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Ordinarily, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year award follows a simple pattern. It frequently acts as a form of apology. Sorry we got wrong your squad in our pre-campaign predictions.

Theoretically, it's a direct path: the skipper who engineered the largest improvement receives the award. In reality, it creates an annual argument about expectations and whether we're genuinely honoring excellent coaching or just the most shocking upset.

Yet this year's field is fundamentally different. The group of candidates is unusually deep. It has been the year of turnarounds. The league has been chaotic, with reigning conference winners declining and recent also-rans improving together. In an ordinary season, a coach guiding the his team to the top of the AFC would make him the overwhelming front-runner. But in such a chaotic and entertaining season, he's up against several other exceptional coaches.

Below is how the hypothetical ballot should shake out.

5) Ben Johnson, Chicago Bears, 11-5

Voters for Coach of the Year selectors are fascinated by QBs. They always have. Sean McVay in 2017. Another in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. Should you solve a franchise QB, you're halfway to winning the award.

Ben Johnson didn't merely corrected his young quarterback; he's unlocked him. Given a proper ecosystem, Williams has been afforded the opportunity to showcase his rare ability. From Week 9, the Bears rank number four in offensive Expected Points Added per play. This isn't a brief surge – it's consistent performance. Under Johnson, the quarterback has become more decisive, less reckless, and has willingly surrendered to the system rather than freelancing. It is an offense constructed solely in Johnson's vision: a bully-ball run game, a heavy helping of play-action passes and a imaginative passing attack that springs wide-open targets all over the field. The QB has thrived. And when clear throws weren't there, he's been able to spin big plays out of nothing.

Johnson arrived to Chicago with a defined offensive vision. Virtually each decision – rebuilding the offensive line, utilizing the tight ends, transforming Williams into a rhythm passer – has paid off. This is rare for a first-year skipper. And it's rarer still for a leader who walked into the building with the level of pressure he did. For consecutive straight cycles, he was the hottest candidate on the head coaching market. But when it comes to hiring a head coach, there are no guarantees. Somehow, Johnson has met expectations – and even surpassed them. He's proven not only to be a offensive wizard but the kind of leader that can inject fresh energy into an franchise.

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

Where his case runs slightly into trouble is on the defensive side. The Bears currently rank 25th in defensive success rate. They are surviving on turnovers, and turnovers are notoriously unreliable. Coaches can focus on ball disruption, but no one can guarantee it. He is on the list because the offensive production is real. He's ranked lower because variance is doing too much of the defensive heavy lifting. With a few bounces of the ball, the team would be two wins worse off. It's been an remarkable transformation, and the foundation is established for long-term success. But Johnson comes up just short in this ranking.

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

The Jaguars' coach is in a comparable situation to Johnson. He's a fellow first-time head coach who has engineered a dramatic turnaround. Over the crucial final weeks of the year, he has his franchise quarterback playing the best all-around football 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.

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

Coen walked into the Jaguars with an exceptionally raw staff. In contrast to Johnson, who packed their staff with the perfect staff mix of youth and veteran savvy, he bet on first-timers. Starting with the leader himself to coordinators to position coaches, the Jaguars are stocked with rookies. That kind of setup is exciting in theory, but frequently fails in reality – with other teams are a cautionary tale – because everyone is figuring out a their job in real-time. Yet he has managed to bring the entire group and everything into sync.

After an early strong start, there was a possibility that the season would go off the rails. A mid-year collapse caused the team stumbling again. That's typically when coaches overcorrect. He did not. Instead, he simplified things. The offense stopped pursuing explosive plays and started hunting sustainable ones. The coach refocused the attack around key players and the ground attack, and encouraged his QB to use his mobility more.

The results are obvious. The Jaguars have won seven games in a row and will be the AFC's No 3 playoff seed. He receives the slightest deduction in the standings because he inherited a talented roster, but he has demonstrated he can get the most out of that talent.

3) Mike Macdonald, His Team, 13-3

Each Strong of the Year narrative 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 offensive coordinator might have derailed the campaign in the early weeks. Instead, it defined it. By the middle point of the season, the new QB was an Most Valuable Player front-runner. He has regressed after that time, slipping to a lower rank in efficiency per pass attempt over the latter part of the schedule, placing him just a single place ahead of other QBs.

Still