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

In theory, it's a direct line: the skipper who orchestrated the largest resurgence is handed the award. However, it creates an yearly discussion about expectations and whether we're genuinely honoring superior coaching or merely the greatest shock.

Yet this year's race is fundamentally unique. The group of contenders is remarkably deep. It has been the season of turnarounds. The NFL has been chaotic, with reigning division winners falling away and longtime underperformers rising together. During an typical season, Sean Payton guiding the Denver Broncos to the top of the AFC would make him the stone-cold front-runner. But in this chaotic and fun season, he's up against several other exceptional candidates.

Here is how the ideal vote should shake out.

5) Ben Johnson, His Team, Their Record

Coach of the Year selectors adore QBs. History shows this. Sean McVay in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. When you transform a quarterback, you're well on your way home.

Ben Johnson didn't merely corrected his young quarterback; he's unleashed him. Given a proper environment, the QB has been afforded the chance to demonstrate his otherworldly talent. Since Week 9, the Chicago offense sit at number four in offensive Expected Points Added per play. That's not a hot streak – it's sustained excellence. With Johnson, Williams has become increasingly decisive, far less careless, and has eagerly surrendered to the gameplan instead of improvising. It is an offense built solely in the coach's image: a bully-ball run game, a consistent helping of play-action and a imaginative passing attack that creates wide-open receivers everywhere. Williams has thrived. And when clear throws weren't there, he's been capable to spin magic from broken plays.

Johnson came to the Bears with a defined offensive blueprint. Virtually every decision – rebuilding the offensive line, highlighting the tight ends, turning the QB into a rhythm passer – has succeeded. This is uncommon for a rookie skipper. And it's rarer still for a coach who entered the organization with the kind of expectations he did. For two straight cycles, he was the top candidate on the coaching carousel. But when it comes to selecting a head coach, there are zero sure things. Somehow, Johnson has lived up to the hype – and even surpassed them. He's demonstrated not just to be a offensive genius but the kind of culture builder that can inject fresh energy into an franchise.

During a normal season, he would be the runaway choice. Yet the current is not a typical year!

Where his candidacy comes a bit into trouble is on the defensive side. The Bears currently rank 25th in defensive efficiency. They are living on turnovers, and turnovers are famously inconsistent. Coaches can emphasise creating turnovers, but no one can ensure it. Johnson is on the ballot because the offensive production is real. He's not higher because variance is doing an outsized share of the defense's heavy lifting. With a couple bounces of the ball, the Bears would be two victories worse off. It's been an remarkable turnaround, and the core is in place for sustained success. But Johnson falls just short in this ranking.

4) Liam Coen, Jacksonville Jaguars, 12-4

Coen is in a comparable situation to his counterpart. He's another first-time head coach who has masterminded a swift resurgence. Over the stretch run of the season, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the finest overall football of his professional life. And he's also overseen the overhaul of a defense that now sits at fifth in the league in EPA per play.

What's more notably, Coen has mastered the leadership aspects, which was not a certainty after his early public appearances and some of his preseason moves.

The coach walked into Jacksonville with an exceptionally inexperienced staff. Unlike Johnson, who packed their staff with the perfect coaching cocktail of youth and veteran savvy, Coen trusted first-timers. From the leader on down to assistants to assistant coaches, the Jaguars are stocked with first-timers. That type of setup is intriguing in theory, but frequently fails in reality – as past failures are a warning – because everybody is learning a their job in real-time. Yet Coen has pulled the entire group and everything into sync.

Following an early strong beginning, there was a chance that the season would veer off the track. A midseason collapse caused the Jags stumbling again. That's usually when coaches panic and change too much. Coen did not. Instead, he streamlined things. The offense stopped pursuing explosive plays and started hunting reliable ones. Coen refocused the offense around his playmakers and the running game, and asked Lawrence to use his mobility more.

The results are obvious. The Jags have won seven games in a row and will be the conference's No 3 playoff seed. He receives the slightest deduction in the rankings because he took over a skilled roster, but he has proven he can maximize that talent.

3) The Seattle Seahawks Coach, His Team, 13-3

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

Parting ways from a veteran, signing a new quarterback and pairing him with an innovative play-caller might have ended the season in October. Instead, it made it. By the middle point of the season, the new QB was an MVP candidate. He has fallen away since that hot streak, slipping to a lower rank in EPA per dropback over the second half of the season, placing him just one spot ahead of peers.

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