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Ordinarily, the NFL's Coach of the Year award adheres to a straightforward pattern. It frequently acts as a form of apology. We regret we misjudged your team in our pre-campaign forecasts.

In theory, it's a direct line: the coach who engineered the largest improvement receives the prize. In practice, it creates an yearly debate about preseason outlooks and whether we're actually honoring excellent leadership or simply the biggest surprise.

But this year's race is distinctly different. The list of contenders is remarkably deep. It has been the year of turnarounds. The NFL has been unpredictable, with recent conference winners fading and recent also-rans ascending together. In an typical year, a coach guiding the Denver Broncos to the summit of the AFC would make him the stone-cold front-runner. But in this turbulent and fun season, he's competing with five other elite coaches.

Here is how the ideal ballot should be structured.

5) Ben Johnson, Chicago Bears, Their Record

Coach of the Year selectors adore signal-callers. They always have. A certain coach in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. If you solve a quarterback, you're well on your way home.

Ben Johnson didn't merely fixed his young quarterback; he's unleashed him. Within an ideal system, Williams has been given the opportunity to demonstrate his rare talent. From midseason onward, the Chicago offense rank number four in offensive Expected Points Added per play. That's not a hot streak – it's sustained excellence. Under his guidance, Williams has become increasingly decisive, less reckless, and has willingly submitted to the gameplan rather than going rogue. It is an attack designed entirely in Johnson's vision: a physical run game, a steady helping of play-action passes and a imaginative aerial game that frees wide receiver receivers everywhere. The QB has capitalized. And when easy reads weren't available, he's been capable to create big plays from nothing.

Johnson came to the Bears with a clear offensive philosophy. Virtually every gamble – rebuilding the offensive line, featuring the pass-catchers, turning Williams into a rhythm thrower – has paid off. This is rare for a rookie head coach. And it's rarer yet for a leader who walked into the organization with the kind of hype he did. For two straight offseasons, he was the hottest candidate on the head coaching market. However when it comes to hiring a leader, there are zero sure things. Somehow, Johnson has met the hype – and even exceeded them. He's demonstrated not just to be a offensive dork but the type of culture builder that can breathe new life into an organization.

During a normal year, Johnson would be the clear-cut favorite. But the current isn't a typical year!

The area where his candidacy runs slightly into trouble is on the defensive side. The Chicago defense currently sit in the bottom third in defensive efficiency. They are surviving on turnovers, and takeaways are notoriously inconsistent. Coaches can emphasise ball disruption, but no one can guarantee it. He is on the ballot because the offensive production is real. He's ranked lower because variance is doing too much of the defense's work. If not for a few bounces of the ball, the team would be several wins behind. It's been an remarkable turnaround, and the core is in place for long-term success. However Johnson comes up short here.

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

Coen is in a comparable situation to his counterpart. He's a fellow rookie leader who has orchestrated a swift resurgence. Over the crucial final weeks of the year, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the most complete all-around ball of his career. And he's also overseen the transformation of a defensive unit that now ranks number five in the NFL in Expected Points Added per play.

Even more notably, Coen has excelled at the leadership aspects, which wasn't a guarantee after his early press conference appearances and some of his preseason decisions.

The coach walked into Jacksonville with an uncommonly raw staff. Unlike other coaches, who packed themselves with the ideal coaching cocktail of new ideas and veteran savvy, Coen bet on first-timers. From the leader on down to assistants to assistant coaches, the Jags are stocked with rookies. That kind of approach is intriguing on paper, but frequently fails in practice – with other teams are a cautionary tale – because everyone is figuring out a their job on the fly. But Coen has pulled everyone and everything together.

After an initial hot start, there was a chance that the campaign would go off the rails. A midseason setback had the team stumbling once more. That's usually when coaches overcorrect. Coen did not. Rather, he simplified things. The offense stopped chasing explosive answers and started hunting consistent ones. Coen recentered the attack around key players and the ground attack, and asked Lawrence to use his legs more often.

The outcomes are clear. The Jags have won multiple games consecutively and will be the AFC's No 3 seed. Coen gets the tiniest deduction in the rankings because he inherited a talented team, but he has demonstrated he can get the most out of that roster.

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

Each Strong of the Year argument has a defining decision. For Mike Macdonald, it was his quarterback choice.

Moving on from a incumbent, signing a different signal-caller and partnering him with an innovative offensive coordinator might have ended the campaign in October. Instead, it made it. By the mid point of the season, the acquisition was an Most Valuable Player candidate. He has fallen away since that hot streak, slipping to 23rd in EPA per pass attempt over the latter part of the season, putting him only one place ahead of peers.

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