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Typically, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year trophy follows a straightforward pattern. It frequently functions as a type of apology. Our apologies we got wrong your team in our preseason projections.

In theory, it's a direct line: the skipper who oversaw the largest turnaround is handed the award. However, it sparks an annual argument about preseason outlooks and whether we're truly rewarding superior leadership or simply the most shocking upset.

However this year's race is profoundly unique. The group of candidates is exceptionally strong. It has been the campaign of turnarounds. The NFL has been messy, with recent conference winners falling away and longtime underperformers improving in unison. Under an normal season, a coach guiding the Denver Broncos to the summit of the conference would make him the clear front-runner. Yet in this wild and entertaining season, he's facing several other exceptional coaches.

This is how the ideal vote ought to be structured.

5) The Chicago Bears Coach, Chicago Bears, 11-5

Voters for Coach of the Year voters adore QBs. They always have. Sean McVay in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. Should you fix a franchise QB, you're well on your way home.

Ben Johnson didn't merely corrected Caleb Williams; he's unleashed him. In the right system, Williams has been given the opportunity to demonstrate his special talent. From Week 9, the Bears rank number four in offensive EPA per play. That's not a brief surge – it's consistent dominance. With Johnson, Williams has become more decisive, far less reckless, and has willingly submitted to the scheme rather than freelancing. It is an attack built entirely in Johnson's image: a bully-ball run game, a heavy helping of play-action passes and a creative passing attack that frees wide receiver targets everywhere. Williams has taken advantage. And when easy reads weren't there, he's been able to conjure magic out of broken plays.

Johnson came to Chicago with a clear offensive blueprint. Virtually each decision – rebuilding the trenches, highlighting the tight ends, transforming the QB into a rhythm passer – has paid off. This is uncommon for a rookie head coach. And it's even more uncommon still for a coach who entered the organization with the kind of hype Johnson did. For consecutive straight cycles, he was the most sought-after candidate on the head coaching carousel. However when it comes to hiring a leader, there are no guarantees. Remarkably, Johnson has lived up to expectations – and even surpassed them. He's proven not only to be a offensive wizard but the kind of culture builder that can breathe fresh energy into an organization.

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

The area where Johnson's case comes slightly unstuck is on the defensive side. The Chicago defense presently sit 25th in defensive success rate. They are living on takeaways, and turnovers are notoriously fickle. Defensive minds can emphasise ball disruption, but nobody can ensure it. Johnson is on the ballot because the offensive production is real. He's ranked lower because variance is doing an outsized share 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 core is in place for sustained success. However Johnson comes up short in this ranking.

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

Coen is in a comparable situation to Johnson. He's a fellow first-time leader who has engineered a dramatic turnaround. Over the crucial final weeks of the year, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the most complete all-around football of his professional life. And he's also spearheaded the remaking of a defense that now sits at fifth in the NFL in EPA per play.

Even more notably, Coen has excelled at the intangibles stuff, which was not a guarantee after his early public introduction and some of his offseason decisions.

Coen took over Jacksonville with an uncommonly raw staff. Unlike other coaches, who packed themselves with the ideal coaching blend of new ideas and experience, Coen trusted first-timers. Starting with the leader on down to assistants to assistant coaches, the Jags are stocked with first-timers. That type of approach is intriguing in theory, but frequently collapses in practice – as past failures are a cautionary tale – because everybody is learning a their job on the fly. Yet he has pulled the entire group and everything together.

Following an initial strong start, there was a risk that the campaign would go off the rails. A mid-year setback had the Jags wobbling again. That's typically when coaches overcorrect. He didn't. Instead, he simplified the approach. The offense stopped pursuing home-run answers and started seeking sustainable ones. The coach recentered the attack around his playmakers and the running game, and asked Lawrence to use his legs more.

The outcomes are clear. The Jaguars have won multiple games consecutively and will be the conference's No 3 seed. He receives the tiniest deduction in the rankings because he inherited a skilled team, but he has proven he can maximize that talent.

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

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

Moving on from a incumbent, signing a different signal-caller and pairing him with an new play-caller might have ended the season in October. Instead, it made it. Through the mid point of the season, the new QB was an MVP candidate. He has fallen away after that hot streak, slipping to a lower rank in EPA per pass attempt over the second half of the schedule, placing him just one spot ahead of other QBs.

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