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Ordinarily, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year award follows a simple script. It often acts as a kind of apology. Sorry we underestimated your squad in our pre-campaign projections.

On paper, it's a direct line: the skipper who engineered the biggest turnaround is handed the award. In reality, it creates an yearly discussion about preseason outlooks and whether we're genuinely honoring superior leadership or merely the most shocking shock.

But the current competition is distinctly unique. The group of candidates is remarkably strong. It has been the year of comebacks. The league has been messy, with recent conference champions falling away and recent underperformers improving together. In an normal year, a coach guiding the Denver Broncos to the top of the conference would make him the stone-cold favorite. But in this turbulent and thrilling year, he's competing with multiple other exceptional coaches.

Below is how the ideal ballot ought to be structured.

5) Ben Johnson, His Team, 11-5

Coach of the Year selectors love QBs. They always have. Sean McVay in 2017. Another in 2020. A third in 2022. When you transform a franchise QB, you're well on your way home.

Ben Johnson hasn't just corrected Caleb Williams; he's unlocked him. Within an ideal environment, the QB has been given the opportunity to demonstrate his otherworldly ability. Since Week 9, the Chicago offense rank number four in offensive EPA per play. That's not a hot streak – it's sustained dominance. With Johnson, the quarterback has become more decisive, far less reckless, and has eagerly submitted to the system instead of freelancing. It is an attack built solely in the coach's vision: a physical run game, a steady helping of play-action passes and a innovative passing attack that springs wide-open targets consistently. Williams has taken advantage. And when easy reads weren't available, he's been able to spin big plays out of nothing.

The coach arrived to Chicago with a defined offensive philosophy. Virtually every decision – rebuilding the trenches, highlighting the pass-catchers, turning the QB into a timing-based thrower – has worked. That's rare for a first-year skipper. And it's even more uncommon still for a coach who entered 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 selecting a head coach, there are zero sure things. Somehow, Johnson has met expectations – and even exceeded them. He's proven not only to be a offensive dork but the kind of leader that can breathe fresh energy into an franchise.

During a normal season, he would be the overwhelming choice. But the current is not a normal season!

Where Johnson's candidacy runs a bit unstuck is on defense. The Bears currently rank 25th in defensive efficiency. They are living on turnovers, and turnovers are famously inconsistent. Defensive minds can stress ball disruption, but no one can guarantee it. He is on the list because the offensive production is legitimate. He's not higher because variance is doing an outsized share of the defensive heavy lifting. With a few breaks of the ball, the Bears would be two wins behind. It's been an remarkable turnaround, and the foundation is established for sustained success. However Johnson comes up short in this ranking.

4) Liam Coen, Jacksonville Jaguars, 12-4

The Jaguars' coach is in a similar spot to his counterpart. He's another first-time leader who has engineered a dramatic resurgence. During 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 overseen the overhaul of a defense that now ranks fifth in the NFL in Expected Points Added per play.

Even more notably, he has nailed the leadership stuff, which was not a guarantee following his initial press conference appearances and some of his preseason decisions.

The coach took over Jacksonville with an uncommonly inexperienced staff. Unlike Johnson, who surrounded their staff with the perfect staff mix of new ideas and veteran savvy, Coen trusted newbies. Starting with the leader himself to assistants to assistant coaches, the Jags are stocked with rookies. That kind of approach is intriguing on paper, 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 everyone and everything into sync.

Following an early hot start, there was a risk that the campaign would veer off the rails. A midseason setback had the team wobbling again. That's usually when coaches overcorrect. He did not. Instead, he simplified the approach. The offense stopped pursuing explosive answers and started hunting reliable ones. The coach recentered the attack around key players and the running game, and asked Lawrence to use his legs more.

The outcomes are obvious. The Jags have won seven games in a row and will be the AFC's No 3 seed. He receives the tiniest deduction in the rankings because he took over a skilled team, but he has demonstrated he can maximize that roster.

3) The Seattle Seahawks Coach, His Team, Their Record

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

Parting ways from a incumbent, bringing in a new quarterback and pairing him with an new play-caller could have ended the season in October. Rather, it defined it. By the mid point of the season, the acquisition was an MVP front-runner. He has cooled off after that time, dropping to a lower rank in efficiency per dropback over the latter part of the season, putting him only a single spot ahead of other QBs.

Still