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Ordinarily, the NFL's Head Coach of the Year award follows a simple pattern. It often serves as a form of mea culpa. Our apologies we got wrong your franchise in our pre-campaign forecasts.

Theoretically, it's a direct path: the skipper who engineered the biggest resurgence is handed the prize. However, it creates an yearly argument about preseason outlooks and whether we're truly rewarding superior coaching or merely the most shocking surprise.

But the current competition is profoundly different. The pool of nominees is remarkably talented. It has been the campaign of turnarounds. The league has been chaotic, with reigning conference winners falling away and recent also-rans rising collectively. In an typical year, Sean Payton guiding the his team to the top of the AFC would make him the clear favorite. Yet in such a chaotic and fun year, he's facing several other outstanding coaches.

This is how the ideal vote could be structured.

5) Ben Johnson, His Team, Their Record

Voters for Coach of the Year selectors adore QBs. They always have. Sean McVay in 2017. Another in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. Should you transform a quarterback, you're halfway home.

The Bears' head coach hasn't just corrected his young quarterback; he's unlocked him. Within an ideal environment, Williams has been afforded the opportunity to display his rare ability. From midseason onward, the Chicago offense rank fourth in offensive Expected Points Added per play. This isn't a lucky run – it's consistent performance. Under Johnson, the quarterback has become more decisive, less careless, and has willingly submitted to the scheme rather than improvising. It is an attack built entirely in Johnson's vision: a physical run game, a heavy helping of play-action passes and a innovative passing attack that frees wide-open receivers all over the field. Williams has capitalized. And when openings haven't been available, he's been able to spin big plays from nothing.

Johnson came to the Bears with a defined offensive vision. Almost each bet – overhauling the offensive line, utilizing the pass-catchers, transforming the QB into a rhythm thrower – has paid off. This is rare for a rookie head coach. And it's even more uncommon still for a coach who walked into the organization with the level of hype Johnson did. For consecutive straight cycles, he was the top candidate on the coaching market. But when it comes to selecting a leader, there are zero guarantees. Remarkably, Johnson has lived up to expectations – and even surpassed them. He's demonstrated not just to be a offensive dork but the type of culture builder that can breathe fresh energy into an organization.

In a normal season, Johnson would be the runaway choice. Yet the current is not a normal season!

Where his case comes slightly into trouble is on defense. The Bears currently rank 25th in defensive success rate. They are living on takeaways, and takeaways are notoriously inconsistent. Defensive minds can focus on ball disruption, but no one can ensure it. Johnson is on the list because the offensive production is real. He's not higher because variance is doing too much of the defensive work. If not for a couple bounces of the ball, the Bears would be two wins worse off. It's been an remarkable transformation, and the foundation is established for sustained winning. But he comes up short in this ranking.

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

Coen is in a similar position to his counterpart. He's a fellow first-time head coach who has engineered a swift turnaround. During the stretch run of the year, he has his franchise quarterback playing the finest overall football of his professional life. And he's also overseen the transformation of a defensive unit that now ranks fifth in the NFL in EPA per play.

What's more notably, Coen has excelled at the leadership stuff, which was not a certainty following his initial public appearances and some of his offseason moves.

The coach walked into the Jaguars with an uncommonly inexperienced coaching staff. Unlike Johnson, who surrounded their staff with the perfect coaching cocktail of youth and veteran savvy, Coen hired newbies. Starting with the head coach on down to assistants to assistant coaches, the Jaguars are filled with first-timers. That kind of approach is intriguing on paper, but often collapses in practice – with other teams are a warning – because everyone is figuring out a their job in real-time. But he has managed to bring the entire group and everything into sync.

After an initial strong beginning, there was a risk that the season would go off the track. A mid-year setback had the Jags stumbling once more. That's typically when coaches overcorrect. He did not. Rather, he streamlined things. Jacksonville stopped pursuing home-run plays and started seeking reliable ones. Coen refocused the offense around his playmakers and the ground attack, and asked Lawrence to use his mobility more often.

The results are evident. The Jags have won multiple games consecutively and will be the conference's No 3 seed. Coen receives the tiniest deduction in the standings because he inherited a skilled team, but he has demonstrated he can get the most out of that talent.

3) Mike Macdonald, Seattle Seahawks, Their Record

Each Coach of the Year narrative has a hinge moment. For the Seahawks coach, it was his QB decision.

Parting ways from a incumbent, signing a new quarterback and pairing him with an new play-caller might have derailed the season in October. Rather, it made it. Through the mid point of the season, the acquisition was an Most Valuable Player candidate. He has regressed after that hot streak, dropping to 23rd in EPA per dropback over the second half of the season, putting him just a single place ahead of other QBs.

Still