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Ordinarily, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year honor adheres to a simple pattern. It frequently acts as a form of apology. Our apologies we underestimated your team in our pre-campaign forecasts.

On paper, it's a direct line: the skipper who engineered the most dramatic turnaround wins the award. In practice, it sparks an annual argument about preseason outlooks and whether we're truly rewarding excellent coaching or just the most shocking shock.

Yet the current race is profoundly different. The group of contenders is unusually talented. It has been the campaign of comebacks. The NFL has been unpredictable, with recent division champions declining and recent strugglers ascending in unison. Under an ordinary season, Sean Payton guiding the Denver Broncos to the summit of the AFC would make him the clear front-runner. But in such a wild and fun season, he's competing with five other exceptional coaches.

Here is how the hypothetical vote could be structured.

5) Ben Johnson, His Team, Their Record

Voters for Coach of the Year voters are fascinated by QBs. They always have. A certain coach in 2017. Another in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. If you solve a quarterback, you're well on your way to winning the award.

Ben Johnson didn't merely corrected Caleb Williams; he's unleashed him. In the right ecosystem, Williams has been afforded the opportunity to display his special ability. Since midseason onward, the Bears rank fourth in offensive Expected Points Added per play. This isn't a lucky run – it's consistent performance. Under his guidance, Williams has become more confident, less reckless, and has willingly submitted to the system rather than improvising. It is an attack designed solely in the coach's image: a physical ground attack, a consistent dose of play-action passes and a innovative aerial game that creates wide-open targets all over the field. Williams has taken advantage. And when easy reads weren't available, he's been capable to spin big plays out of nothing.

Johnson arrived to the Bears with a clear offensive vision. Almost every decision – rebuilding the trenches, highlighting the tight ends, turning the QB into a rhythm passer – has succeeded. That's uncommon for a first-year head coach. And it's rarer still for a leader who walked into the building with the immense pressure he did. For two straight cycles, he was the most sought-after candidate on the coaching market. But when it comes to hiring a head coach, there are zero sure things. Somehow, he has lived up to the hype – and even exceeded them. He's proven not only to be a scheme genius but the kind of leader that can inject fresh energy into an organization.

During a ordinary year, he would be the overwhelming favorite. But this is not a normal campaign!

Where Johnson's candidacy comes slightly unstuck is on defense. The Chicago defense currently sit in the bottom third in defensive success rate. They are relying on takeaways, and turnovers are notoriously fickle. Coaches can stress ball disruption, but no one can guarantee it. He is on the ballot because the offensive production is real. He's not higher because luck is doing an outsized share of the defensive work. With a couple breaks of the ball, the team would be several wins behind. It's been an exceptional transformation, and the foundation is in place for sustained success. But Johnson comes up short here.

4) Liam Coen, His Team, 12-4

The Jaguars' coach is in a similar spot to Johnson. He's a fellow rookie head coach who has masterminded a swift resurgence. Over the stretch run of the year, he has his franchise quarterback playing the most complete all-around ball of his professional life. And he's also spearheaded the overhaul of a defensive unit that now sits at fifth in the NFL in EPA per play.

Even more impressively, he has excelled at the leadership stuff, which wasn't a guarantee following his initial public appearances and some of his offseason decisions.

Coen took over Jacksonville with an exceptionally raw staff. Unlike other coaches, who packed themselves with the perfect staff blend of youth and veteran savvy, Coen trusted first-timers. From the head coach himself to coordinators to assistant coaches, the Jaguars are stocked with rookies. That kind of approach is exciting in theory, but frequently collapses in reality – as past failures are a cautionary tale – because everybody is figuring out a their job in real-time. But he has managed to bring everyone and everything into sync.

After an early strong start, there was a chance that the campaign would go off the track. A mid-year collapse had the team wobbling again. That's typically when leaders overcorrect. Coen didn't. Instead, he simplified the approach. Jacksonville stopped chasing home-run answers and started seeking sustainable ones. The coach refocused the offense around his playmakers and the ground attack, and asked Lawrence to use his legs more.

The results are evident. The Jags have won seven games consecutively and will be the conference's number three seed. Coen gets the tiniest deduction in the standings because he took over a skilled team, but he has proven he can get the most out of that roster.

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

Every Coach of the Year argument has a pivotal moment. For Mike Macdonald, it was his quarterback choice.

Parting ways from a incumbent, bringing in a different signal-caller and partnering him with an new offensive coordinator could have ended the season in October. Rather, it defined it. Through the middle point of the season, the acquisition was an Most Valuable Player candidate. He has cooled off since that time, slipping to 23rd in EPA per dropback over the latter part of the season, placing him just one place ahead of peers.

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