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Typically, the NFL's Head Coach of the Year honor adheres to a straightforward pattern. It commonly acts as a type of apology. We regret we got wrong your franchise in our preseason forecasts.

On paper, it's a clear-cut line: the skipper who engineered the most dramatic resurgence is handed the prize. In practice, it sparks an annual argument about preseason outlooks and whether we're genuinely honoring excellent leadership or merely the most shocking upset.

Yet the latest race is profoundly different. The list of contenders is exceptionally deep. It has been the campaign of comebacks. The NFL has been chaotic, with recent division winners declining and recent underperformers improving together. During an normal year, Sean Payton leading the Denver Broncos to the summit of the AFC would make him the stone-cold favorite. Yet in this wild and entertaining season, he's competing with multiple other exceptional candidates.

Below is how the ideal ballot could be structured.

5) Ben Johnson, His Team, 11-5

Coach of the Year selectors love quarterbacks. History shows this. Sean McVay in 2017. Another in 2020. A third in 2022. Should you solve a quarterback, you're halfway to winning the award.

The Bears' head coach hasn't just fixed his young quarterback; he's unleashed him. Given a proper system, the QB has been afforded the opportunity to display his special ability. From midseason onward, the Bears rank fourth in offensive Expected Points Added per play. This isn't a hot streak – it's consistent excellence. With his guidance, Williams has become more confident, less reckless, and has willingly surrendered to the system instead of improvising. It is an offense constructed solely in Johnson's image: a bully-ball ground attack, a heavy dose of play-action passes and a imaginative passing attack that springs wide-open receivers all over the field. Williams has thrived. And when clear throws haven't been available, he's been able to spin magic from broken plays.

The coach arrived to Chicago with a clear offensive blueprint. Almost each bet – rebuilding the offensive line, utilizing the tight ends, turning the QB into a timing-based passer – has paid off. That's rare for a rookie skipper. And it's rarer still for a coach who entered the building with the kind of hype Johnson did. For consecutive straight offseasons, he was the hottest candidate on the coaching market. But when it comes to hiring a leader, there are zero sure things. Somehow, Johnson has met the hype – and even surpassed them. He's proven not just to be a scheme dork but the type of culture builder that can inject new life into an franchise.

During a typical season, he would be the clear-cut choice. But this is not a typical year!

The area where his case comes slightly unstuck is on the defensive side. The Chicago defense currently sit 25th in defensive efficiency. They are surviving on takeaways, and takeaways are notoriously inconsistent. Coaches can focus on ball disruption, but no one can guarantee it. Johnson is on the ballot because the offense is legitimate. He's not higher because luck is doing too much of the defense's heavy lifting. With a couple breaks of the ball, the team would be several victories worse off. It's been an exceptional transformation, and the core is established for long-term success. However he falls just short in this ranking.

4) Liam Coen, Jacksonville Jaguars, Their Record

Coen is in a similar position to his counterpart. He's a fellow first-time leader who has masterminded a dramatic resurgence. During the stretch run of the season, he has his franchise quarterback playing the most complete overall ball of his professional life. And he's also spearheaded the overhaul of a defense that now ranks fifth in the NFL in Expected Points Added per play.

Even more notably, Coen has excelled at the intangibles aspects, which wasn't a given after his early press conference appearances and some of his preseason decisions.

Coen took over Jacksonville with an exceptionally inexperienced staff. In contrast to Johnson, who surrounded their staff with the ideal coaching cocktail of youth and veteran savvy, he bet on newbies. Starting with the leader on down to coordinators to position coaches, the Jaguars are stocked with rookies. That type of setup is exciting on paper, but frequently fails in reality – as past failures are a warning – because everyone is figuring out a their job in real-time. But he has managed to bring everyone and everything into sync.

Following an early strong beginning, there was a chance that the campaign would go off the rails. A mid-year setback had the team stumbling again. That's usually when leaders panic and change too much. He didn't. Instead, he simplified things. Jacksonville stopped pursuing explosive answers and started hunting consistent ones. The coach recentered the offense around key players and the running game, and encouraged Lawrence to use his legs more.

The outcomes are clear. The Jaguars have won multiple games in a row and will be the AFC's No 3 playoff seed. Coen receives the slightest deduction in the standings because he took over a talented team, but he has proven he can get the most out of that talent.

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

Every Strong of the Year argument has a defining decision. For the Seahawks coach, it was his quarterback choice.

Parting ways from a veteran, signing a different quarterback and partnering him with an innovative play-caller might have ended the season in October. Rather, it defined it. By the mid point of the year, the new QB was an MVP candidate. He has cooled off after that hot streak, dropping to a lower rank in EPA per dropback over the latter part of the schedule, putting him only one place ahead of other QBs.

Still