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Usually, the NFL's Coach of the Year award follows a straightforward pattern. It often serves as a type of mea culpa. We regret we got wrong your franchise in our pre-campaign predictions.

Theoretically, it's a clear-cut path: the coach who oversaw the most dramatic resurgence receives the prize. In practice, it creates an annual argument about preseason outlooks and whether we're truly rewarding excellent coaching or simply the most shocking shock.

Yet this year's competition is fundamentally unique. The pool of nominees is remarkably talented. It has been the campaign of turnarounds. The NFL has been chaotic, with reigning division champions fading and longtime underperformers rising in unison. Under an typical season, Sean Payton leading the Denver Broncos to the top of the AFC would make him the clear front-runner. But in such a chaotic and thrilling year, he's facing five other exceptional candidates.

Below is how the ideal ballot ought to shake out.

5) The Chicago Bears Coach, His Team, 11-5

Coach of the Year selectors are fascinated by quarterbacks. History shows this. Sean McVay in 2017. Another in 2020. A third in 2022. If you transform a quarterback, you're halfway to winning the award.

Ben Johnson hasn't just fixed Caleb Williams; he's unlocked him. Given a proper ecosystem, the QB has been afforded the chance to showcase his otherworldly ability. From Week 9, the Bears sit at number four in offensive Expected Points Added per play. This isn't a lucky run – it's prolonged dominance. With Johnson, the quarterback has become more confident, far less reckless, and has eagerly submitted to the gameplan rather than improvising. It is an offense designed entirely in the coach's image: a physical ground attack, a consistent helping of play-action passes and a innovative aerial game that springs wide-open targets consistently. The QB has taken advantage. And when openings weren't available, he's been capable to conjure magic from broken plays.

The coach came to the Bears with a defined offensive blueprint. Almost every bet – overhauling the trenches, highlighting the pass-catchers, transforming the QB into a rhythm thrower – has paid off. This is rare for a rookie head coach. And it's even more uncommon yet for a leader who entered the building with the level of hype Johnson did. For two straight cycles, he was the top name on the coaching market. However when it comes to selecting a leader, there are no sure things. Remarkably, Johnson has met expectations – and even exceeded them. He's proven not only to be a scheme wizard but the type of culture builder that can breathe fresh energy into an organization.

During a normal season, Johnson would be the runaway choice. But the current is not a typical campaign!

The area where Johnson's case runs slightly unstuck is on the defensive side. The Chicago defense presently rank 25th in defensive success rate. They are living on takeaways, and turnovers are notoriously unreliable. Defensive minds can focus on ball disruption, but nobody can guarantee it. He is on the list because the offensive production is sustainable. He's ranked lower because variance is doing an outsized share of the defensive work. With a few breaks of the ball, the Bears would be two wins worse off. It's been an exceptional turnaround, and the foundation is in place for sustained winning. However he falls just short here.

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

Coen is in a similar spot to Johnson. He's a fellow first-time leader who has engineered a dramatic resurgence. During the crucial final weeks of the year, he has his franchise quarterback playing the best overall football of his professional life. And he's also overseen the transformation of a defense that now ranks fifth in the league in Expected Points Added per play.

Even more impressively, Coen has nailed the intangibles stuff, which was not a given following his initial public appearances and some of his offseason decisions.

Coen took over the Jaguars with an exceptionally inexperienced staff. In contrast to Johnson, who packed themselves with the perfect staff blend of youth and experience, Coen hired newbies. From the leader himself to assistants to assistant coaches, the Jags are filled with first-timers. That type of approach is exciting in theory, but often fails in reality – as past failures are a warning – because everyone is figuring out a new job in real-time. But Coen has pulled the entire group and everything into sync.

Following an initial hot beginning, there was a chance that the campaign would veer off the rails. A midseason setback caused the team stumbling again. That's typically when leaders panic and change too much. Coen didn't. Rather, he streamlined the approach. Jacksonville stopped chasing home-run plays and started hunting sustainable ones. Coen refocused the offense around his playmakers and the running game, and asked Lawrence to use his mobility more often.

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

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

Each Strong of the Year argument has a pivotal moment. For the Seahawks coach, it was his QB move.

Parting ways from a veteran, signing a new quarterback and pairing him with an new play-caller might have derailed the campaign in October. Instead, it made it. By the middle point of the season, the new QB was an Most Valuable Player contender. He has cooled off since that time, slipping to 23rd in EPA per dropback over the latter part of the schedule, putting him just a single spot ahead of other QBs.

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