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Ordinarily, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year award follows a simple script. It frequently serves as a type of apology. Sorry we misjudged your franchise in our pre-campaign projections.

In theory, it's a clear-cut line: the coach who engineered the largest turnaround receives the award. However, it creates an annual discussion about expectations and whether we're actually rewarding superior leadership or merely the most shocking surprise.

However the latest competition is fundamentally different. The list of candidates is unusually deep. It has been the year of resurgences. The NFL has been chaotic, with reigning conference winners falling away and longtime also-rans ascending together. In an typical season, Sean Payton guiding the his team to the top of the AFC would make him the overwhelming favorite. Yet in such a chaotic and thrilling season, he's competing with several other outstanding candidates.

This is how the hypothetical vote ought to look.

5) Ben Johnson, His Team, Their Record

Voters for Coach of the Year voters love signal-callers. This is a tradition. Sean McVay in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. A third in 2022. When you transform a franchise QB, you're well on your way home.

Ben Johnson not only corrected his young quarterback; he's freed him. Within an ideal system, the QB has been given the chance to display his special ability. Since Week 9, the Chicago offense sit at fourth in offensive Expected Points Added per play. This isn't a lucky run – it's sustained dominance. Under Johnson, the quarterback has become more confident, far less reckless, and has willingly submitted to the system rather than freelancing. It is an offense constructed solely in Johnson's vision: a bully-ball run game, a consistent helping of play-action passes and a innovative passing attack that springs wide-open receivers consistently. Williams has capitalized. And when openings weren't available, he's been able to create magic from nothing.

Johnson arrived to the Bears with a clear offensive philosophy. Almost each gamble – rebuilding the trenches, utilizing the pass-catchers, transforming Williams into a rhythm thrower – has worked. This is uncommon for a rookie skipper. And it's even more uncommon still for a leader who walked into the organization with the immense expectations he did. For two straight offseasons, he was the top name on the coaching carousel. However when it comes to selecting a head coach, there are no guarantees. Remarkably, Johnson has met expectations – and even surpassed them. He's demonstrated not only to be a scheme genius but the kind of culture builder that can breathe new life into an franchise.

During a typical season, Johnson would be the overwhelming favorite. Yet the current is not a typical campaign!

Where Johnson's case runs slightly unstuck is on the defensive side. The Bears presently rank in the bottom third in defensive efficiency. They are relying on takeaways, and turnovers are notoriously fickle. Coaches can focus on creating turnovers, but no one can ensure it. Johnson is on the list because the offense is real. He's ranked lower because luck is doing an outsized share of the defense's work. With a couple breaks of the ball, the team would be two wins worse off. It's been an exceptional transformation, and the foundation is established for sustained winning. But he falls short in this ranking.

4) Liam Coen, His Team, Their Record

The Jaguars' coach is in a comparable situation to Johnson. He's another first-time head coach who has orchestrated a swift turnaround. During the crucial final weeks of the year, he has his franchise quarterback playing the most complete overall football of his professional life. And he's also overseen the remaking of a defense that now ranks fifth in the NFL in EPA per play.

What's more impressively, he has nailed the off-field stuff, which wasn't a guarantee following his early press conference introduction and some of his preseason decisions.

The coach walked into the Jaguars with an exceptionally inexperienced staff. Unlike Johnson, who packed themselves with the perfect coaching mix of new ideas and experience, he hired first-timers. Starting with the leader himself to assistants to assistant coaches, the Jaguars are filled with rookies. That type of setup is intriguing on paper, but frequently fails in reality – with other teams are a cautionary tale – because everybody is learning a new job on the fly. But Coen has pulled the entire group and all elements into sync.

After an early hot beginning, there was a possibility that the campaign would veer off the track. A mid-year collapse had the team stumbling again. That's usually when coaches overcorrect. Coen did not. Rather, he simplified the approach. The offense stopped pursuing explosive answers and started hunting sustainable ones. Coen recentered the attack around key players and the running game, and asked his QB to use his mobility more often.

The outcomes are evident. The Jaguars have won multiple games consecutively and will be the AFC's number three playoff seed. He receives the slightest knock in the standings because he took over a skilled team, but he has demonstrated he can get the most out of that talent.

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

Every Coach of the Year case has a pivotal moment. For Mike Macdonald, it was his QB move.

Parting ways from a incumbent, bringing in a new quarterback and partnering him with an innovative play-caller could have derailed the season in October. Instead, it made it. By the mid point of the year, the new QB was an Most Valuable Player candidate. He has fallen away after that time, dropping to a lower rank in EPA per pass attempt over the second half of the season, placing him just one place ahead of peers.

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