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Ordinarily, the NFL's Head Coach of the Year honor follows a straightforward script. It frequently serves as a type of apology. Our apologies we got wrong your squad in our pre-campaign forecasts.

Theoretically, it's a clear-cut trajectory: the coach who orchestrated the largest resurgence receives the prize. However, it sparks an yearly discussion about preseason outlooks and whether we're actually honoring excellent coaching or simply the biggest surprise.

However this year's race is distinctly unique. The pool of contenders is remarkably strong. It has been the year of turnarounds. The NFL has been chaotic, with recent conference champions fading and recent underperformers rising in unison. In an normal season, Sean Payton leading the his team to the summit of the conference would make him the stone-cold front-runner. Yet in such a wild and thrilling year, he's up against multiple other elite candidates.

This is how the hypothetical vote could shake out.

5) Ben Johnson, Chicago Bears, Their Record

Coach of the Year voters adore signal-callers. They always have. A certain coach in 2017. Another in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. Should you transform a franchise QB, you're halfway home.

Ben Johnson hasn't just fixed his young quarterback; he's freed him. Given a proper environment, Williams has been given the opportunity to showcase his rare ability. Since Week 9, the Chicago offense sit at fourth in offensive Expected Points Added per play. This isn't a hot streak – it's prolonged dominance. Under his guidance, the quarterback has become increasingly confident, far less careless, and has willingly submitted to the gameplan instead of improvising. It is an attack constructed entirely in the coach's image: a physical ground attack, a consistent dose of play-action passes and a imaginative aerial game that frees wide-open targets all over the field. Williams has capitalized. And when easy reads haven't been there, he's been able to create magic from nothing.

The coach arrived to Chicago with a specific offensive philosophy. Virtually each bet – rebuilding the offensive line, highlighting the tight ends, turning the QB into a rhythm thrower – has paid off. This is uncommon for a first-year head coach. And it's rarer still for a coach who walked into the building with the immense hype he did. For consecutive straight offseasons, he was the top name on the coaching carousel. But when it comes to selecting a head coach, there are no guarantees. Remarkably, Johnson has lived up to the hype – and even surpassed them. He's proven not just to be a scheme wizard but the type of culture builder that can inject fresh energy into an organization.

In a ordinary season, he would be the runaway choice. Yet this is not a normal campaign!

The area where his candidacy comes a bit unstuck is on defense. The Chicago defense currently rank 25th in defensive success rate. They are relying on takeaways, and turnovers are notoriously unreliable. Coaches can focus on creating turnovers, but nobody can ensure it. Johnson is on the list because the offense is sustainable. He's ranked lower because variance is doing too much of the defense's work. If not for a few bounces of the ball, the team would be two victories behind. It's been an exceptional turnaround, and the foundation is in place for long-term winning. But Johnson falls short in this ranking.

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

Coen is in a similar situation to his counterpart. He's another rookie leader who has engineered a rapid turnaround. During the crucial final weeks of the year, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the best all-around football of his career. And he's also overseen the transformation of a defense that now ranks number five in the NFL in EPA per play.

What's more impressively, Coen has mastered the off-field aspects, which wasn't a certainty following his early press conference appearances and some of his offseason decisions.

Coen took over the Jaguars 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 newbies. From the leader on down to coordinators to position coaches, the Jags are filled with first-timers. That kind of setup is exciting on paper, but often fails in reality – as past failures are a warning – because everybody is learning a new job in real-time. Yet he has pulled the entire group and all elements together.

After an early hot beginning, there was a chance that the campaign would go off the track. A midseason setback had the Jags wobbling once more. That's usually when coaches panic and change too much. Coen did not. Instead, he streamlined the approach. The offense stopped chasing explosive plays and started seeking reliable ones. Coen refocused the offense around key players and the running game, and asked Lawrence to use his mobility more.

The results are evident. The Jaguars have won seven games consecutively and will be the AFC's No 3 playoff seed. He gets the slightest deduction in the rankings because he inherited a skilled roster, but he has demonstrated he can get the most out of that roster.

3) The Seattle Seahawks Coach, Seattle Seahawks, 13-3

Each Coach of the Year case has a defining moment. For the Seahawks coach, it was his QB move.

Moving on from a incumbent, signing a different signal-caller and pairing him with an innovative play-caller could have ended the season in October. Rather, it shaped it. By the mid point of the season, the acquisition was an Most Valuable Player candidate. He has fallen away since that hot streak, slipping to 23rd in EPA per dropback over the latter part of the schedule, placing him only one spot ahead of other QBs.

Still