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Typically, the NFL's Coach of the Year award adheres to a simple pattern. It frequently functions as a kind of mea culpa. Sorry we misjudged your team in our preseason projections.

On paper, it's a clear-cut path: the coach who engineered the largest resurgence receives the award. However, it creates an yearly debate about preseason outlooks and whether we're truly honoring superior leadership or merely the greatest surprise.

Yet this year's race is fundamentally different. The list of contenders is unusually talented. It has been the campaign of turnarounds. The NFL has been chaotic, with recent conference champions declining and longtime strugglers improving collectively. During an typical season, Sean Payton guiding the his team to the top of the AFC would make him the clear front-runner. Yet in this turbulent and entertaining season, he's competing with multiple other elite coaches.

Here is how the hypothetical ballot ought to look.

5) Ben Johnson, His Team, 11-5

Voters for Coach of the Year voters adore quarterbacks. They always have. A certain coach in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. A third in 2022. When you fix a quarterback, you're well on your way home.

The Bears' head coach not only fixed Caleb Williams; he's unlocked him. Within an ideal ecosystem, Williams has been afforded the chance to demonstrate his special talent. From Week 9, the Chicago offense rank number four in offensive EPA per play. This isn't a hot streak – it's consistent dominance. With Johnson, the quarterback has become increasingly confident, less careless, and has eagerly surrendered to the scheme instead of going rogue. It is an offense designed entirely in Johnson's image: a bully-ball run game, a steady dose of play-action and a imaginative aerial game that springs wide receiver receivers consistently. Williams has taken advantage. And when clear throws weren't available, he's been capable to spin big plays from broken plays.

Johnson arrived to the Bears with a specific offensive blueprint. Almost each gamble – rebuilding the trenches, highlighting the tight ends, transforming Williams into a rhythm passer – has paid off. This is uncommon for a first-year head coach. And it's rarer yet for a leader who walked into the organization with the level of expectations Johnson did. For consecutive straight cycles, he was the hottest name on the coaching market. However when it comes to selecting a leader, there are zero sure things. Remarkably, Johnson has met the hype – and even surpassed them. He's demonstrated not just to be a offensive genius but the type of leader that can inject fresh energy into an organization.

In a ordinary year, Johnson would be the overwhelming choice. Yet the current isn't a typical season!

The area where Johnson's candidacy runs slightly into trouble is on defense. The Chicago defense presently rank in the bottom third in defensive efficiency. They are living on takeaways, and turnovers are notoriously inconsistent. Defensive minds can stress ball disruption, but no one can guarantee it. Johnson is on the list because the offensive production is real. He's ranked lower because variance is doing an outsized share of the defensive work. With a couple breaks of the ball, the Bears would be several wins worse off. It's been an remarkable transformation, and the foundation is in place for long-term winning. But Johnson comes up just short here.

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

The Jaguars' coach is in a similar situation to Johnson. He's a fellow rookie head coach who has engineered a dramatic resurgence. During the crucial final weeks of the year, he has his franchise quarterback playing the most complete overall football of his career. And he's also overseen the overhaul of a defense that now sits at number five in the league in Expected Points Added per play.

Even more impressively, Coen has excelled at the off-field stuff, which was not a certainty after his initial public introduction and some of his offseason moves.

Coen walked into Jacksonville with an exceptionally raw coaching staff. In contrast to Johnson, who surrounded their staff with the ideal staff blend of youth and veteran savvy, Coen bet on newbies. Starting with the leader himself to coordinators to position coaches, the Jags are stocked with first-timers. That type of approach is intriguing in theory, but frequently fails in practice – as past failures are a warning – because everybody is figuring out a their job in real-time. But Coen has managed to bring everyone and all elements into sync.

After an initial strong start, there was a risk that the season would go off the rails. A midseason collapse caused the team wobbling again. That's usually when coaches panic and change too much. He did not. Instead, he simplified the approach. Jacksonville stopped pursuing home-run answers and started hunting sustainable ones. The coach recentered the offense around key players and the ground attack, and encouraged his QB to use his mobility more.

The outcomes are clear. The Jaguars have won multiple games consecutively and will be the AFC's No 3 playoff seed. He gets the slightest knock in the rankings because he took over a talented team, but he has proven he can get the most out of that talent.

3) Mike Macdonald, His Team, Their Record

Each Coach of the Year argument has a hinge moment. For the Seahawks coach, it was his quarterback choice.

Moving on from a veteran, bringing in a new signal-caller and pairing him with an new play-caller could have derailed the season in October. Rather, it made it. By the middle point of the season, the new QB was an Most Valuable Player front-runner. He has cooled off since that time, dropping to 23rd in efficiency per dropback over the latter part of the schedule, putting him only a single place ahead of other QBs.

Still