History shows this. Sean McVay in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. A third in 2022. If you transform a quarterback, you're halfway to winning the award.

Ben Johnson didn't merely fixed Caleb Williams; he's unleashed him. Given a proper system, Williams has been given the opportunity to showcase his special talent. From Week 9, the Bears rank fourth in offensive EPA per play. This isn't a hot streak – it's consistent excellence. With Johnson, Williams has become increasingly decisive, far less careless, and has willingly surrendered to the system instead of freelancing. It is an offense built entirely in Johnson's image: a physical run game, a heavy helping of play-action passes and a innovative passing attack that springs wide receiver targets consistently. Williams has thrived. And when openings haven't been available, he's been able to spin magic from broken plays.

Johnson arrived to the Bears with a defined offensive philosophy. Almost every decision – overhauling the trenches, highlighting the pass-catchers, transforming the QB into a rhythm passer – has succeeded. This is rare for a first-year skipper. And it's even more uncommon yet for a coach who entered the organization with the level of expectations Johnson did. For consecutive straight offseasons, he was the most sought-after name on the head coaching carousel. But when it comes to selecting a head coach, there are no guarantees. Remarkably, he has lived up to expectations – and even exceeded them. He's proven not only to be a offensive dork but the type of culture builder that can inject new life into an organization.

During a normal year, he would be the clear-cut choice. But the current is not a normal year!

The area where Johnson's case comes a bit unstuck is on defense. The Bears presently rank 25th in defensive success rate. They are living on takeaways, and takeaways are notoriously unreliable. Defensive minds can emphasise ball disruption, but nobody can guarantee it. He is on the ballot because the offensive production is real. He's ranked lower because variance is doing too much of the defensive work. With a couple bounces of the ball, the Bears would be two wins worse off. It's been an exceptional turnaround, and the core is in place for sustained success. However Johnson falls short here.

4) Liam Coen, His Team, 12-4

Coen is in a similar situation to Johnson. He's another rookie leader who has orchestrated a swift turnaround. Over the crucial final weeks of the year, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the finest all-around football of his career. And he's also overseen the transformation of a defensive unit that now ranks number five in the NFL in EPA per play.

Even more impressively, he has mastered the off-field aspects, which was not a guarantee following his initial press conference introduction and some of his preseason moves.

Coen took over Jacksonville with an exceptionally raw coaching staff. Unlike other coaches, who surrounded their staff with the perfect coaching cocktail of new ideas and experience, he hired first-timers. Starting with the leader himself to coordinators to position coaches, the Jags are stocked with first-timers. That kind of setup is exciting on paper, but often fails in practice – as past failures are a warning – because everybody is learning a their job in real-time. Yet he has managed to bring the entire group and everything together.

After an early strong beginning, there was a risk that the season would veer off the rails. A midseason setback had the team stumbling once more. That's usually when coaches panic and change too much. Coen did not. Instead, he streamlined things. The offense stopped pursuing home-run answers and started hunting consistent ones. The coach recentered the offense around his playmakers and the running game, and asked Lawrence to use his legs more often.

The outcomes are evident. The Jags have won multiple games in a row and will be the conference's number three playoff seed. He gets the tiniest knock in the rankings because he inherited a talented roster, but he has demonstrated he can maximize that talent.

3) Mike Macdonald, Seattle Seahawks, Their Record

Every Strong of the Year narrative has a defining moment. For Mike Macdonald, it was his quarterback move.

Moving on from a incumbent, bringing in a different quarterback and pairing him with an new play-caller could have ended the campaign in the early weeks. Rather, it made it. Through the middle point of the year, the acquisition was an MVP candidate. He has cooled off after that hot streak, dropping to a lower rank in efficiency per pass attempt over the latter part of the season, putting him only one spot ahead of other QBs.

Still