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Ordinarily, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year award follows a straightforward pattern. It often serves as a type of mea culpa. We regret we got wrong your team in our preseason predictions.

Theoretically, it's a direct trajectory: the skipper who engineered the largest turnaround is handed the prize. However, it sparks an annual argument about preseason outlooks and whether we're genuinely rewarding superior coaching or simply the biggest shock.

But this year's competition is distinctly unique. The group of nominees is exceptionally strong. It has been the year of resurgences. The league has been messy, with reigning conference winners falling away and longtime also-rans improving together. Under an normal year, Sean Payton guiding the Denver Broncos to the summit of the AFC would make him the stone-cold favorite. Yet in this turbulent and fun season, he's up against several other outstanding coaches.

Below is how the hypothetical vote ought to look.

5) The Chicago Bears Coach, His Team, Their Record

Coach of the Year selectors love QBs. This is a tradition. A certain coach in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. When you solve a quarterback, you're well on your way home.

Ben Johnson didn't merely corrected his young quarterback; he's freed him. In the right system, Williams has been afforded the chance to display his special ability. From Week 9, the Chicago offense rank number four in offensive Expected Points Added per play. This isn't a hot streak – it's prolonged performance. With Johnson, the quarterback has become more confident, less reckless, and has eagerly surrendered to the system rather than freelancing. It is an attack built solely in Johnson's vision: a physical run game, a heavy dose of play-action passes and a imaginative aerial game that springs wide receiver receivers all over the field. Williams has thrived. And when openings weren't available, he's been able to create magic from broken plays.

The coach came to the Bears with a specific offensive blueprint. Virtually each gamble – rebuilding the offensive line, utilizing the pass-catchers, turning the QB into a timing-based passer – has paid off. That's uncommon for a rookie head coach. And it's rarer yet for a coach who walked into the building with the kind of pressure Johnson did. For consecutive straight cycles, he was the most sought-after name on the coaching carousel. However when it comes to selecting a head coach, there are no sure things. Remarkably, Johnson has met the hype – and even surpassed them. He's demonstrated not only to be a scheme wizard but the type of leader that can inject fresh energy into an franchise.

During a normal year, he would be the overwhelming choice. But this isn't a typical year!

Where Johnson's case comes slightly unstuck is on the defensive side. The Bears currently sit in the bottom third in defensive efficiency. They are surviving on takeaways, and takeaways are famously fickle. Defensive minds can emphasise creating turnovers, but nobody can ensure it. Johnson is on the list because the offensive production is real. He's ranked lower because variance is doing an outsized share of the defensive work. If not for a couple breaks of the ball, the Bears would be several wins behind. It's been an exceptional transformation, and the core is in place for sustained success. However Johnson falls short here.

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

The Jaguars' coach is in a comparable situation to his counterpart. He's another rookie head coach who has engineered a rapid resurgence. During the stretch run of the year, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the finest all-around football of his professional life. And he's also overseen the transformation of a defensive unit that now sits at fifth in the NFL in Expected Points Added per play.

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

The coach walked into Jacksonville with an exceptionally inexperienced staff. Unlike other coaches, who packed themselves with the perfect staff cocktail of new ideas and veteran savvy, he trusted first-timers. From the head coach on down to assistants to position coaches, the Jags are stocked with first-timers. That kind of setup is intriguing on paper, but frequently fails in reality – with other teams are a cautionary tale – because everyone is learning a their job on the fly. Yet he has pulled everyone and all elements together.

After an early hot start, there was a risk that the campaign would veer off the rails. A midseason collapse caused the team wobbling again. That's typically when leaders overcorrect. He did not. Rather, he simplified things. Jacksonville stopped chasing explosive answers and started hunting consistent ones. Coen recentered the offense around his playmakers and the running game, and asked Lawrence to use his mobility more.

The outcomes are clear. The Jaguars have won multiple games in a row and will be the AFC's number three playoff seed. He receives the slightest knock in the standings because he took over a skilled team, but he has demonstrated he can get the most out of that talent.

3) Mike Macdonald, His Team, Their Record

Each Strong of the Year narrative has a hinge decision. For Mike Macdonald, it was his QB choice.

Moving on from a veteran, signing a new signal-caller and pairing him with an new offensive coordinator could have derailed the season in October. Rather, it made it. By the middle point of the year, the new QB was an MVP contender. He has fallen away after that hot streak, dropping to a lower rank in efficiency per dropback over the second half of the schedule, putting him just a single place ahead of peers.

Still