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Usually, the National Football League's Coach of the Year honor follows a simple pattern. It often functions as a kind of mea culpa. We regret we underestimated your team in our preseason predictions.

On paper, it's a direct line: the skipper who orchestrated the most dramatic improvement is handed the award. In reality, it creates an yearly discussion about expectations and whether we're truly rewarding superior coaching or merely the biggest shock.

However the current race is distinctly different. The list of candidates is exceptionally deep. It has been the campaign of turnarounds. The league has been messy, with recent conference champions declining and longtime also-rans ascending collectively. During an normal year, a coach leading the his team to the summit of the AFC would make him the overwhelming favorite. But in this wild and fun season, he's competing with several other exceptional coaches.

This is how the hypothetical vote should be structured.

5) Ben Johnson, His Team, Their Record

Voters for Coach of the Year voters love QBs. This is a tradition. Sean McVay in 2017. Another in 2020. A third in 2022. When you fix a quarterback, you're well on your way to winning the award.

Ben Johnson not only fixed Caleb Williams; he's unlocked him. In the right ecosystem, Williams has been afforded the opportunity to showcase his rare talent. Since Week 9, the Chicago offense rank fourth in offensive EPA per play. This isn't a brief surge – it's sustained performance. Under his guidance, the quarterback has become increasingly decisive, far less careless, and has eagerly submitted to the gameplan instead of going rogue. It is an offense built solely in Johnson's image: a bully-ball ground attack, a steady helping of play-action passes and a innovative aerial game that springs wide-open targets all over the field. Williams has thrived. And when easy reads haven't been available, he's been able to create magic out of nothing.

The coach arrived to the Bears with a defined offensive vision. Virtually every gamble – overhauling the trenches, utilizing the tight ends, transforming Williams into a timing-based thrower – has succeeded. This is rare for a first-year skipper. And it's rarer yet for a leader who walked into the organization with the level of expectations Johnson did. For two straight offseasons, he was the most sought-after candidate on the head coaching market. But when it comes to selecting a head coach, there are no sure things. Somehow, Johnson has met expectations – and even exceeded them. He's demonstrated not only to be a scheme wizard but the type of leader that can inject fresh energy into an franchise.

In a typical season, he would be the clear-cut favorite. But this isn't a typical year!

The area where Johnson's case comes a bit unstuck is on defense. The Bears currently sit 25th in defensive success rate. They are surviving on takeaways, and takeaways are notoriously unreliable. Defensive minds can emphasise ball disruption, but no one can ensure it. Johnson is on the ballot because the offensive production is real. He's not higher because luck is doing too much of the defensive work. With a couple bounces of the ball, the team would be two wins worse off. It's been an exceptional turnaround, and the core is in place for sustained success. But he falls just short in this ranking.

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

The Jaguars' coach is in a similar position to Johnson. He's a fellow rookie head coach who has engineered a dramatic turnaround. During the crucial final weeks of the season, he has his franchise quarterback playing the most complete overall ball of his professional life. And he's also overseen the transformation of a defensive unit that now sits at fifth in the NFL in EPA per play.

Even more notably, Coen has nailed the off-field aspects, which wasn't a given following his initial press conference introduction and some of his offseason moves.

Coen walked into Jacksonville with an uncommonly inexperienced staff. Unlike other coaches, who packed themselves with the perfect coaching mix of new ideas and veteran savvy, he trusted newbies. From the leader himself to assistants to position coaches, the Jags are filled with rookies. That kind of setup is exciting in theory, but often fails in reality – with other teams are a cautionary tale – because everyone is learning a new job in real-time. Yet Coen has pulled everyone and everything together.

After an early hot beginning, there was a possibility that the season would go off the track. A mid-year setback had the Jags wobbling once more. That's usually when leaders panic and change too much. Coen didn't. Rather, he streamlined the approach. Jacksonville stopped pursuing home-run answers and started hunting consistent ones. The coach recentered the offense around key players and the running game, and encouraged his QB to use his legs more often.

The outcomes are clear. The Jaguars have won multiple games in a row and will be the conference's number three playoff seed. He gets the tiniest knock in the rankings because he took over a talented team, but he has demonstrated he can maximize that roster.

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

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

Moving on from a veteran, signing a new quarterback and partnering him with an innovative offensive coordinator could have derailed the season in October. Instead, it made it. Through the middle point of the season, the acquisition was an Most Valuable Player contender. He has cooled off after that time, dropping to 23rd in efficiency per pass attempt over the second half of the schedule, placing him just a single place ahead of peers.

Still