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Typically, the National Football League's Coach of the Year honor follows a simple pattern. It commonly functions as a type of apology. We regret we misjudged your team in our preseason predictions.

On paper, it's a direct line: the skipper who orchestrated the most dramatic turnaround wins the prize. In reality, it sparks an annual argument about preseason outlooks and whether we're actually rewarding superior coaching or merely the greatest surprise.

But the current competition is profoundly unique. The list of contenders is remarkably strong. It has been the campaign of turnarounds. The league has been unpredictable, with recent conference winners falling away and recent underperformers improving together. During an normal season, Sean Payton leading the Denver Broncos to the summit of the AFC would make him the clear favorite. Yet in such a turbulent and entertaining year, he's competing with multiple other elite coaches.

This is how the ideal ballot ought to shake out.

5) Ben Johnson, Chicago Bears, 11-5

Coach of the Year voters adore quarterbacks. They always have. A certain coach in 2017. Another in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. When you fix a quarterback, you're halfway to winning the award.

The Bears' head coach hasn't just fixed his young quarterback; he's freed him. Given a proper system, Williams has been afforded the opportunity to showcase his special ability. From Week 9, the Bears rank number four in offensive Expected Points Added per play. That's not a brief surge – it's consistent dominance. With his guidance, the quarterback has become more decisive, far less reckless, and has willingly surrendered to the system rather than going rogue. It is an offense built entirely in Johnson's vision: a bully-ball ground attack, a steady dose of play-action passes and a creative passing attack that creates wide receiver targets all over the field. Williams has capitalized. And when clear throws haven't been available, he's been able to spin big plays from nothing.

Johnson came to Chicago with a clear offensive vision. Almost every bet – rebuilding the offensive line, highlighting the tight ends, transforming Williams into a rhythm passer – has succeeded. This is uncommon 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 consecutive straight offseasons, he was the top candidate on the coaching market. However when it comes to selecting a leader, there are zero sure things. Remarkably, Johnson has lived up to the hype – and even exceeded them. He's proven not only to be a scheme wizard but the type of leader that can inject new life into an organization.

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

Where his candidacy runs slightly unstuck is on the defensive side. The Bears presently rank 25th in defensive success rate. They are relying on turnovers, and takeaways are notoriously inconsistent. Defensive minds can emphasise ball disruption, but nobody can ensure it. Johnson is on the ballot because the offense is legitimate. He's ranked lower because luck is doing an outsized share of the defense's work. With a few breaks of the ball, the Bears would be two victories worse off. It's been an exceptional transformation, and the core is in place for sustained success. But he comes up just short here.

4) The Jacksonville Jaguars Coach, Jacksonville Jaguars, Their Record

Coen is in a similar spot to his counterpart. He's another first-time leader who has orchestrated a swift resurgence. Over the stretch run of the season, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the finest all-around ball of his professional life. And he's also overseen the remaking of a defense that now sits at fifth in the NFL in Expected Points Added per play.

What's more notably, he has nailed the off-field stuff, which was not a certainty following his early public introduction and some of his offseason decisions.

Coen took over Jacksonville with an exceptionally raw coaching staff. In contrast to other coaches, who surrounded themselves with the perfect coaching mix of youth and experience, Coen bet on first-timers. From the head coach on down to coordinators to assistant coaches, the Jags are filled with rookies. That type of setup is intriguing on paper, but frequently collapses in practice – with other teams are a warning – because everyone is learning a their job on the fly. Yet he has managed to bring the entire group and everything together.

Following an initial strong start, there was a chance that the campaign would veer off the rails. A mid-year setback caused the team stumbling again. That's usually when leaders overcorrect. He did not. Instead, he simplified the approach. Jacksonville stopped chasing explosive answers and started seeking consistent ones. Coen refocused the attack around his playmakers and the ground attack, and asked his QB to use his mobility more often.

The results are clear. The Jaguars have won multiple games in a row and will be the AFC's No 3 seed. Coen gets the slightest deduction in the rankings because he inherited a talented roster, but he has demonstrated he can maximize that roster.

3) Mike Macdonald, Seattle Seahawks, 13-3

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

Moving on from a veteran, signing a different quarterback and pairing him with an innovative play-caller might have ended the season in October. Instead, it made it. By the middle point of the year, the new QB was an Most Valuable Player contender. He has fallen away after that hot streak, slipping to 23rd in efficiency per pass attempt over the second half of the schedule, putting him just a single place ahead of other QBs.

Still