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Usually, the National Football League's Coach of the Year honor follows a straightforward pattern. It frequently serves as a type of apology. Our apologies we underestimated your franchise in our preseason predictions.

Theoretically, it's a direct trajectory: the skipper who engineered the most dramatic turnaround wins the prize. In practice, it creates an annual debate about expectations and whether we're genuinely rewarding superior coaching or merely the biggest surprise.

However the latest field is profoundly unique. The pool of nominees is exceptionally strong. It has been the year of turnarounds. The NFL has been messy, with recent division champions fading and longtime also-rans rising together. During an normal season, a coach leading the Denver Broncos to the top of the AFC would make him the stone-cold favorite. But in such a turbulent and entertaining year, he's up against five other exceptional candidates.

Below is how the hypothetical ballot ought to be structured.

5) Ben Johnson, His Team, 11-5

Voters for Coach of the Year voters are fascinated by quarterbacks. They always have. Sean McVay in 2017. Another in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. Should you fix a franchise QB, you're halfway to winning the award.

The Bears' head coach not only corrected Caleb Williams; he's freed him. Within an ideal system, the QB has been given the opportunity to showcase his otherworldly talent. From Week 9, the Chicago offense sit at fourth in offensive Expected Points Added per play. That's not a brief surge – it's prolonged performance. Under his guidance, Williams has become increasingly confident, less careless, and has willingly submitted to the gameplan instead of freelancing. It is an offense constructed entirely in the coach's image: a bully-ball run game, a consistent helping of play-action and a innovative aerial game that springs wide receiver targets everywhere. Williams has thrived. And when clear throws haven't been available, he's been capable to spin big plays from broken plays.

The coach came to the Bears with a specific offensive blueprint. Virtually each gamble – overhauling the offensive line, highlighting the pass-catchers, turning the QB into a timing-based thrower – has worked. This is uncommon for a first-year skipper. And it's rarer still for a coach who entered the building with the level of hype he did. For consecutive straight offseasons, he was the hottest candidate on the head coaching market. But when it comes to selecting a leader, there are zero sure things. Somehow, he has lived up to the hype – and even surpassed them. He's demonstrated not just to be a offensive dork but the type of leader that can inject fresh energy into an franchise.

In a normal year, he would be the clear-cut favorite. But this is not a typical season!

Where his candidacy comes a bit into trouble is on the defensive side. The Chicago defense presently rank in the bottom third in defensive success rate. They are relying on takeaways, and turnovers are notoriously inconsistent. Defensive minds can focus on ball disruption, but nobody can ensure it. He is on the ballot because the offensive production is real. He's not higher because variance is doing too much of the defensive work. With a few bounces of the ball, the Bears would be several victories worse off. It's been an exceptional turnaround, and the foundation is in place for long-term success. But he falls short in this ranking.

4) Liam Coen, His Team, Their Record

Coen is in a similar spot to his counterpart. He's a fellow rookie leader who has orchestrated a rapid resurgence. Over the crucial final weeks of the season, he has his franchise quarterback playing the finest all-around football of his professional life. And he's also overseen the remaking of a defensive unit that now ranks fifth in the NFL in EPA per play.

What's more notably, he has nailed the off-field stuff, which wasn't a guarantee after his initial public appearances and some of his preseason decisions.

Coen walked into Jacksonville with an exceptionally inexperienced coaching staff. Unlike other coaches, who surrounded their staff with the perfect coaching blend of new ideas and veteran savvy, Coen bet on newbies. Starting with the head coach himself to coordinators to assistant coaches, the Jaguars are filled with rookies. That type of setup is intriguing in theory, but frequently fails in reality – as past failures are a warning – because everyone is learning a their job in real-time. Yet he has managed to bring everyone and everything together.

Following an initial hot beginning, there was a chance that the season would go off the track. A midseason collapse caused the Jags wobbling again. That's typically when leaders panic and change too much. He didn't. Rather, he simplified the approach. Jacksonville stopped pursuing home-run plays and started seeking sustainable ones. The coach recentered the offense around his playmakers and the running game, and encouraged Lawrence to use his mobility more.

The results are obvious. The Jaguars have won seven games in a row and will be the conference's number three playoff seed. He receives the tiniest deduction in the rankings because he inherited a skilled team, but he has demonstrated he can maximize that roster.

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

Each Strong of the Year narrative has a defining moment. For the Seahawks coach, it was his QB move.

Moving on from a veteran, signing a new signal-caller and pairing him with an innovative play-caller could have derailed the season in the early weeks. Rather, it shaped it. By the mid point of the year, the new QB was an MVP front-runner. He has fallen away after that time, dropping to a lower rank in efficiency per pass attempt over the latter part of the schedule, putting him just one place ahead of peers.

Still