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Ordinarily, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year honor follows a simple script. It commonly acts as a form of mea culpa. Sorry we underestimated your squad in our pre-campaign forecasts.

In theory, it's a direct trajectory: the skipper who orchestrated the largest turnaround is handed the award. In practice, it sparks an yearly debate about preseason outlooks and whether we're genuinely rewarding superior coaching or merely the most shocking surprise.

Yet the latest race is profoundly different. The group of candidates is unusually strong. It has been the campaign of resurgences. The NFL has been messy, with reigning conference champions declining and recent strugglers improving together. Under an ordinary season, Sean Payton leading the Denver Broncos to the summit of the conference would make him the clear front-runner. Yet in such a wild and entertaining season, he's up against multiple other outstanding coaches.

This is how the hypothetical vote should be structured.

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

Coach of the Year selectors love signal-callers. This is a tradition. A certain coach in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. A third in 2022. Should you transform a franchise QB, you're halfway to winning the award.

Ben Johnson hasn't just corrected Caleb Williams; he's unleashed him. In the right environment, the QB has been afforded the opportunity 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 consistent excellence. Under Johnson, the quarterback has become increasingly confident, far less careless, and has eagerly surrendered to the gameplan instead of freelancing. It is an attack built solely in Johnson's vision: a bully-ball run game, a steady helping of play-action and a creative passing attack that creates wide-open receivers consistently. The QB has thrived. And when openings haven't been available, he's been capable to conjure big plays from broken plays.

The coach came to Chicago with a defined offensive vision. Virtually every bet – rebuilding the offensive line, utilizing the tight ends, turning the QB into a rhythm thrower – has worked. That's rare for a rookie head coach. And it's even more uncommon yet for a leader who walked into the organization with the level of expectations Johnson did. For two straight cycles, he was the most sought-after name on the head coaching market. But when it comes to hiring a leader, there are zero sure things. Somehow, he has lived up to expectations – and even surpassed them. He's demonstrated not only to be a offensive genius but the kind of culture builder that can breathe fresh energy into an organization.

In a ordinary season, Johnson would be the runaway favorite. Yet this isn't a typical year!

The area where his candidacy runs a bit into trouble is on defense. The Bears presently sit in the bottom third in defensive efficiency. They are surviving on takeaways, and takeaways are notoriously inconsistent. Defensive minds can emphasise creating turnovers, but nobody can guarantee it. Johnson is on the list because the offensive production is sustainable. He's not higher because variance is doing too much of the defense's work. With a couple bounces of the ball, the team would be several wins worse off. It's been an remarkable turnaround, and the foundation is established for long-term success. However he comes up just short here.

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

The Jaguars' coach is in a similar situation to Johnson. He's a fellow rookie leader who has engineered a rapid turnaround. During the crucial final weeks of the season, he has his franchise quarterback playing the finest all-around ball of his career. And he's also spearheaded the transformation of a defensive unit that now ranks fifth in the NFL in EPA per play.

What's more impressively, he has mastered the off-field stuff, which wasn't a given following his initial press conference introduction and some of his offseason moves.

Coen took over Jacksonville with an uncommonly inexperienced staff. Unlike Johnson, who packed themselves with the ideal staff cocktail of youth and experience, he trusted newbies. From the leader himself to assistants to position coaches, the Jaguars are stocked with rookies. That kind of setup is intriguing on paper, but often fails in reality – with other teams are a warning – because everybody is figuring out a new job in real-time. Yet he has managed to bring the entire group and all elements into sync.

After an early strong start, there was a risk that the season would veer off the rails. A mid-year collapse had the Jags wobbling once more. That's typically when leaders panic and change too much. He did not. Instead, he simplified the approach. Jacksonville stopped chasing explosive answers and started hunting consistent ones. Coen recentered the offense around key players and the running game, and asked his QB to use his legs more.

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

3) The Seattle Seahawks Coach, Seattle Seahawks, Their Record

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

Moving on from a incumbent, signing a new signal-caller and partnering him with an new offensive coordinator might have ended the season in the early weeks. Instead, it shaped it. By the mid point of the year, the new QB was an Most Valuable Player front-runner. He has regressed since that hot streak, slipping to 23rd in efficiency per dropback over the second half of the schedule, placing him only a single place ahead of peers.

Still