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Usually, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year honor adheres to a simple script. It frequently acts as a kind of mea culpa. Sorry we underestimated your team in our preseason forecasts.

Theoretically, it's a direct trajectory: the coach who orchestrated the biggest turnaround is handed the prize. In reality, it sparks an annual discussion about expectations and whether we're actually honoring superior coaching or just the most shocking upset.

But the latest field is profoundly unique. The pool of candidates is remarkably strong. It has been the campaign of comebacks. The NFL has been chaotic, with reigning division winners falling away and recent underperformers rising together. In an ordinary year, a coach guiding the Denver Broncos to the summit of the conference would make him the clear favorite. But in this wild and fun year, he's competing with several other outstanding candidates.

This is how the ideal ballot could look.

5) Ben Johnson, His Team, Their Record

Coach of the Year selectors adore quarterbacks. History shows this. A certain coach in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. A third in 2022. When you fix a franchise QB, you're halfway to winning the award.

The Bears' head coach not only fixed his young quarterback; he's freed him. Within an ideal system, Williams has been given the opportunity to showcase his otherworldly talent. From midseason onward, the Chicago offense rank number four in offensive Expected Points Added per play. This isn't a hot streak – it's consistent performance. With Johnson, Williams has become more decisive, less reckless, and has willingly submitted to the system rather than freelancing. It is an offense built solely in the coach's vision: a bully-ball ground attack, a heavy helping of play-action and a creative aerial game that springs wide-open receivers everywhere. The QB has capitalized. And when clear throws haven't been there, he's been able to conjure big plays from nothing.

The coach came to Chicago with a clear offensive philosophy. Virtually every bet – rebuilding the trenches, utilizing the tight ends, transforming the QB into a timing-based passer – has succeeded. This is rare for a first-year skipper. And it's even more uncommon yet for a leader who walked into the building with the kind of hype he did. For two straight offseasons, he was the most sought-after candidate on the coaching market. However when it comes to selecting a leader, there are zero guarantees. Remarkably, Johnson has met the hype – and even surpassed them. He's proven not just to be a offensive genius but the type of leader that can inject fresh energy into an organization.

In a normal year, Johnson would be the runaway choice. But this isn't a typical year!

The area where his candidacy comes a bit unstuck is on the defensive side. The Bears currently sit in the bottom third in defensive success rate. They are surviving on takeaways, and takeaways are notoriously unreliable. Defensive minds can focus on ball disruption, but nobody can ensure it. Johnson is on the list because the offense is sustainable. He's not higher because luck is doing too much of the defense's work. If not for 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 long-term success. However he comes up just short in this ranking.

4) Liam Coen, His Team, 12-4

The Jaguars' coach is in a comparable spot to his counterpart. He's another rookie head coach who has engineered a dramatic turnaround. Over the stretch run of the year, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the best all-around ball of his professional life. 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 notably, Coen has mastered the intangibles aspects, which wasn't a certainty after his early public introduction and some of his preseason moves.

Coen took over the Jaguars with an uncommonly inexperienced staff. Unlike Johnson, who surrounded themselves with the ideal staff blend of youth and experience, Coen bet on first-timers. Starting with the leader himself to assistants to position coaches, the Jags are filled with rookies. That kind of setup is intriguing in theory, but often fails in practice – as past failures are a cautionary tale – because everyone is figuring out a new job in real-time. Yet he has pulled the entire group and everything into sync.

After an early strong start, there was a possibility that the campaign would veer off the track. A midseason collapse had the Jags wobbling once more. That's usually when leaders panic and change too much. He did not. Instead, he simplified the approach. Jacksonville stopped pursuing explosive plays and started hunting reliable ones. The coach refocused the attack around key players and the ground attack, and asked Lawrence to use his mobility more.

The results are clear. The Jags have won seven games in a row and will be the conference's number three seed. Coen gets the tiniest deduction in the rankings because he took over a skilled roster, but he has demonstrated he can get the most out of that roster.

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

Each 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 new quarterback and partnering him with an innovative offensive coordinator could have derailed the season in October. Instead, it defined it. Through the middle point of the year, the acquisition was an Most Valuable Player contender. He has regressed since that time, dropping to 23rd in efficiency per dropback over the latter part of the schedule, putting him only one spot ahead of peers.

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