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Typically, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year trophy adheres to a straightforward pattern. It frequently serves as a kind of apology. We regret we underestimated your squad in our preseason forecasts.

Theoretically, it's a clear-cut line: the coach who oversaw the largest turnaround receives the prize. In practice, it fuels an yearly debate about preseason outlooks and whether we're genuinely honoring superior leadership or simply the most shocking surprise.

However the latest field is fundamentally unique. The pool of contenders is unusually deep. It has been the year of turnarounds. The league has been chaotic, with recent division champions declining and recent strugglers rising in unison. During an typical season, Sean Payton leading the his team to the summit of the AFC would make him the clear favorite. Yet in this wild and thrilling season, he's facing multiple other elite coaches.

This is how the ideal ballot ought to look.

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

Voters for Coach of the Year selectors adore quarterbacks. This is a tradition. A certain coach in 2017. Another in 2020. A third in 2022. If you fix a franchise QB, you're well on your way to winning the award.

Ben Johnson didn't merely fixed Caleb Williams; he's unlocked him. Within an ideal system, the QB has been afforded the chance to demonstrate his special ability. From midseason onward, the Chicago offense rank number four in offensive Expected Points Added per play. That's not a brief surge – it's sustained excellence. Under his guidance, the quarterback has become more confident, less careless, and has eagerly submitted to the gameplan rather than going rogue. It is an attack constructed solely in the coach's image: a bully-ball run game, a steady helping of play-action passes and a innovative passing attack that springs wide receiver targets all over the field. The QB has taken advantage. And when openings haven't been there, he's been capable to spin big plays from nothing.

Johnson came to Chicago with a clear offensive vision. Virtually every decision – rebuilding the trenches, utilizing the tight ends, turning the QB into a timing-based thrower – has succeeded. This is rare for a rookie skipper. And it's rarer yet for a leader who entered the organization with the immense expectations he did. For two straight cycles, he was the top name on the head coaching carousel. However when it comes to selecting a leader, there are no guarantees. Remarkably, Johnson has lived up to expectations – and even exceeded them. He's proven not only to be a scheme dork but the kind of culture builder that can breathe fresh energy into an franchise.

In a typical season, Johnson would be the overwhelming choice. But the current is not a typical campaign!

The area where Johnson's candidacy comes a bit unstuck is on defense. The Bears presently rank 25th in defensive success rate. They are living on takeaways, and turnovers are notoriously inconsistent. Defensive minds can emphasise ball disruption, but no one can ensure it. Johnson is on the list because the offense is legitimate. He's not higher because luck is doing an outsized share of the defensive work. If not for a few bounces of the ball, the team would be two victories worse off. It's been an exceptional transformation, and the foundation is in place for long-term success. But Johnson comes up short in this ranking.

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

The Jaguars' coach is in a similar situation to Johnson. He's a fellow first-time leader who has engineered a rapid resurgence. Over the crucial final weeks of the season, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the most complete all-around football of his career. And he's also spearheaded the transformation of a defense that now sits at number five in the NFL in EPA per play.

What's more impressively, he has excelled at the leadership stuff, which wasn't a certainty following his initial public introduction and some of his offseason decisions.

Coen took over Jacksonville with an uncommonly raw coaching staff. In contrast to Johnson, who surrounded their staff with the ideal coaching blend of new ideas and experience, Coen trusted newbies. Starting with the head coach himself to coordinators to assistant coaches, the Jags are stocked with rookies. That type of approach is exciting in theory, but frequently fails in practice – with other teams are a warning – because everyone is learning a new job on the fly. Yet Coen has managed to bring the entire group and everything together.

Following an initial hot start, there was a possibility that the campaign would go off the track. A mid-year setback had the Jags wobbling again. That's typically when coaches panic and change too much. He didn't. Rather, he streamlined the approach. Jacksonville stopped pursuing home-run answers and started hunting reliable ones. The coach refocused the offense around his playmakers and the running game, and asked his QB to use his legs more often.

The outcomes are obvious. The Jags have won multiple games in a row and will be the AFC's No 3 seed. Coen gets the tiniest knock in the rankings because he inherited a skilled roster, but he has proven he can get the most out of that roster.

3) Mike Macdonald, Seattle Seahawks, 13-3

Every Coach of the Year narrative has a defining moment. For Mike Macdonald, it was his quarterback move.

Parting ways from a veteran, signing a different signal-caller and partnering him with an innovative offensive coordinator could have ended the season in the early weeks. Rather, it shaped it. By the middle point of the year, the new QB was an MVP candidate. He has cooled off after that time, dropping to a lower rank in EPA per dropback over the second half of the schedule, putting him just a single place ahead of peers.

Still