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Usually, the National Football League's Coach of the Year award follows a straightforward pattern. It commonly functions as a kind of apology. We regret we got wrong your squad in our pre-campaign predictions.

Theoretically, it's a clear-cut trajectory: the skipper who engineered the most dramatic improvement wins the prize. In practice, it sparks an yearly discussion about expectations and whether we're truly honoring superior leadership or simply the greatest surprise.

However the latest race is profoundly unique. The group of candidates is unusually talented. It has been the season of turnarounds. The league has been chaotic, with reigning division champions falling away and recent underperformers rising collectively. Under an typical year, a coach guiding the Denver Broncos to the summit of the conference would make him the clear favorite. Yet in this chaotic and thrilling season, he's competing with multiple other outstanding candidates.

Below is how the ideal ballot should shake out.

5) Ben Johnson, His Team, Their Record

Coach of the Year selectors adore QBs. History shows this. Sean McVay in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. When you transform a franchise QB, you're halfway to winning the award.

Ben Johnson didn't merely corrected his young quarterback; he's unlocked him. In the right ecosystem, the QB has been afforded the chance to demonstrate his special ability. Since midseason onward, the Chicago offense rank fourth in offensive Expected Points Added per play. That's not a hot streak – it's sustained excellence. Under his guidance, Williams has become increasingly decisive, far less careless, and has eagerly surrendered to the gameplan instead of improvising. It is an attack built solely in the coach's image: a physical ground attack, a heavy dose of play-action and a creative passing attack that creates wide receiver targets everywhere. The QB has taken advantage. And when easy reads weren't available, he's been capable to create magic from nothing.

Johnson came to Chicago with a clear offensive blueprint. Almost each gamble – rebuilding the trenches, utilizing the pass-catchers, transforming Williams into a rhythm passer – has succeeded. This is rare for a rookie skipper. And it's rarer yet for a coach who entered the building with the kind of hype he did. For consecutive straight offseasons, he was the most sought-after name on the head coaching market. But when it comes to selecting a head coach, there are zero guarantees. Somehow, he has lived up to expectations – and even surpassed them. He's proven not only to be a offensive dork but the type of culture builder that can breathe new life into an franchise.

In a normal year, he would be the clear-cut choice. Yet this isn't a normal season!

Where his case comes slightly into trouble is on defense. The Chicago defense presently sit in the bottom third in defensive efficiency. They are relying on takeaways, and takeaways are famously inconsistent. Defensive minds can emphasise ball disruption, but nobody can ensure it. Johnson is on the ballot because the offense is sustainable. He's ranked lower because luck is doing too much of the defensive heavy lifting. With a few breaks of the ball, the team would be several wins behind. It's been an remarkable turnaround, and the core is in place for sustained winning. But Johnson falls short in this ranking.

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

Coen is in a similar position to his counterpart. He's another first-time head coach who has engineered a swift turnaround. Over the crucial final weeks of the year, he has his franchise quarterback playing the finest all-around ball of his professional life. And he's also overseen the overhaul of a defense that now ranks fifth in the NFL in EPA per play.

Even more notably, Coen has mastered the intangibles stuff, which was not a guarantee following his early press conference introduction and some of his preseason decisions.

The coach walked into Jacksonville with an uncommonly inexperienced staff. In contrast to Johnson, who surrounded themselves with the ideal staff cocktail of new ideas and experience, Coen bet on newbies. Starting with the head coach on down to coordinators to position coaches, the Jaguars are stocked with rookies. That type of approach is exciting in theory, but frequently fails in reality – as past failures are a cautionary tale – because everybody is figuring out a their job on the fly. But he has pulled everyone and everything together.

Following an early hot start, there was a possibility that the season would veer off the track. A midseason setback caused the team stumbling again. That's usually when leaders overcorrect. He did not. Rather, he simplified the approach. The offense stopped chasing explosive plays and started seeking sustainable ones. Coen refocused the attack around key players and the ground attack, and asked Lawrence to use his legs more often.

The results are obvious. The Jaguars have won seven games consecutively and will be the conference's number three seed. He gets the slightest knock in the standings because he took over a skilled team, but he has proven he can maximize that roster.

3) Mike Macdonald, Seattle Seahawks, 13-3

Each Coach of the Year narrative has a pivotal decision. For Mike Macdonald, it was his QB choice.

Parting ways from a incumbent, bringing in a new quarterback and partnering him with an new play-caller could have derailed the campaign in October. Rather, it made it. Through the middle point of the year, the new QB was an MVP contender. He has cooled off after that hot streak, slipping to a lower rank in EPA per pass attempt over the latter part of the season, putting him only a single place ahead of peers.

Still