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Ordinarily, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year trophy adheres to a straightforward script. It often functions as a form of mea culpa. We regret we misjudged your squad in our pre-campaign forecasts.

Theoretically, it's a direct trajectory: the skipper who oversaw the most dramatic improvement wins the award. In reality, it creates an annual discussion about preseason outlooks and whether we're truly rewarding superior leadership or just the most shocking shock.

However this year's race is fundamentally unique. The pool of nominees is unusually deep. It has been the campaign of resurgences. The league has been unpredictable, with recent conference winners declining and longtime underperformers rising in unison. In an normal season, a coach guiding the his team to the top of the AFC would make him the clear favorite. But in this turbulent and entertaining year, he's competing with five other outstanding coaches.

Below is how the ideal ballot could shake out.

5) Ben Johnson, Chicago Bears, 11-5

Coach of the Year voters love quarterbacks. History shows this. A certain coach in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. When you solve a franchise QB, you're halfway to winning the award.

Ben Johnson didn't merely corrected his young quarterback; he's unlocked him. In the right environment, the QB has been afforded the chance to display his otherworldly ability. From midseason onward, the Bears sit at fourth in offensive EPA per play. That's not a hot streak – it's sustained excellence. Under his guidance, the quarterback has become more decisive, far less reckless, and has eagerly surrendered to the system instead of improvising. It is an attack designed entirely in Johnson's vision: a physical run game, a heavy helping of play-action and a imaginative passing attack that frees wide-open targets all over the field. The QB has capitalized. And when openings haven't been there, he's been able to spin big plays out of nothing.

The coach arrived to Chicago with a clear offensive vision. Virtually each gamble – overhauling the offensive line, utilizing the pass-catchers, transforming Williams into a rhythm thrower – has worked. This is uncommon for a rookie skipper. And it's even more uncommon still for a leader who entered the organization with the immense expectations Johnson did. For two straight offseasons, he was the most sought-after candidate on the head coaching market. However when it comes to selecting a head coach, there are no sure things. Somehow, he has lived up to the hype – and even surpassed them. He's proven not just to be a offensive dork but the kind of leader that can inject new life into an franchise.

During a typical season, Johnson would be the clear-cut favorite. But this is not a typical campaign!

Where Johnson's candidacy runs slightly into trouble is on the defensive side. The Bears presently rank in the bottom third in defensive success rate. They are relying on takeaways, and takeaways are notoriously fickle. Coaches can stress ball disruption, but nobody can guarantee it. Johnson is on the ballot because the offense is real. He's ranked lower because variance is doing too much of the defense's work. If not for a few breaks of the ball, the Bears would be two victories behind. It's been an remarkable turnaround, and the foundation is established for long-term winning. But Johnson falls just short here.

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

The Jaguars' coach is in a similar spot to Johnson. He's a fellow first-time leader who has engineered a swift turnaround. Over the crucial final weeks of the year, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the best all-around football of his career. And he's also spearheaded the remaking of a defense that now sits at fifth in the league in EPA per play.

Even more notably, he has excelled at the off-field aspects, which was not a certainty following his initial public appearances and some of his preseason decisions.

The coach walked into Jacksonville with an exceptionally raw staff. In contrast to other coaches, who surrounded their staff with the perfect coaching mix of youth and experience, Coen trusted first-timers. Starting with the head coach on down to assistants to assistant coaches, the Jags are stocked with first-timers. That type of approach is intriguing on paper, but frequently fails in practice – with other teams are a cautionary tale – because everyone is learning a new job in real-time. But he has pulled the entire group and everything together.

After an initial strong beginning, there was a possibility that the season would go off the track. A midseason setback had the team wobbling again. That's usually when coaches panic and change too much. Coen didn't. Rather, he streamlined things. Jacksonville stopped chasing explosive plays and started seeking consistent ones. The coach refocused the attack around his playmakers and the ground attack, and encouraged his QB to use his mobility more often.

The outcomes are obvious. The Jaguars have won seven games consecutively and will be the AFC's No 3 seed. He gets the slightest deduction in the standings because he inherited a skilled team, but he has demonstrated he can get the most out of that talent.

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

Every Strong of the Year case has a hinge decision. For the Seahawks coach, it was his QB choice.

Moving on from a veteran, signing a different quarterback and pairing him with an innovative offensive coordinator could have derailed the campaign in October. Instead, it made it. By the mid point of the year, the acquisition was an Most Valuable Player candidate. He has fallen away since that hot streak, dropping to 23rd in efficiency per pass attempt over the latter part of the schedule, placing him only one place ahead of other QBs.

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