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Ordinarily, the NFL's Head Coach of the Year trophy adheres to a straightforward pattern. It often acts as a form of apology. Sorry we underestimated your franchise in our pre-campaign forecasts.

On paper, it's a direct trajectory: the coach who engineered the biggest resurgence wins the award. In practice, it creates an yearly argument about preseason outlooks and whether we're actually rewarding excellent leadership or simply the most shocking shock.

Yet this year's race is distinctly unique. The group of contenders is exceptionally deep. It has been the campaign of turnarounds. The NFL has been unpredictable, with reigning conference winners declining and recent strugglers ascending collectively. Under an typical season, Sean Payton leading the his team to the summit of the conference would make him the clear favorite. Yet in such a chaotic and thrilling season, he's competing with multiple other exceptional candidates.

Here is how the ideal ballot should look.

5) Ben Johnson, Chicago Bears, Their Record

Voters for Coach of the Year voters adore QBs. They always have. Sean McVay in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. When you solve a franchise QB, you're halfway home.

Ben Johnson not only fixed Caleb Williams; he's freed him. In the right environment, the QB has been afforded the opportunity to showcase his special ability. From Week 9, the Bears sit at number four in offensive Expected Points Added per play. This isn't a brief surge – it's sustained performance. Under Johnson, Williams has become increasingly confident, less careless, and has willingly submitted to the scheme rather than freelancing. It is an attack constructed entirely in Johnson's vision: a physical ground attack, a heavy helping of play-action and a creative aerial game that creates wide receiver targets consistently. The QB has capitalized. And when easy reads weren't there, he's been able to spin big plays from nothing.

Johnson came to the Bears with a clear offensive philosophy. Virtually each decision – overhauling the trenches, featuring the pass-catchers, turning Williams into a timing-based thrower – has paid off. That's uncommon for a rookie skipper. And it's rarer yet for a coach who walked into the organization with the level of pressure Johnson did. For two straight cycles, he was the hottest name on the coaching carousel. However when it comes to hiring a head coach, there are zero guarantees. Somehow, he has met the hype – and even exceeded them. He's demonstrated not only to be a offensive wizard but the kind of culture builder that can breathe new life into an franchise.

During a normal year, Johnson would be the runaway favorite. Yet the current is not a typical year!

The area where Johnson's case comes a bit into trouble is on the defensive side. The Chicago defense presently rank 25th in defensive success rate. They are relying on turnovers, and turnovers are famously inconsistent. Defensive minds can focus on creating turnovers, but nobody can ensure it. He is on the list because the offensive production is real. He's ranked lower because variance is doing an outsized share of the defense's work. With a couple bounces of the ball, the team would be several victories worse off. It's been an remarkable transformation, and the foundation is established for sustained winning. However Johnson comes up just short in this ranking.

4) The Jacksonville Jaguars Coach, Jacksonville Jaguars, Their Record

Coen is in a comparable situation to his counterpart. He's a fellow rookie leader who has masterminded a dramatic turnaround. Over the crucial final weeks of the season, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the finest all-around football of his professional life. And he's also overseen the remaking of a defense that now sits at fifth in the league in Expected Points Added per play.

Even more impressively, he has excelled at the off-field stuff, which wasn't a certainty following his early public introduction and some of his offseason decisions.

The coach took over the Jaguars with an exceptionally raw coaching staff. Unlike other coaches, who packed their staff with the perfect coaching cocktail of new ideas and veteran savvy, he trusted first-timers. Starting with the leader on down to coordinators to assistant coaches, the Jags are filled with rookies. That type of approach is exciting on paper, but often collapses in practice – with other teams are a cautionary tale – because everyone is figuring out a their job in real-time. But he has pulled the entire group and all elements together.

Following an early hot start, there was a risk that the campaign would go off the rails. A midseason collapse caused the Jags stumbling once more. That's usually when coaches panic and change too much. He didn't. Rather, he streamlined the approach. The offense stopped pursuing explosive answers and started hunting reliable ones. Coen recentered the offense around his playmakers and the running game, and encouraged his QB to use his legs more often.

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

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

Each Coach of the Year case has a defining decision. For the Seahawks coach, it was his QB decision.

Moving on from a incumbent, bringing in a different signal-caller and partnering him with an innovative play-caller could have ended the campaign in October. Rather, it shaped it. By the middle point of the season, the acquisition was an Most Valuable Player contender. He has cooled off after that hot streak, slipping to a lower rank in EPA per pass attempt over the second half of the schedule, putting him only a single place ahead of other QBs.

Still